It Was A Fun Easter!

It's become a family tradition for us to celebrate Easter with my folks and family on Good Friday and then with Tara's mom and family on Sunday. This makes for a nice relaxing Sunday - we show up to someone else's house to eat food someone else prepared and then slouch on the couch while someone else cleans up...what's not to love? It's been an exhausting last couple of weeks - and on Easter Sunday afternoon I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. I felt bad about not engaging in more conversation...but I was so tired. In between naps we helped the kids with their Easter Egg hunt - they had a good time finding them, opening them, and then chowing down on the candy. We ended up staying at Grandma Karen's till after 7pm - we had to stay and watch to see who won the Master's tournament! Tara and I don't normally sit around and watch golf tournaments - but with lounging around for most of the afternoon and lazily watching the tournament develop...well the game got kind of exciting. It was a fun finish!

Good Friday is an interesting day to celebrate Easter...at least I think so. Last year and this year I pulled together some elements from the Passover meal to include in our Easter dinner. Both times I've made a dish called hametz - made of chopped apples and walnuts, raisins and cinnamon, and a dash of sparkling grape juice. The dish is used in the Seder meal to remember the mortar the Hebrew slaves were force to make and use in their work to build storage cities for the Pharoahs. And of course we eat it with matza bread.

So this year I decided to include a new dish: marrar - which is made of horseradish and chopped up beets. This obviously bitter dish is eaten in the Seder meal to remember the bitter tears shed during the long oppression the Hebrew slaves endured under the harsh and unjust rule of the Egyptians.

The kids wanted nothing to do with my two specialty dishes. Other adults in our group were tentative about my creation. A few were daring and willing to try it with no hesitation. The hametz dish was delightful - most everybody had seconds of that dish. Except the kids...they at least tried the apple dish. But the marrar...that was a different issue: I warned everyone to just take a little bit and to put it on the matza. I repeated my warning. Apparently my mother missed the memo. She took a huge bite! Ack! This was some bitter, powerful, potent, burning marrar! Several of us tried to shout "ouch" with a pain-induced tongue! We all had a good laugh as Mum downed her sparkling white grape juice in an attempt to assuage the suffering.


I had no idea how powerful the horseradish would be. I had bought it earlier in the day at Scott's - it was the only brand available. Apparently the horseradish is less potent when eaten on roast beef then with thin matza bread. At least that was my experience - some of us were brave enough to try the marrar on our meat...much better!


Later in the evening we had fun eating the bunny cake that Tara made with the kids. Tara's become quite the cake-lady! While the kids ate the cake Dad, Mum, Jerm and I played Wii bowling! My Dad and Mum have become quite the Wii bowlers! They were kind enough to let me win, but they played an impressive game. I'm hoping that Wii games become a traditional part of all our family gatherings!