Passover a smashing success, guests say

Everything went (almost) perfectly. All eleven of us were fed (stuffed), everyone loved my Haggadah, and clean-up only took an hour and a half.

Some notes for next year:

- Supervise Mother Superior Yid when she makes chicken liver; there were a lot of tiny bits of egg shell in there.

- Corollary to this: buy an egg timer for hard-boiled eggs.

- Next time, try to come up with seating arrangement which doesn't have the youngest and most Jewishly-knowledgeable people clustered around the center of the table, leaving the middle-aged and clueless folks stuck out at the extremities.

- Stop political conversations before they piss away half-an-hour that you had reserved for Grace After Meals and Hallel.

- Stand up for yourself and tell people that you're sorry it's kind of late, but we are going to finish Chad Gadya whether they like it or not, it's only five more damn verses.

- Go slower with Hebrew prayers and songs, maybe lose the intonation (Mama Yid was very confused by this) or go over it with people ahead of time.

But all in all, very, very good. This was definitely the first seder my parents had that they enjoyed. Which is saying a lot. And now we have more food than God. And, sadly, apparently way more matzoh than most of our peers.

Now to hibernate for the rest of the week to avoid having to eat it.

Countdown to Seder

P-Day is here, and in slightly more than six hours, Shiksa Girlfriend and I get to host our own seder. For eleven people. Because we're geniuses like that.

The breakdown is:

- Shiksa Girlfriend and Me
- My parents, who have been lovely enough to contribute food, wine, money and time (oh, and hosting space)
- My gay godparents
- My best friend from high school and his older brother
- SG's co-worker
- The mother and father of two different best friends from elementary school that my parents have stayed in touch with.

Another way of looking at this is:

- Four non-Jews;
- Six Jews;
- And whatever the hell Shiksa Girlfriend counts as.

The dietary restrictions:

- One "vegan plus meat"; Abbot Yid.
- One "no dairy"; me.
- And one vegetarian.

Our menu:

- Fruits and Vegetable appetizer plate, complete with variety of dips and humus (piss off, kitniyot).

- Chopped chicken liver with hard-boiled eggs and onions (thanks, Mom!)

- Haroset

- Chicken Matzoh Ball Soup

- A Gigantic Salad

- Aloo Palak (Indian spinach puree with potatoes)

- Red Lentils (also done Indian-style)

- A Mega-Brisket (thanks, Dad!)

- Roast Chicken

- Walnut-Pecan praline and fruit; along with soy ice-cream.

I predict we will be eating this meal through next month.

Oh, and I made my own Haggadah. We read it all the way through last night. It takes about 1 hour pre-meal and 30 minutes post. Found some errors last night; must fix those.

(Check out excerpts on Friar Yid.)

I'm being paged. Gotta go.