The scent of brisket filled
the air, even on the front porch!
Cooking the meat low and slow was always part of the Seder
preparations. The morning had been
spent making the mashed potatoes, the spinach casserole and the cooked apples
with cinnamon. My Aunt was
bringing her famous Passover kugel, made sweet and delicious and my in-laws
were bringing the dessert. My
cousin was bringing the “Kosher for Passover” wine and the gefilte fish was the
domain of my Mother. I had
prepared the turkey yesterday and the table was set, actually the multiple
tables were set, with paper plates made special for the holiday – a Star of
David decorated the center of each plate.
I thought everything was
coming together nicely.
Considering I had forty people coming to my townhouse, I was relatively
calm at this point. As I
swept the porch, however, a strange silence was apparent. I went back in my house only to find
that it was quiet, no television was playing, and I could have sworn I had left
the kitchen light on…..it was off.
I must have flipped a
breaker, I thought as I walked into the house. Everything was quiet, everything off. Luckily, it was light enough that I
could make my way into the basement and check the breakers. With a quick rise in panic I noticed
that none of the breakers had flipped.
It wasn’t going to be that simple, we had lost our power. Forty guests were scheduled to arrive
in less than 3 hours. Dinner
needed to warmed and served, the brisket needed to be cooked through…panic set
in.
I picked up my cell phone and
called my husband. “Check the
breakers,” he told me. Since I was
a bit agitated at this point, I pointed out that I was not an idiot and had
already done that. He said he’d call the electric company. Anxiously, I paced back and forth
across my darkening kitchen. On
the first ring, I picked up my phone to hear my husband telling me there was a
major outage in our neighborhood and the estimated time to be back up and running,
at this point, was 6:15 PM.
“Oh No!”, I cried! Everyone was supposed to arrive at
5:30! What should I do?
My daughter and son arrived
home from school. The big news was
that just when they were calling the buses, the school went dark! They took their book bags up to
their rooms and munched on apples.
I called my Mother.
Don’t panic, she said, we’ll
just move the dinner to her house.
But, that wouldn’t work. My
townhouse wasn’t large, but her apartment was way too small for 40 people. Plus, how in the world would I notify
everyone when most were coming right from work! There wasn’t time to switch
anything; we would just have to make do.
I found all my candles and
lit them all around the downstairs.
The tables actually looked very lovely with the soft light of the
delicate flames. I opened the oven
briefly to check the “doneness” of the brisket. Luckily, it was almost ready…so, what else could I do but
fire up the barbeque, wrap the meat in foil, and cook it the rest of the way
outside!
As my family arrived, one by
one, I explained the situation and everyone took it in stride. After all, we were getting together to
celebrate freedom – why not be free from electricity! (I could think of a host
of reasons, but they were all trying to be supportive and in the spirit!)
My Mother arrived and put the
gefilte fish on the plates.
Luckily, that is not served hot.
We sat around the tables, each table separated by the generations. The youngest table sang the Four
Questions by candlelight. It was
actually quite moving. (And, luckily, it wasn’t totally dark yet since it stays
lighter later in Pennsylvania in the month of April!)
By this point, the brisket
was done, and actually looked quite good.
I placed my soup in 3 pots and heated them, one on the side burner, two
inside the barbeque. If you’ve
never eaten barbequed matzo ball soup before, this was certainly a new
experience!
We decided to take a break
after the soup, tell stories, as the rest of the meal heated up, item by item,
on the grill. I learned so
much! Stories that no one had ever
taken the time to elaborate on before were told. Maybe it was the atmosphere of the candles or the shared
dilemma, or the Holiday, but even the youngest of the children listened
intently to the stories of past Passovers. Stories that involved relatives who were no longer with us
and stories that involved a time of slower pace and less angst.
As each part of the entrée
was warmed enough, we would eat that part as the other parts heated in
turn. Each dish was properly
savored and appreciated. Each cook
told of how it was prepared, interrupted with quips and side-stories.
As the last of the turkey was
served, the lights came up, the television started blaring and everyone looked
around at each other.
In unison, we shut the
lights, turned off the television, and finished our Seder in a quiet, candlelit
fashion. It was truly a special
Passover!
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