Personal essays
What will I take with me
Dinner parties
There were three times a year when I would host a dinner for more than twenty people. We’d squeeze to sit around tables in the dining room. Eventually I gave up and allowed the tables to continue in the foyer and on into the living room.
We hosted other large gathering throughout the year but those weren’t sit-down parties. In our old house we had the chili and fudge party (a story for another day) and for years after she died we had a pancake party on Elena’s birthday.
But the keystone events were Thanksgiving, the Christmas Eve seven fish dinner, and Passover.
For the past few years, Passover was just me, by myself, eating and thinking about the message of the holiday.
I could have joined other people. Plenty of others were kind enough to invite me to their Seder - but I just wasn’t feeling it.
Without two dozen people to cook for, I’ve taken to not making my own gefilte fish. I bought the jarred stuff and it was fine.
I prepared some horseradish by peeling and grinding the root and mixing it with vinegar. Honestly, the grinding step is fairly easy in a high speed blender. I ended up with three pint-size jars which is way too much for one person.
I made some choroset and wondered, as I always do, why I don’t make this at other times during the year. You cut apples into very small dice, add in walnuts cut to the same size, add in some cinnamon, honey, and a little wine. That’s it.
My favorite food part of the seder is the Hillel sandwich where you put choroset and horseradish on matzah.
Oh, that’s right, matzah.
Matzah
I had another box left but I like to make my own matzah for the holiday. It’s surprisingly simple if you ignore the eighteen minute rule.
Matzah is supposed to be unleavened. Some official types decided long ago that if you mix a dough of just water and flour that leavening begins at 18 minutes so the whole process, including cleaning up, must be finished in eighteen minutes.
Nonsense.
Oh, I’m sure that there is some activity right away, but that’s not what unleavened means. I did it that way once to prove that I could, and now I ignore it. From start to finish, including milling wheat into flour, the process took an hour.
I mixed 300g of fresh ground whole wheat flour with 225g of water and 5 g of salt. I divided it into eight balls and used my pasta rolling pin to roll a ball into a very thin sheet.
Very thin.
I baked that one for five minutes at 370 F on a baking steel while I rolled out the next sheet.
After five minutes I moved the first one to another rack and put the second one on the baking steel for five minutes.
I continued rolling, baking, moving, and removing from the oven and an hour after beginning I had ten thin, crisp matzah crackers.
And so, after I finished my dinner, I sat alone in my dining room and enjoyed a Hillel sandwich.
I looked around and thought of Sharon.
A friend of mine had recommended Sharon when I asked if he knew anyone who helped with downsizing and decluttering.
He’d used her services when his parents moved from their home to an apartment in a facility.
In a way, that is easier. You know that the apartment won’t hold all of your stuff so you can only keep so much.
Get rid of it
The hardest part about downsizing is no one wants your stuff.
It feels so wasteful. I have a rooms filled with books that no one wants - but I hate to throw them away. Destroying books feels wrong but no one wants them and libraries and used books stores aren’t interested in most of them. I have a ton of math books that I’d love to donate to a graduate student or a school for their library. They don’t want them.
I have four sets of china. Kim and I were the eldest children and grandchildren on both sides so we ended up with multiple china sets. I don’t use them and Maggie doesn’t want them. No one wants them.
People are door dashing and eating take-out or prepared foods. Most people don’t sit down to eat in the dining room on real plates anymore. We always did. I still do.
Sharon looked at my coffee mugs and told me I need two. I probably don’t need the forty I have, but two is too small.
I don’t have people over anymore. Maggie thinks I should. I am pretty sure I won’t.
We moved on to the living room. Sharon pointed to chairs and couches that I should get rid of. In the dining room she pointed to cabinets and figurines that should go. In the kitchen she pointed to a cabinet full of spices and told me to throw them out.
At this point Maggie stopped her and said, “he uses those.”
Sharon looked at the variety and said that I just think I do.
Maggie said, “no, he uses all of them.”
Sharon moved on pointing at this and that and she was mostly right.
I have to walk around a dog cage to get to my bed and the dog has been dead for more than three years.
This stuff has to go.
When I’m in town I’ve thrown out two full barrels of garbage each week and slowly - so very slowly - the house is beginning to feel lighter.
I’ve created a web page where I list some of the things I’m giving away. For now I’m starting with a well-used La-Z-Boy, a well-used comfy chair, and a TV stand.
I was thinking about this on Saturday after eating the final bite of matzah that seals the meal.
The point of the eighteen minute rule is less about the leavening and more about the Jews needing to flee quickly.
I think about parallels between the conditions described in the story of Passover and the state of my country.
If it becomes necessary to flee, the china, the La-Z-Boy, even the spices will stay.
I look around me and think about not what I should give away, but what are the things I would want with me if I have to leave suddenly.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 264. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe