Eating our way through Passover and Easter

Don't yell at me.. but I was so busy cooking, eating and leading our seder a week ago Friday that I didn't take pictures of the dinner and friends who joined us.  I did remember to take a picture of the beautiful seder plate that Benedict made for us.  It's such a special part of the holiday for us.  On the bottom, it says

Breslar-Smith 2012

FREEDOM - LIBERTY - DIGNITY

I love that it reminds us what this holiday is all about. 

[Especially] for Lauren, let me tell you about the menu,

matzoh ball soup

home-made gefilte fish, garnished with hard-boiled egg, capers, and cucumbers

marinated leg of lamb, from Zeric's grill 

3 baked chickens

chickpea, tomato, basil salad

Moroccan carrot salad

asparagus, simply broiled

quince tart

chocolate-dipped macaroons

fruit salad: pineapple, orange and banana

My charoset this year included apricots, apples (teeny tiny cubes, thanks to Mem's chopping), fresh ginger, brown sugar, cinnamon, and crushed almonds.  Yum!

Saturday, we cleaned up and relaxed.

Sunday was Easter.  The Easter Bunny must have gotten the memo from Santa Claus that this mostly Jewish household welcomes Christian visitors who leave presents.  So, he dropped off some chocolate..

It seems that all of the Western holidays are opportunities to go over the top here, so we joined in and had brunch with friends at a very fancy hotel.  The Hotel Mulia had 10-foot orchid arrangements and a buffet like none that I had ever seen: oysters, sushi, italian food, huuuuge chunks of cheese, shrimp cocktail, salads, made-to-order meals.. a chocolate fountain, twelve kinds of cake on the dessert table.. wow.  [Though I was tempted to take pictures, it seemed a bit .. what's the word? trailer park? .. of me to run around taking pictures of the decadence.  Besides, my mouth was full, and so were both hands.] We had 4 hours of unending adult beverages to enjoy it all.  Phew!

While the grown-ups were consuming vast quantities of food and beverage, the kids were off doing Easter things like egg hunts and rabbit chases (more on that in my future post on Indonesian's tendency for animal toture).  Overall, it was a nice day.. we came home and napped.  No need for dinner either. 

 

It was a celebratory and extravagent weekend!