IN LIMBO

My Dad AH(may he rest in peace) always said that Jews were made to suffer. I guess that's why they invented pessach...passover. What a job!!!

Now, don't get me wrong. I love pessach. Actually it's my favourite holiday and even before the days when my house was kosher, I changed everything around for pessach.

For my readers who don't know what a Jewish housewife has to go through in order to get ready for pessach, let me give you the condensed version... the traditional version and not the keeper's of the sabbath one where they make me look like a gentile. :)

Every part of the house has to be thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom to be sure that there is no food or crumbs anywhere. And while you're at it you can wash the drapes and clean the carpets too.

While doing that you get to attack the closets and drawers. That gives you a great chance to throw out bags of stuff that no one wears/no one uses/it will never fit me even if I diet for the next five years...you know, the stuff that has all your closets and drawers overflowing.

Personally, I leave the kitchen for last. All the cupboards are emptied and cleaned. The fridge and stove are scoured and not one little crumb of food is allowed to survive.

Then, and only then can you change over your dishes and begin cooking for the seder.

Ok, so here's where I am. The rooms are cleaned. The kitchen cubboards are cleaned. The fridge and stove have had their first once-over.

So where does that leave me? In limbo. The kosher for pessach stuff is in boxes. The matzot, the new spices, the coffee/tea/turkish coffee/sugar is waiting. Strawberry jam and rice (my husband is from Kurdistan, Iraq and we get to eat rice...yahooooo) are waiting.

But pessach doesn't start until Monday evening. Thank goodness in Israel we only have one seder and not two, but until then my house is half and half. Haven't put away the non pessach stuff and don't want to make too much of a mess in my kitchen which will force me to scrub up everything all over again.

And, between us, I don't know what to cook. For the past couple of weeks I've been emptying out the freezer; using up all the meat and chicken so I'll have room to put the pessach order in on Sunday.

Today's menu is chicken livers and onions and spagetti with a non-dairy parveh cream sauce. Tomorrow, I'll use up the last of the chicken and then we go full steam ahead into the holiday.

Yahoooo.

In the meantime, I spent all day Monday...seven hours...putting all the changes that I'd made on my book Emma Shelby is No More into a file online. Then Tuesday I took the little key thingee to a printing place and had four copies made and bound with a spiral. One of my dear friends is a scientific editor and said she would edit it for me technically. Thank you, thank you. Another of my dear friends is an editor and said she would edit it for me content-wise. Thank you, thank you. One copy I mailed back to my self special delivery as proof of copywrite. And the final copy I am simply looking at and saying WOWOWOW. 487 pages and two years later Emma is written. Then when those changes are in, off Emma goes to my brother in Boulder and my brother-in-love in California. And then, everyone, keep your fingers crossed, spit three times and hop on one foot. Thank you, thank you.

Maybe during pessach I will have some time off and will sit and try to read it like I would read any book.

Ok, off I go back to the kitchen. Once the dishes and counters have been changed over from regular days to passover ones, it will all fall into place and I can start preparing my traditional pessach dishes. Yahoooooooooo.

Have a great day...stay safe...and thanks for dropping in.