Are You Ready for Pesach 2010---We are!!

26 March 2010

We’re Ready for Pesach 2010 ….are you????

Dear Family and Friends,

I love Israel‼ I love Pesach in Israel‼. I am sitting down to write to you on Friday, 4 days before seder night, and basically except for Pesach cooking I am ready to leave Egypt…or make a seder!
This year I have gotten myself ready in an orderly, timely, calm fashion. All the kids are, basically, out of the house during the week so I have no little ones/big ones running around with cheerios or cookies to clean up after. The house was a breeze to clean, the windows are washed, the balconies cleaned, the car is washed and sparkly new and we had a new kitchen installed in December with a new chocolate workshop room for me with cabinets for Pesach. As they say, I am good to go‼
So why do I love Pesach in Israel? Let me explain my week. In America the grocery stores put out their white paper lined shelves Passover foods a month before Pesach. When we left in 2000 even cheeses, frozen turkeys, chickens and ducks, all kosher for Pesach, were in abundance in all the large grocery stores. Entire store sections were packed with the newest “must haves” for pesach which were just a reconfiguration of matzah, potato starch and sugar. If you didn’t buy your pesach groceries at least 3 weeks before pesach, you would find the store shelves bare, not to be restocked again for Passover (until the next year!) and you were out of luck.
Alas, not in Israel and this is what I love about this country (or one of the things)! This morning I awoke at 6 am…which because of the new daylight savings time was really 7 am. I jumped out of bed, dropped Aaron off at shul and hurried over to the grocery store I love called Rami Levi, that I have lived in for all this week. Well, counting today 3 days of this week. Pesach items started appearing in the grocery stores only a week ago. Because I had a plan of how to get our house ready for Pesach with my almost gone American mentally, I went to the grocery store on Monday to buy all non perishable items for Pesach. Thinking everyone is out to lunch and I would be the sole shopper at Rami Levi I arrived at 12 noon. Wrong‼ Every parking space and every shopping cart (agallah) was taken and we are not talking small store here. It looked as if they were giving away food……and in fact they were. With every purchase you received a free box of matzah. Produce like huge red, green and yellow peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, ripe and succulent, and eggplant, huge and purple, were going for 25 cents (one skekel) a kilo (2.2pounds). Each person could buy one kilo (2.2 pounds) of a certain meat for 25 cents (one shekel). I suppose that a person could truly make Pesach for very little money here but think of the extras you would miss out on‼!
Before filling my cart with my Pesach groceries on that fateful Monday I ran to the meat department to take my paper number from the ticket machine so that by the time I finished my basic shopping my number would be up….well in a manner of speaking. I looked at the number the machine issued me and saw that I was 532. They were currently serving 458. I had plenty of time to shop. Going up and down the aisles in the brand new location of this favorite discount store, I smiled at the abundance of stuff to choose from in the land where the entire country is shopping for Pesach….even if you don’t want to. Ahhhhh the country where the Arab inmates in prison are petitioning the Israeli high courts to be served bread on Pesach….they’re no dopes, they ain’t eating cardboard for a week….no bread of affliction for the criminal Arabs.
I digressed. Upon filling my cart to the brim with olive oil, potato chips, chocolate bars (my chocolate business is closed for Pesach) and foil pans, yogurt and matzah meal I hurried back to the meat department to see if my number was close to being called. Whoa‼! There we a ton of people just like me with filled carts waiting for their number to be called. It was like the lottery. And after all that time they were only on number 477. I really had other things to do so I decided to check out with my order and come back to buy meat the next day after my freezer was cleaned. But this time I would come really early.
Wednesday I was physically and mentally prepared to meet the meat department head on. I called a friend to ask if she wanted to join me and she said yes. That would make any waiting more pleasant and fun. On the way to Rami Levi she told me she needed to do all her shopping for Pesach. She hoped there would be food left for her as she had been delayed in buying her Pesach stuff weeks in advance. She was new to Israel and this was her first Pesach‼! Was she in for a surprise! When we arrived at 10 am the parking lot was spilling out into the other streets and parking lots. While I waited for a parking space I told her to get a cart, go straight to the meat department to get a number and I would meet her inside at some point. In situations like this I was tempted to offer exiting customers a ride to their car in exchange for their parking space and cart. But I didn’t. I had to maintain some dignity! Once my van was squished into my parking space I negotiated my way into the store to find my friend and help her navigate the Pesach items and see what number we had at the meat counter. We had number 427 and they were now serving 349. OMG‼ As we went up and down the aisles my friend marveled at the abundance of Pesach stuff. I asked her if she shops Ashkenazi or Sephardi. Her questioned expression indicated that checking the labels with or without kitniyot was going to make her nuts …as it does me. In fact this kitniot thing here is enough to put you over the edge. The Sephardim eat corn oil, rice crispies, rice cakes and delicious cookies, cakes and candies all with things we Ashkenazim are told not to eat. BUT, being the wife of a staunch Ashkenzi boy I showed my friend all the unexciting foodstuffs we Ashkenazim buy. Believe me the choices are paltry in comparison. So my question is, if by accident of birth my relatives were born in the dreary, cold, stringent and poor vodka swigging Russian and Polish countries where corn oil, string beans and rice cakes were a no no, do I have to give up the great sunny, abundance of yummy offerings that those born in Spain, Iran and Greece get to eat??? After all I am from the south….Virginia‼!
