Surviving The
Pre-Pesach Crunch
By Sandy Eller
Countless articles have been written about the beauty and spirituality of Pesach, of the deep connection between ridding both your heart and your home of chametz and of the irrevocable bonds that are forged as family members work seamlessly in tandem, scrubbing gunk off the oven dials as they cheerfully kasher their kitchen together.
Let me preface this by saying this is not one of those articles.
For those of us who stay home and do not have full-time cleaning help, there is no way around the fact that making Pesach is extremely labor-intensive and by the time you are done with several weeks’ worth of cleaning, shopping, and otherwise getting the house Pesach ready, you find yourself faced with a cooking marathon of epic proportions. Still, making Pesach is a mitzvah and it is important to remember that the more work you put in, the greater the reward earned, which means that if we are going to spend a few weeks wearing the unmistakable scent of “eau d’Windex” and cleaning crumbs out of our refrigerator gaskets with Q-Tips, the best way to get through it is by trying to keep a positive attitude and a sense of humor.
I can still remember that fateful Pesach at my in laws’ apartment just days after my husband and I had celebrated our fifth anniversary. My father-in-law turned to my mother-in-law with a smile and said, “You know what we should get the kids next year for their anniversary? Pesach pots.” Was it just me who heard the ominous horror-movie soundtrack playing in the background? Eleven and a half months later, I found myself washing those newly toiveled pots in my bathtub, which unlike my kitchen was surely chametz-free, racing against the clock in the hopes that I could finish cleaning for Pesach before I gave birth to daughter number three. G-d bless my mother-in-law who brought all the food for Pesach that year, which turned out to be a good thing since I spent the first days of Pesach in the hospital.
Fast-forward 22 years. Pesach is still an awful lot of work, with lots of cooking, cleaning, and shopping, but despite the annual grumbling, there is nothing like that feeling of sitting down at the Seder and realizing that you really managed to get it all done. How to get there without losing your sanity? I honestly have no idea.
Which is why I am putting together my first-ever Pesach survival guide in the hopes that it will get both you and me through the many hours of Pesach prep without going off the deep end.
The Pesach Survival Guide
Pesach preparations are a year-round event. Train your kids (and your spouse) as early as possible that food is only to be eaten at the table, that sticky hands are to be washed immediately, and that there are no toys at the table. All are good habits that will save you endless hours when you can have confidence that there are no half-eaten cookies lurking in your linen closet, that your doorknobs bear no Laffy Taffy residue, and that no one has used chocolate syrup to transform a formerly blond Barbie into a brunette.
Find creative ways to use up your chametz. Maybe I am just a product of my upbringing, but I can’t bring myself to throw out food, which means lots of creative cooking goes on at Chez Eller, where mystery ingredients turn many pre-Pesach meals into culinary adventures. I have substituted mayonnaise for eggs in muffins, rock candy for sugar in fruit soup, and babaganoush for eggs in my schnitzel, and most of the time my experiments have worked out well. Work on your poker face so that your family members won’t become suspicious when you answer evasively when they ask you what exactly they are eating.
Your computer is your friend. Keep track of your menus and your grocery lists and save them on your computer for next Pesach. Knowing what foods worked well and what bombed makes future menu-planning less complicated and keeping track of how many pounds of potatoes you actually used will make the buying easier next year. Leave yourself a love letter for next Pesach listing any items that broke and need to be replaced, helpful hints, and any other suggestions that might come in handy. Be sure to check your list well in advance of Pesach so that, unlike me, you don’t find out two weeks before Pesach that your mixer broke and you need to buy a new one ASAP.
Put in a Pesach mini-kitchen. All you really need is six feet of space to hook up a sink and a stove. Set up a folding table nearby and voilà, you can get a jump on your Pesach cooking before you turn your house over. Is it an ideal kitchen? No, obviously not. Will it make your life much easier? Absolutely, positively, yes, yes, yes. Come visit my Pesach kitchen. It is cramped, crowded, and you have to be skinny to fit next to the sink, but it has totally transformed my pre-Pesach preparations.
Kiss your diet goodbye. There are times in life when you need to pamper yourself and if you are making Pesach, that time is now. All that hard work deserves some indulgence and since you are likely to break all your nails, a manicure is probably not the answer. Enjoy some chocolate after cleaning the crevices of your kitchen chairs, indulge in a cinnamon bun after washing out your garbage cans, or throw those open bags of frozen fruit into the blender with some milk for a post-vacuuming treat. You are going to be living on vegetables over Pesach so you can afford to splurge a little now. Don’t think of it as cheating on your diet, when you are actually fulfilling the mitzvah of biurchametz.
Make yourself a priority when cooking and cleaning. Take a minute to put on some eyeliner and mascara before you get caught up in the pre-Pesach prep. Every time you look in the mirror, you will smile and feel good about yourself instead of seeing your reflection and thinking you look like something the cat dragged in. (OK, guys, maybe skip this step?)
Keep an extra bottle of wine on hand when cooking. A decent wine will add extra flavor to soups, stews, and sautéed vegetables. It will also make your day infinitely brighter and happier if you imbibe a glass (or two or three!) during your cooking marathon.
Keep it simple. Unlike most other yamimtovim, when you can cook in advance and stockpile stuff in your freezer, Pesach is crunch time and the perfect time to keep things simple. If you feel the need to make elaborate food that takes hours to prepare, kol ha’kavod. But don’t feel pressured to make complicated foods when you can take a page out of our city’s gourmet kosher restaurants who serve up well-cooked meats and chicken with fabulous broiled veggies drizzled with olive oil, salt, and freshly ground pepper.
Lose the pots, pans, and dishes. You’d be amazed just how many foods you can cook in foil pans using nothing but plastic silverware and how well seven-ounce plastic cups work for measuring liquids. You can go as green as you want after Pesach. Now is the time to invest in disposables and cut valuable minutes out of your cleanup schedule.
Delegate, delegate, delegate. Press your family members and even good-natured guests into service. No one ever said that all the work has to be yours. Let someone else clean the high chair and turn a helper or two into your own private sous chef. Making potato kugel goes a lot faster when someone else does the peeling.
Find your positive attitude. We all have multiple personalities. You can let your dark, cranky side take over and be irritable and moody while you make Pesach or you can put on your favorite music and channel your perky side. Either way, Pesach is rapidly approaching no matter how much you grumble and complain. Might as well keep your sense of humor, focus on the fact that your house is really going to shine, and remember that the harder the work, the bigger the mitzvah.
OK, boys and girls, it’s time to put down the paper and get back to work. Or better yet, crumple it up, dampen it, and use it to clean those sticky handprints off your mirrors. As for me, I just found some hot peppers, mango daiquiri mix, turkey-breast cubes, and a few slices of leftover rainbow cake lurking in my refrigerator, and I am going to turn them into something really fabulous. If the chefs on Chopped can transform mystery ingredients into culinary masterpieces, hopefully I can, too.
Sandy Eller is a freelance writer who writes for numerous websites, newspapers, magazines, and many private clients, when she isn’t busy cleaning for Pesach. She can be contacted at sandyeller1@gmail.com.