Pesach countdown -- 26 days to go

Today we dug out our boxes of haggadahs, the special books that are used during the seder. I knew exactly where the boxes were -- out in the garage behind a pile of boxes -- so it was just a matter of lifting and lugging. I wanted them available now because I am trying to put together our own haggadah this year. Usually, we use the Feast of Freedom haggadah from the Rabbinical Assembly, along with a special supplement that we have developed over the years to tell the actual story of Passover. (Which, by the way, does not show up in traditional haggadahs. Really.)

We bought Davka's Transliterated Haggadah last year after Pesach so that we could produce our own haggadah this year with the full traditional Hebrew text, along with transliteration for those who find it useful. But there's no translation on the disk, which is where the many haggadahs that we already own come in.

I'm also looking up some supplemental readings and things on the internet to see if I want to include any of that. So getting out these boxes and taking a look at the Davka program and doing some internet research was my main Pesach preparation for the day. (Yes, food is still sitting on the counters and the table. Don't nag. I'm getting to that. Just not tonight.)

Our Pesach cookbooks and recipes were also in the boxes with the haggadahs. Because we only use these recipes for 8 days a year, the cookbooks don't earn a primary (i.e., permanent) place on the cookbook shelf. Over the years, we have made a conscious effort to make our menus for Pesach different from our menus during the rest of the year. We look forward to these foods because we only make them during Pesach. And because we make these recipes so infrequently, I often write copious notes on the recipes. Like "don't make this again" or "very good, but reduce X ingredient."

I also keep the seder menu plans from year to year. I have seder plans from 20 years ago in this file. For some seders, we even did seating charts that usually made their way into the files. Today my daughter and I got a chuckle out of a seating plan for 2001, when we were trying to figure out how to fit 31 people, including a 2-day-old baby (and her mother) around our tables. Going through these files is like an archeological expedition into our Pesach celebrations over the last 20 to 25 years.

I started to look through recipes because one of our seder guests is already asking what she can bring. Do I look like I know what I'm going to feel like making for our first seder at the end of the month? I thought not.

Be that as it may, one more sort of Pesach-related activity took up a fair amount of time today. My Rosh Hodesh Group (more on that another day) is having a chocolate seder in a couple of weeks. The steering committee (me and my friend MS) and I met with our hostess this afternoon and did a quick walk-through to make sure that we have everything we need. When I finish the booklet for the Chocolate Seder, I will make it available here.