Passover

The meal during the Passover Seder is, without any doubt, my favorite holiday meal.  I love Passover and whenever I lead the Seder, it usually lasts hours.  The largest group we have had for the first night Seder was 11 people and we had to ask some friends to bring extra chairs.  The Seder started at 6:00 pm and wasn't really finished until 11:30 at night.

Preparation for the Seder and the meal begins a few days ahead.  It starts with my mother making fresh horseradish, which is a day when you don't want to be at our house due to the noxious fumes.  Then I will make charoset, which is a past of apples, nuts, dried fruit, spices and wine.  My father usually acquires a shank bone that we will then roast in a fire along with an egg.  All these things are part of the Seder plate and not the actual meal.  For the meal, which I usually make, I follow strict kosher for Passover guidelines, meaning there is no wheat, besides matzah and matzah meal, spelt, rye, barley, oats, corn, beans, and rice along with the usual kosher guidlines.  

The preparation for the actual meal begins early on the day of and continues until the last minutes before the Seder.  We always have matzah ball soup and a dish with quinoa, everything else usually changes.  There is also a lot of wine.  During the Seder it is commanded to drink four glass and this drinking continues into the meal.  At the end of the meal, it is custom for someone to find the afikomen, a piece of matzah that was set aside at the beginning of the Seder.  The person that finds it usually gets a prize of some sort.  Technically the afikomen is supposed to be dessert, but I don't think that nyone really likes matzah enough to eat it voluntarily for dessert.