My Conversion Story Journal

April 23, 2025

Cooking on Pesach

I'm going to have to admit that I didn't try any amazing recipes this Pesach. I didn't bake at all. Food that I made myself was rather uninspiring, though still good.

I stored all of my dishes, including all of my pots, pans, silverware, etc. and used only disposable dishes and one brand new pot. I had no frying pan. I thought that I could still easily cook without a frying pan. I was wrong. Hilariously wrong.

I bought a box of pancake mix and wanted to try my first Pesach pancakes with kosher for Pesach syrup. I thought that cooking it in a pot would work. This was not one of my brightest ideas. The smell of the mix was like the smell of crunching up a bunch of matzahs and putting the dust in a bowl. There was no smell of the egg or the water (I had no kosher for Pesach coconut milk).

I put kosher for Passover butter in the pot and turned on my never used before single portable burner. The burner worked only on extra high or not at all. It was only seconds before butter started jumping up the sides of the pan and trying to escape onto the completely covered stovetop and countertop. Turning down the heat meant that the burner stopped working and didn't cook at all. I put a few spoons full of batter and tried to form what was supposed to be a pancake while butter happily popped onto my hand and fingers. The first "pancake" actually looked like a pancake, so I thought I could do it again. My burner stopped working at all, and I hand to keep playing with the knob until I could get it to work again. That meant cranking up the heat. I tried covering the pot, and that just made the smoke from the pot worse. My second pancake wasn't looking at all like a pancake and playing with the knob so I could stop being spattered with hot butter wasn't working. I decided to put all the batter in a small disposable pan, double wrapped it, and put it in the oven. I have no idea how my smoke detectors were not going off. As I was settling for one pancake, one pancake wanna be, and a pancake bake, I was wondering if my smoke detectors were even working. I couldn't check them during Pesach though. At least, I don't think so.

I sat at the table with my sorry looking dinner, prayed, and ate. I love pancakes. Pesach pancakes? Yeah, they're okay. It was like a grainy pancake. Not a noteworthy difference. The syrup tastes exactly the same as not kosher for Passover syrup tastes, maple flavored sugar.

When it came to digesting all the matzah, I found it not difficult. However, I did note that where a couple cups of juice acts as a laxative for me on a normal day, a one cup during Pesach works the same. Wine didn't seem to have the same effect, but I don't like to drink a lot of alcohol. That's a helpful thing to remember next year.

I did eat a lot of meals at other people's houses. I admit that the potato kugels were especially delicious every place that I went, and the matzo pizza was as good as mine. I am usually good at picking what my body will process well, but I feel the kind thing to do is to eat a small piece of red meat when it is the main meat part of the meal. I don't want to insult anyone by not eating their cooking. During Pesach, that was not a good idea. I was quite grateful that no one else was in the apartment in the evenings. They may have died from the smell. I didn't even want to be around myself! As much as I hate to make anyone feel bad about what they serve, I'm not eating red meat during Pesach again. I think that is the best gift to the ozone layer that I can give.

Hopefully, next year I can do a bit more cooking at home (ahead of Pesach) and try new recipes.

I know that everyone freaks out about Pesach, and I was told that I didn't have to do anything this year. I'm glad that I chose to anyway. The stringent laws during this time, the exhaustion, and the small experiences are not what Pesach is all about. It is a very small part of it. There is so much more to Pesach than these things. This brings me to what my next entry about Pesach will be about: the Saders.

Thank you G-d for the fun experiences, the good memories, the strange things, the hard days, and wonderful people. I love you with all that I am.