Passover. The holiday of escape from slavery and a march to freedom. From the voice of God in the Burning Bush to the roar of Moses to let his people go. It is a heroic story full of bravery and miracles. And like all Jewish festivals, it is celebrated with food. Lots and lots of food. No bread, but lots and lots of food.

We will be observing the second night, the second seder, at our house on Saturday evening. Twenty-some people, from age 7 months to ninety years. We will recite the story of the Exodus and then dig into the enormous meal that Barb is preparing. Preparing with my help…if you can call it that.

Barb was out for dinner last night when she received a text from me. “Holy sh–, I burned the carrots!” You see, Barb had left me with two simple tasks for the evening. First, hard boil an egg, and second, cover two pounds of peeled carrots with water and then boil them for two hours. She needed them softened for the pesadich carrot souffle she was planning on making. Neither job would require monumental intelligence or training at the Chicago Culinary Institute.

The egg came out just fine. But somewhere as the evening wore on I forgot to keep adding water to my simmering carrots. I noticed a smell about an hour-and-a-half into the boiling time. Something was burning, and unlike Kenny Rogers, I didn’t think it was love.

I put the TV on pause and ran from the den into the kitchen. There I uncovered a dry pot filled with very soft, but thoroughly charred, carrots. Unlike my previous cole slaw fiasco, these carrots were not retrievable. That is when I sent Barb my text. She called me and got the fiery details. And she laughed. And laughed some more. What else could she do? The smoke alarm and fire suppression sprinklers hadn’t been set off and the house hadn’t burned down.  We were just out two pounds of carrots, two hours of time, and one char-encrusted soup pot.

Barb will buy more carrots and make a fantastic meal. She probably won’t ask for any more help from me. And to our guests, if you smell something in the air Saturday night, no we aren’t making S’mores for dessert (definitely not Kosher for Passover) and we haven’t planned a real-life recreation of the Burning Bush. We haven’t even invited either of Daenerys’ dragons to join us for seder. It’s just the lingering aroma of Les’s Carrot Char.

Bon Appétit!

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