Last update - 00:00 30/03/2007
For a sweet seder
By Miri Hanoch and Eyal Shani
The closets in the bedroom noticed that I had entered. They stared at me with their fake-wood eyes and I stared back.
"What's the matter? Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked.
"We're a terrible mess inside, we're too full," they replied, throwing two superfluous sweaters at me, as an example - one with a cigarette-burn hole in the sleeve and one that's been laundered once too often.
"It's not easy for me either," I replied, pushing the two pathetic sweaters back into the woolen jumble from which they had jumped out at me, and off I went to see the film "The Lives of Others."
I've been closing closets for quite a while now by using a method that was once used to construct arched doorways in the ancient world: pressure. I shove everything inside, immediately close the door on the mess, and lean on it for about half a minute so that everything gets used to the overcrowding inside.
When I reach a point where I talk to the furniture and dream of being Mary Poppins, I become sure of two things: that I have to leave everyone for a few hours and go to the movies, and that spring has arrived and with it Pesach, and as nonconformist as I try to be, something inside me wants the flowers on balconies to blossom, the closets to organize themselves, the books to leave the shelves and shake off the winter dust - and yet not to be the one responsible for all these transformations.
Since yesterday, when I informed him that Pesach is around the corner, the chef has been hunched over Claudia Roden's "Book of Jewish Food," his inspiration for the holidays. When I asked him: "Do you know that next week is Pesach?" he looked at me with profound sorrow and only said: "Already?" As though an entire year had not passed since the last seder. He took Claudia to bed and fell asleep with her book open to the chapter on desserts. Apparently beginning to deal with the holiday meal from its end makes him hopeful.
Why is this year different than other years for me, I asked myself, while checking whether the carpets we took out to breathe in the sun and that got wet in the rain had already dried. The rain caught them and it was impossible to bring them back into the house in that condition. And thus they piled up outside to such a height that the neighbors asked me politely if we are running a small carpet business on the side.
So, why is this year different from all the years when I sat angry at the seder table, with everything I was rebelling against sitting with me there, around the plate with the haroset and the horseradish and the amputated part of some poor chicken, and everyone, in the legitimate protective shadow of the Haggadah, was gossiping about the goyim?
I exchange a glance of complete understanding with my mother's middle sister, the subversive one of the three. And at the fourth cup of wine, when everyone is delicately taking another sip, I wash down the grape juice in one gulp, and long for the concluding song.
But my grandfather is not a person who is planning to give up even a crumb of the Haggadah that is probably used only by us - the Kfar Galim version, which is passed down in our family from one generation to the next. Its songs were sung by my mother and her sisters in unison in high school, and from that day on we all sing them with enthusiasm and out of a lack of choice, under the strict supervision of Grandpa, who insists on poring over every yellowing, torn page.
This is such an "insiders' document" that if outside guests happen to come to our seder - and they always do - they are amazed by our knowledge of this esoteric material. You know: all kinds of songs about sheaves of wheat, spring, agriculture and resurrection, as though we were waiting for others to discover us and officially recognize our private culture.
My extreme lack of patience has always been my downfall. A minute before everyone is in any case about to be released from the bonds of the ceremony, I suddenly lose all the points I have accumulated with great effort all evening long, and have to run outside to chain smoke; after me, so as not to attract attention, the three girls come running as well. What always shatters me is the story of Moses in the basket, which at every seder breaks my heart as well as those of my daughters. Because how exactly can one reasonably explain the fact that Moses' mother simply places him in a basket and sends him afloat alone on the river? She doesn't even give him a bottle of milk for the trip down the Nile. And although I try to emphasize the wonderful blanket that his mother has placed on him, the little one once again looks at me with big eyes, endlessly repeating: "Poor Moses, he's cold in the water."
This year I will sit quietly and I won't cause problems, I promise myself, checking the carpets once again. I will sing the song "Ehad mi yode'a" ("Who Knows One") nicely, I will explain the Haggadah to the little ones sitting next to me, I will agree that the horses crossing the sea are from "The Little Mermaid," and that the Egyptian who is beating a Hebrew is playing an accursed role that is passed down among certain members of the human race. Out of despair and boredom, I will dream about freedom and eat the matza they will put in my corner, as well as the table decorations and bits that can be eaten from the seder plate when nobody is looking.
Why is this year different for me? Because at glance I can grasp the meaning of 40 years in the desert and tell myself that it isn't easy for anyone in the place where he grew up, and mainly I realize I don't exactly have any place to escape to, like the East German heroes a moment before the fall of the Berlin Wall in the sad and perfect film, "The Lives of Others."
