A Small Kind of Freedom this Passover

Letting things be what they are

My family has been hosting Passover for somewhere between fifteen and twenty years now. We love it, and to be totally honest, we also sort of hate it.

Every year, it’s the same things. Arguing about setup. Stressing about seating. Trying to figure out how to fit fifteen to twenty-five people into a house that never quite feels big enough. If we eat outside, will it be too cold? Will it rain? The Seder never really goes the way we imagine it, either. That’s partly because it’s not just ours. It belongs to everyone at the table, and each person comes to the meal hoping to get something different from the meal.

And then there’s the cooking.

It feels like, for one night out of the year, we turn our house into a restaurant, opening for one seating and that’s it. I make the mains, and everyone else brings sides, which sounds simple until you realize what that actually means. So there are some logistical things that need to be coordinated. I don’t just make one main either. I usually make two or three, depending on who's attending. Part of that is practical. You need enough food for sure. But part of it is something else. I want everyone to feel taken care of. I want there to be something for everyone, no matter their dietary restrictions or preferences. In past years, that’s where the pressure really kicks in. Trying to get it right. Trying to make it all come together. Trying not to mess anything up.

For those really curious, I made brisket, gefilte fish (or a version of it), roasted chicken and baked salmon. (NOTE: If you wanna hear more about these recipes, let me know. I’ll be happy to write a new post about them if there’s interest.)

This year felt different, not because it was easier. It wasn’t.

I still hated shopping. Walking through the store, trying to track down every ingredient, realizing I'd forgotten something, then doubling back. I hate doubling back in the market. It still sucked. But instead of fighting it, I just kind of accepted it. This sucks, and I’m going to do it anyway.

At some point, I decided I wasn’t going to edit myself. I wasn’t going to scale things down or try to make it more manageable. I wanted there to be plenty of food, so I leaned into it. Fine. I’ll make all of it.

The recipes I keep coming back to all have something in common. Not just that they taste good, but that I understand them. A few years ago, I read Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. It’s technically a cookbook, but it doesn’t really feel like one. It’s more about how food works than what to make. Salt for flavor. Fat for richness. Acid for balance. Heat for transformation. Once you understand those, you don’t have to follow a recipe perfectly. You can adjust. You can trust your instincts. You can recover when something goes sideways.

That’s why I like the brisket and the gefilte fish recipes I use. I’ve made them enough times that I know what they’re supposed to taste like. I know when something’s off. I know how to adjust if I need to. Even the new recipes this year didn’t feel as intimidating as they used to. Not because I knew them, but because I trusted that I could figure them out.

Of course, something went wrong. We couldn’t find one of the ingredients for the chicken. Last-minute scramble. Someone had to run back to the store. That familiar spike of anxiety showed up right on time. “The dish is ruined. It won’t be ready on time.”

And then the final few hours before everyone arrives. That part is always the worst. The clock speeds up, everything feels unfinished, and you start doing that mental math of what’s left, how long things take, what you might have missed. That didn’t go away either, but it felt different.

I think what changed is that I stopped trying to get rid of the anxiety. It was there while I was shopping, while I was cooking, and definitely there in those last couple of hours. Instead of treating that like a problem to solve, I just let it be part of the day. This is what this is. I even found myself saying that out loud. If you see me anxious, it’s ok. This is just who I am.

There was also something else I noticed. The kitchen felt safe.

When people started arriving, I stayed there. Part of me wondered if I was being too antisocial, if I should be out there mingling more. But that’s always felt hard for me, being “on” like that. In the kitchen, I knew what I was doing. I could focus. I could move. I could just be in it. So I stayed.

Dinner eventually started. People ate. There was plenty of food, maybe too much. And people said they liked it. I still don’t really believe that part. I never do. I trust maybe one or two people to tell me the truth. Everyone else, it’s nice to hear, but I’m not sure I buy it.

But even that felt a little different this time. Not because I suddenly believed them, but because I didn’t need to. I wasn’t cooking for their approval or to hear their praise. I was cooking to nourish their bellies and maybe something else, too. I wasn’t cooking to prove anything.

I wasn’t cooking to prove anything or for their approval. I was cooking to nourish their bellies and souls. I made the food I wanted to make. I showed up the way I could show up. Anxious, a little overwhelmed, probably hiding in the kitchen more than I needed to.

And it was still enough.

I think that’s what I’m taking from this year. Nothing really changed. The stress was still there. The anxiety was still there. The things that went wrong still went wrong. But I stopped trying to fix all of it. I just let it be what it was.

And for this year’s Sedar, that felt like enough.