Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Passover 2: Matzah S'mores

So I agree to do snack for my kid's hebrew school class, and then I remember, 'damn, it's still passover... A fine holiday, Passover, a fine holiday, got nothing against Passover but... matzah isn't great for morale at the best of times, and the parallel Easter holiday gets them coming and going. The suffering of my people, eating the bread of affliction amidst a plague of chocolate bunnies and candy eggs. Simple as it looks now, this took days of thought, off and on... I didn't want to show up acting excited about cheese-and-matzah sandwiches with celery sticks. I'm rolling the ideas around... maztah.. fruit... cheese... rice crackers... coconut-almond macaroons (enough already)...cheese... granola...popcorn... chocolate maztah and fruit fondue?... cheese... no crackers... chocolate... chocolate... OMG yes! matzah s'mores. Fun, fire, tasty, and a treat in the truest sense; how often do you make s'mores. I was grinning from ear to ear. And so were the kids. I got kosher marshmallows from the market basket in Gloucester, a box of matzah, and Hershey's chocolate bars, the s'mores standard, are thank goodness kosher dairy. Bamboo skewers. Canned flame from the commissary as a source of heat. I read them all the riot act about fire safety, and took gleeful pleasure in pointing out kosher marshmallows are made of fish gelatin, not the beef or pork gelatin in typical marshmallows. Passed out the skewers and marshmallows, assigned a grown-up to ration chocolate, and off they went. This will doubtless become a tradition, and a welcome end-run for the kids. Just look at Cameron's smile.