pass­ing over Passover

Isn’t this the most evoca­tive paint­ing? A sort of un-iron­ic Andy Warhol, with­out the drugs. You can buy it here, as it turns out… I’m miss­ing my Jew­ish friends across the ponds last night, tonight… Alyssa always not only invit­ed me for Passover, Han­nukah, Purim and every­thing else they cel­e­brat­ed, she also answered all of the stu­pid goy­im ques­tions I asked about food (usu­al­ly), reli­gion, the whole thing. I feel so home­sick for our evenings of mat­zoh, brisket, all the hap­py favorites. Our daugh­ters act­ing like cousins, her son like our nephew… feel­ing sentimental.

Added to miss­ing Alyssa (about whom I am cur­rent­ly writ­ing a chap­ter for my cook­book, so many tear-mak­ing mem­o­ries of shared hol­i­days), I received a hilar­i­ous report from my old friend Renee from Hol­ly­wood about her Passover expe­ri­ences… I can­not improve upon her nar­ra­tive, so I have repro­duced it here with her per­mis­sion. I miss you, Renee. And Alyssa.

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So here I am. In sun­ny LA. It real­ly is sun­ny. We got here last Thurs­day and we’re stay­ing until Mon­day. Tonight I’m cook­ing a qua­si-Passover meal at Ben’s. We’re in West Hol­ly­wood and I don’t know where peo­ple get their food here. I found a Whole Foods, but there is not a super­mar­ket any­where in sight. Or even a gro­cery store. There are no butch­ers, no delis, no green mar­kets, no noth­ing. Whole Foods — that’s it. With no mat­zoh. And, believe it or not, sad veg­eta­bles. 2 kinds of pota­toes and one type of onion. I find that strange since there’s nowhere else to shop, you’d think they would have every­thing you could ever want. But no. There’s plen­ty of vit­a­mins, wheat grass, and pre­pared foods, all of which I can live with­out hap­pi­ly, espe­cial­ly the wheat grass. After spend­ing a zil­lion dol­lars there, I’m mak­ing chick­en with forty cloves of gar­lic, aspara­gus, roast­ed car­rots and pota­toes, fruit sal­ad with lime and chili pep­per (had it some­where here and it was sur­pris­ing­ly good), and no mat­zoh. Isn’t Hol­ly­wood sup­posed to be run by Jews? Maybe so, but they obvi­ous­ly don’t cel­e­brate Passover. And they go out to eat all the time. I’ve had Chi­nese, Ital­ian, Japan­ese, Mex­i­can, and Kore­an food so far. Oy! Thank good­ness there’s a lit­tle French cafe right near our hotel that I can have baguettes, crois­sants, French ham, cap­pu­ci­nos, and yum­my sal­ads. I eat lunch there every day. And, oh yeah, no mat­zoh there either. There goes Passover.

I’m head­ing to Ben’s now. I’m sure there’s no mat­zoh there either.