Bitter Herb

[azurelunatic]

...got a bunch of parsley a week ago while making a wazoo of stew. Still haven't used it all, so I'm munching it. Parsley is for love, right? I used to make myself parsley tea all the time when I was a little fayoumis. It's good stuff. I gave some to Nephew with his dinner, and got him to eat it (!!) and, while he was chewing on it, told him the story of how Moses led the Hebrews to safety. We're probably going to have Seder with Uncle D* at some point, and both Sis and I have made inquiries into being Jewish at some point in our careers. (I didn't want to give up bacon, but in hanging out with Sis, I seem to be...)

Comments

[godai.livejournal.com]

Seders can be fun though you have a bit of a wait until spring. heh

Any meal where it tells you to drink your first cup of wine now.

then second
then third
then forth

then fifth

i think there's 5 drinks of wine and that isn't counting during the eating part. heh

But Nephew will get two parts for himself.

well if he's the youngest he will probably get asked to do the 4 questions.

At least he won't be expected to memorize them in english and yiddish like i was. bah.

But the fun part is the Afikomen.

It's half a piece of matzah.

there's 2 different traditions i've seen.

Head of the table hides it and the child who finds it gets a prize.

Or the more interesting version our family has.

You need the Afikomen to start the second part of the seder after the meal. it's the first thing after desert.

Well in our family the Afikomen would be snatched during the first half of the seder by someone close to where it was and passed off to the kids.

The head of the table would look for it (of course never finding it. Never looked hard but me and my brothers were bastards at hiding the damn thing. heh

And after the head of the table gives up looking its time for negotiations. heh

we bickered until we got an acceptable ransom for all the kids. of course how much varied.

I generally go to 2 seders a year. my grandma's for my mom's family. and my aunt ediths and her family. edith is a non-blood great aunt.

while at my grandma's seder my uncle leads and he's a rich man (CIO at Mars and Mars yes m&m people) we generally got a $50 savings bond each for me, my bro, and our 2 cousins.

while at edith's we got maybe $5 a pop each if we were lucky.

Heh i'm rambling now.

But the seder is nice depending on how fast a reader everyone at the table is. oh and of course you get to sing. heh

die die-a-newww. die die a neww die die a neww.
die a new die a new. (die a new)

thats phoenetic spelling of course. heh

well i'm rambling now.

[azurelunatic]

I've actually been to a few Seders. Much fun. I got grape juice (I was still about 16 or 17 at that point). At one point I was holding forth as to why crackers (the hacking variety) broke in to stuff for fun.

I don't know much Hebrew, and I definitely don't read it, though I think I can recognize a few letters here and there.