Compote is the essence of fresh fruits cooked together with dried fruits and spices in boiling water. The more ingredients it contains the more profound the dimensions of its flavors will be. For good compote you have to walk around the market for three hours looking for the finest raw materials, as you do for a roast, as you do for an entire meal. The flavor of every compote comes from the prunes and dried apricots it contains, but you can put anything you want into it: 4 hours in the refrigerator will dull the clashing flavors of mistaken choices.
2.5 liters of mineral water
or
2 bottles of Sauvignon Blanc wine + 1 liter mineral water
The sourish taste of the Sauvignon Blanc adds an additional dimension to the compote, a balanced sourness that contrasts with the sweetness of the fresh and dried fruits; the bitterness of the alcohol will evaporate on its own during the cooking.
12 dried apricots
12 black prunes, not pitted
50 gm. sultana raisins
3 tbsp. sugar
Like wine that improves in the barrel, compote deepens and improves if we provide it with some woody flavors.
1 small cinnamon stick
50 gm. shelled walnuts
50 gm. almonds, unblanched
2 diced green Granny Smith apples
2 diced red apples
2 pears, each cut into 6 slices, lengthwise
(In summer replace 2 apples with 2 white peaches)
1/4 bay leaf
4 black peppercorns
2 English peppercorns
2 kernels of juniper
1 whole clove
a bit of mace (outer covering of the nutmeg kernel)
1/2 dry shata pepper
1 stick of vanilla, with slits cut along its length
1 young branch of lemon grass
zest from the peel of 1 yellow lemon
zest from the peel of 1 orange
1 young geranium leaf
4 young verbena leaves
In a heavy pot, big enough to contain all the ingredients, soak the sugar, the raisins, the dried apricots and the prunes in the water or wine for 30 minutes.
Add the fresh fruits and the lemony ingredients, bring to a moderate boil once again and cook for about another 30 minutes. Toward the end of that time the cooking liquid will turn black and viscous, the little bubbles will grow and explode noisily, and the level of the liquid in the pot will be below that of the solid ingredients - as is the case with any fine roast.
Turn off the flame, let cool a little; transfer, covered, to the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, a deep and enjoyable liqueur teases us with its flavors, which continue to reverberate long after you have swallowed the little bit left over from the cooking.
For 10-12 servings.
180 gm. fine chocolate (such as Lindt, 70 percent)
1/2 dry shata pepper, finely chopped (not essential)
100 gm. blanched almonds, finely ground
130 gm. white sugar
60 gm. butter, plus 1 tbsp. for greasing the pan
3 egg whites
1 tbsp. honey
Grease a 22-cm. pan with a lot of butter. Melt the butter in a small pot until it turns golden and develops a nutlike flavor.
Beat the egg whites with the sugar into a soft and shiny foam.
Chop the chocolate into thin flakes, melt together with the pepper in a double boiler. Remove the pot with the chocolate and add the ground almonds; stir well.
Fold the egg-white foam into the chocolate mixture. Add the honey and stir. Add the golden butter and stir.
Pour the mixture into the baking pan, cover with cling-wrap and cool in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, using the rack in the middle of the oven. Take the pan out of the refrigerator, remove the cling-wrap and place pan in the center of the rack. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake emerges covered with damp crumbs and the batter is still a little bit runny - for about 15-20 minutes.
some high-quality apricot or prune jam
240 gm. fine chocolate
250 gm. sweet cream, at least 28% fat
a small amount of grated peel from a fresh lemon
1/2 shata pepper, finely chopped (optional)
1 sprig of lavender (optional)
50 gm. cold butter, cut into cubes
Cover the entire cake with a thin layer of jam. Chop the chocolate and transfer to a large bowl.
In a pot, bring the cream with the grated lemon peel, the pepper and the lavender almost to a boil, over a low flame. Turn off the flame, put aside to cool for about a minute and pour into the chopped chocolate via a strainer. Wait about 30 seconds, and then stir. The chocolate is combined with the sweet cream and together they turn into a shiny frosting. Add the cubes of butter one by one; stir until they melt.
Spread the glaze on the cake. It stays shiny as far as the refrigerator, but when it comes out, there will be disappointment. Take a hair dryer, hold it 25 cm. from the cake, with hot air, at medium strength, and in a minute the cake becomes shiny once again.
A thin slice, with lots of chocolate and almonds, and something about the hint of a nutty taste that has been left by the butter, together with the vague flavor of honey - it jogs the memory. What is it? Nu, what does it remind me of? My soul undergoes a minute of torture, and suddenly I get it. Toblerone!