Passover prep

One of the fun things about this is the planning and the clean sweep.

Even with mammoth meals, Passover tends to be good for me, diet-wise. Each year, I'm forced to be a little more organized. The key to the whole thing is planning, planning and more planning. I need to plan each and every meal, with not a whole lot of leeway, and I need to do my own cooking since kosher-for-Passover prepared/processed foods come in 2 varieties: hideously expensive and simply gross. The two categories are not mutually exclusive.

We have also embraced the idea of hosting LOTS of guests for meals. This means that I'll be having around 70 people for the seders, plus another meal for some friends from New York, plus misc. guests for Shabbat and throughout the week. I'm not complaining - I spent years being a guest of others on many occasions when we weren't in a position to reciprocate, I enjoy entertaining, I like this position in the family and the fights that it avoids (since there is no good answer to "why are we choosing your family over mine?" or "what do you mean you won't come eat with us because you're religious now?"), and I truly feel blessed to be in a position to do it. That said - it requires work, especially since my client's lives don't stop and my taxes are still due.

So....this time of year forces me to make a To Do list - and actually follow it. To make a menu, and stick to it. To think of all possible ways of using fruits and veggies, or risk massive constipation. To make a cooking plan that goes like clockwork. To finally clear that pile of junk on the dining room side table. To clean out the accumulated junk in my car, and wonder if there is an alternative to feeding Pringles to the kids on dance night. To realize that freedom and liberation have a price and require hard work, and it's easy to fall back and want to be a slave to bad habits. To have the discipline to think for myself - and not buy kosher-for-Passover junk just because everyone else in the store in frantic to do so.