The great corned beef crisis of 2010

It's a busy time of year for the Cashew Family. Passover begins tonight at sundown, and Holy Week continues until Sunday with Easter. The house to clean, Easter baskets to fill, Matzoh Ball soup to make... no one said the life of a shiksa is an easy one.

Tonight at sundown our family will sit down to our Seder and celebrate Passover. For me, this is the Super Bowl of all Jewish holidays. Yes, Hanukkah is stretched out over eight nights, and we try hard to have holiday treats every day, but the holiday is rather laid back and it is what you make it. Roshashanna is another favorite, particularly for the kids, since our New Year celebration consists of a dinner predominantly made up of of fresh challah, apples and honey. Yom Kippur is low maintenance since Jason can't eat anyway, I just need to make sure we have a good meal to break his fast. But Passover is an entirely different story.

The word "seder" actually means order, as in the order of the meal, the order of the story, the order of the celebration. For approximately 4000 years Jewish families have sat down together and gone through the same exact "order" to celebrate the holiday. Talk about pressure for a shiksa trying her best.

Our family has developed our own traditions for Passover foods, one being a glazed corned beef for dinner. I like it because it's preparation is simple and works well with the fact that we sit at the table for what could be an hour before it's time to eat. No, it's not a traditional recipe, but a brisket is, and this is about as close as I can get to it.

Saturday morning I hit the grocery store in search of my corned beef and I was dismayed to find not one corned beef. The butcher's response "it isn't the season anymore." What?! Same story at two other stores. Apparently they stock up for St. Patrick's day and then it really isn't on their radar to get more until after the Easter rush for turkeys and hams. Not a corned beef to be found. I realized that in years past I always would buy the Passover corned beef when they were on sale for St. Patrick's Day, but I guess this year I wasn't really thinking of it. So on the eve of our seder I found myself corned beef-less. Jason says it doesn't matter. We'll do chicken. Which he also says is the Jewish answer to any menu-planning crisis.

Off to prep the chicken, wash the parsley, and set the table, and if I'm lucky I can get a quick run in to the store to get some things for the Easter baskets.