This year we had five at the seder. This is about what I expected, since Erev Pesach fell on a Monday night.
Once again, the discussion was excellent, though it didn’t always center on what we read in the Haggadah. Among the topics:
– We’re still not sure how the names “Moses” and “Ramses” were pronounced.
– Leslie Fish will always be welcome to do a concert in Mount Tabor, NJ.
– There’s a right way and a wrong way to conduct oral history research.
– Just because someone has their own Youtube channel doesn’t mean they’re a good driver.
My usual cooking notes:
– The pearl onions were a great success. Three jars of onions was just the right amount for five people.
– As I noted last year, one pound of carrots was plenty. Four packages of spinach was still a bit much, but it fit nicely in the 1.5 quart baking pan. Three apples made more than enough apple kugel, and two potatoes made enough latkes.
– Despite what it says in the Joy of Cooking, a target temperature of 140 degrees is enough for a medium roast.
– The chicken soup was great, but the matzoh balls didn’t expand very much, even when I cooked them separately before adding them to the soup. I think it’s because I refrigerated the matzoh-ball mix overnight.
– In a similar vein, it’s hard to keep the potatoes and apples from browning in their mix if I’m going to make them the previous day. This doesn’t seem to affect the flavor after baking/frying. I’ll just have to accept it, since I don’t have time to chop them on the same day as the seder.
Apples don’t brown if you spritz with lemon juice. I don’t know about potatoes.
There was lemon juice in the apple kugel batter I prepared, about half a cup. It was not sufficient. My guess is that lemon juice is not sufficient if you’re going to keep the apples overnight.
Or maybe I’m wrong, and the brownish color of the batter comes from the whole wheat matzoh and the cinnamon. Certainly the apple kugel’s flavor was just fine.