Passover blues

Feeling lost and lonely around this Passover holiday. I watch the women at our local Shop Rite fill their carts from the kosher section, confidently choosing the best brand of maror (apparently Gold's), blithely gathering ingredients for their homemade haroset. I'm at a loss. I've never made a seder before, have not the first idea how to set up that most formidable seder plate. How the hell does one burn an egg to resemble the burning of the temple wall, or find a lamb shank? We've always visited my older sister Beth in Harrisburg, PA, but this year she's cut back to just the second night so that leaves that first night, looming like a potentially disastrous rehearsal for Ben's Bar Mitzvah. It will be the three of us, plus Matt, Rob's thirty-two year old son from an earlier marriage, and Melissa, a friend from that marriage who's husband is forever traveling. Two Jewish women with non-jewish husbands. Both of us clueless.

I remember as a child it was our family plus my father's sister, Aunt Eileen, her husband Barney and their two daughters, Gail and Beth. It was an intimate, comfortable affair, a family gathering with no jitters attached. My brother Paul and I would mark up the Haggadah in our childhood scrawl, each relative's name next to their reading. As the youngest I got to recite the four questions, my big number, under the sweet, forgiving gaze of my family. So different from my sister's seder, with over 20 of mostly her husband Richie's relatives. Those first few awkward moments when we arrive, not just my shyness to deal with but Ben and Rob's. So much small talk, then hours of my brother-in-law dutifully going through page by page. I want to grab my sister by the hand and run out the door, laughing, just the two of us sitting on the curb swigging Manischewitz, gossiping to our heart's content. But there she is, firmly in the moment, supporting her husband as the good hostess. I have to fend for myself.

A few nights later we go out to dinner with our friends Jim and Melissa to make a final decision on the Italian restaurant I've chosen for Ben's Bar Mitzvah. We tried it a few months ago and the food was very good, but tonight, a Friday night, the place is mostly empty. The food is still good, but the staff is in a tizzy, our middle-aged waitress telling me all about her lower back pain and giggling as she reads through the specials. A few minutes later she tells us she's leaving and a younger waiter appears and can't seem to get our order straight. Melissa looks at me reassuringly but it's clear, this place can barely handle our table of four let alone a luncheon of eighty. Back to square one. And now it's almost springtime and I still haven't found a venue. In the back of my mind I figure if I'm still at a loss, I can simply have the kiddush a bit more done up and that will be the end of it. Our temple is expecting each family to pay for the kiddush for the congregation anyway, so it might be my only solution financially. But when I call our kosher deli to ask about catering a luncheon the prices that come back to me are even higher than at a restaurant: $39.00 a head for an adult and $29 for a kid. How much sable, whitefish and nova lox could a 13-year-old possibly eat that could warrant such prices.

I spend the next few days approaching any jewish woman I know in town and asking for a recommendation. Even Debbie, my baseball mom friend who has spent untold hours giving me advice on the bleachers of our sons' games through the years, who eats out not just on weekends but most days through the week, can't think of a place. And finally it hits me, this is suburban New Jersey. Unless I'm willing to spend $100 a head, I better just settle. I decide to give our Italian restaurant another chance.

And still I can't find a job to pay for just the salad.