Foodsday Tuesday: Don't Pass on Pesach

Ah, Passover. That lovely time of year where God—via a series of biblical writings and ancient rules—tells you to go on Atkins. (Unless you eat lots and lots of Matzah—that stuff is pretty carb-heavy.)

Traditionally, the first night or two is time for the Seder, a time when Jewish families and friends get together and reflect on how lucky their ancestors were to get out of Egypt, over a huge meal and several(!) glasses of wine. But what do you do when your family is spread out all over the globe and most of your Jewish friends are doing their own thing with their own families? You can't make a brisket for two. And you can't just go out... can you?

Yes, actually. At least with restauranteurs like Alison Barshak, who will be offering a special Pesach dinner menu on the first two nights of the holiday at her new restaurant, Alison two. The press release puts it best:

The menu will include Matzah Ball Soup, Gefilte Fish, Charoset and even a free glass of wine for Elijah. Each guest can choose from Salmon, Chicken or Beef Short Ribs for their entrée. The dessert menu will include a variety of tasty Passover desserts including fruit, chocolate covered Matzah, housemade marshmallows and more. The restaurant will have kosher wine and all the fixings (parsley, horseradish, egg, lamb shank) for the Seder plate and groups are welcome to conduct their own service.

Alison further elaborated to Phillyist (via her PR agency): "I think the desserts are going to be amazing & we're thinking of doing the gefilte fish in a square & doing slices like a pate."

Also on the making-gefilte-edible front, we've received word that Seafood Unlimited's David Einhorn is bringing out his Grandma Sadie Orlinger’s recipe of traditional, quality ingredients including whole carp, whitefish, pike, and ground matzah meal and selling the goods for a recession-friendly $3.75 per piece. While you can't do your whole Seder at the restaurant, it's at least one less component of your family meal you have to prepare—or one less jar of this stuff that you have to open. (And we strongly encourage you to put the jar down unless it's to make art like in the picture above.)

Image credit: Flickr user Magenta Red Blue.