According to my husband….yes.
I am still waiting for my number to come up at the meat counter. Now mind you people are not just buying a chicken and hamburger. We are talking major meat consumption. Number 379 was now being served. My friend decided I should stay at the meat counter and she would stroll up and down the aisles looking for goodies novel to her in her first year in Israel. By then I was hungry, so I left the cart and went over to the bakery department which was cranking out chometz rolls, bourekas and cinnamon buns. I got an assortment and returned to my cart to eat lunch. Now serving 391. My friend returned with arms filled. She joined me in a boureka and we laughed at the craziness of this scene eating chometz while waiting for Pesach meat‼! We watched happy customers and angered customers who left the meat counter. I was just hoping there would be enough chickens once it was my turn. I told my friend we should make a meat list together so when our turned came we would be ready to order. This was definitely not a browsing crowd. No more shnitzel, no more chicken thighs with legs, the crowd was going crazy. More is coming hollered the 6 butchers behind the counter. Crowd control was needed. I went and got a soda. I needed a drink but diet coke would have to do. Now serving 418. My heart started racing. Only 9 more customers before me but no schnitzel in sight and no thighs. I did not want to come back again. I rethought my list, chatted with my friend and “Now Serving 427”. Bingo! I yelled. The crowd laughed. We inched our way up to the butcher –Haim- we got real chummy for the 20 minutes we worked together here. And at that exact moment the schnitzel, chicken thighs and legs arrived‼! Yippppeeeee! Thank you Hashem. You have spared me another trip to Rami Levi - or so I thought. As I was about to make my request Mister Number 421 nudged his way to the counter and said (in Hebrew) that when he was here a few minutes ago there was no schnitzel etc., could he just get 4 kilos of chicken without waiting again, please? Being Mrs. Nice guy I said sure. He then started reading off his list. “Excuse me, I thought you only needed 4 kilos of Shnitzel” No he said I need 4 kilos of all the chickens that they were out of. OY‼! I am a patient woman. Now, said the butcher, what would you like? I want schnitzel, and he had to pound those chicken breasts with a huge mallot to flatten them into schnitzel. As he did so I clutched my chest. As another butcher cut up turkey necks with a cleaver my hand gravitated to my throat. I then asked for whole chickens, and asked to have the tushy removed. I didn’t grab anything at that point!
Well, finally we were ready to check out. That hadn’t been sooooo bad. The 15 checkout aisles were 7-10 carts deep. I spotted a shorter line and told my friend to run over and get in line and I would meet her there with the cart. She did. It was hot in the store and just as I mentioned that it would be a good idea to have a hot dog stand with waiters serving those of us in line the manager started handing out ice pops. I guess they felt the natives might be getting a little restless.
Did I mention to you that between Pesach and Lag B’omer this country consumes two thirds of all the meat that it eats in a year? So that is why all the aluminum bar-b-que grills in everyone’s carts. They are all making their very own Korban Pesach bar-b-que! Yep we are ready for the third Beit Hamikdash‼
Once home, I asked my vegetarian daughter Batsheva to help put the meat in the freezer. As she rarely touches meat she opted to do other things rather than put a whole farm and aquarium (I bought fish too) into the freezer for safe keeping.
Now it is Friday morning. I decided that by Saturday night I would start cooking for Pesach so I borrowed my friend’s Pesach food processor to make carrot kugel, potato kugels etc. but alas, I had no veggies or fruits because I had wanted to get the freshest produce at the last possible minute. So, at 7:30 am guess where I was? Yep, you guessed it. Rami Levi. …..and so were a thousand others. I thought I’d be the first one there……so did they. Well it was ok, all I needed was all the produce for Pesach and eggs, ok maybe some kosher l’Pesach Ben and Jerry’s. mmmmmm.
As I stood in 8 deep line of carts at the checkout at 10am hoping my ice cream wouldn’t melt I marveled at the way Israelis shopped. They have their husbands or kids stand at the checkout line with the empty cart and they and the other members of the family go to different aisles and load up with foodstuff returning with loaded arms to the cart. By the time it is their turn to check out they have completed their ingathering of stuff and it takes them much less time. I wonder what they do about meat? Anyway, chomping on my freshly baked cinnamon bun, I finally checked out, was handed a free newspaper (in Hebrew….which would take me 40 years in the desert to finish reading) and was on my way. I calculated that I spent a total of 12 hours in Rami Lev this week. No wonder I am a card carrying member of the Rami Levi discount club. We’re buddies! I am a veteran card carrying member of Pesach shopping once again in this amazing country. And once again I am happy that after 40 years in the dessert my original Sephardi, kitniyot eating relatives finally arrived to this crazy country we call home. I am once again looking forward to my one seder and once again looking forward to the family trips on Chol Hamoed visiting new places in our beautiful country.
I pray that all the Pharoahs, Hamans, Hitlers and Obamas and Clintons fall by wayside as evil tyrants do in our long history and that years from now we will be living in our united capitol of Jerusalem filled with Jewish homes singing Dayenu. So from our Pesach table of Rami Levi laden foods to your table the Israels in Israel wish you and yours a very happy, healthy, peace filled Pesach. Shalom b’vracha.

Ronda Israel
The Israels in Israel