table talk / By Stephanie Silvia

Living on the Water

In search of food for Passover

(April 17, 2008)  Stephanie Silva directed her own modern dance company in New York City and is a student of American poet Diane di Prima. She teaches movement and writing.

When I was 10 years old I came home with the rehearsed narration of a grown-up joke I had overheard. An impending flood of momentous proportions is about to engulf the Earth and her inhabitants. A roving reporter interviews citizens from around the world to ask how they will survive. In London, a Brit answers: “I will sit atop Big Ben, old chap.” A Frenchmen replies: “I will climb ze Eiffel Tower, of course.” (My aunt and uncle’s chuckles reassured me that I was doing an entertaining job imitating the accents involved.) An Italian plans on scaling the Leaning Tower of Pisa: “Mama Mia!” When a Jew is asked he solemnly answers with a Yiddish inflection, “I guess ve vill have to learn to live on the water.”

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My audience burst out laughing, but I didn’t get the joke. Aunt Linda explained that it was a stereotype that Jews will learn to make do, adapt, survive, even if that means living on the water.

That’s been me living as a Jew in Humboldt County. I’ve learned to live in the rain and find means to celebrate the holidays without familiar brethren. Arriving from New York City five years ago, before joining Temple Beth El in Eureka, I felt a bit lost. I was a Jew and a New Yorker. Having loved living in Berkeley two decades ago, I didn’t realize what an adjustment the move would be at this later stage in my life. During the holidays I felt especially lonely. The paper listed Community Seders, the ritual meal focused around the retelling of the Jews’ Exodus from Egypt, but I wasn’t ready to venture there. I wanted to make my own Seder for my new Gentile husband, and in the following years for friends and the son we would come to adopt. These feasts came to be memorable occasions in our home.

Navigating the shopping for special Passover foods for these meals has been an inconsistent endeavor. Some years items seemed plentiful, others scant. That initial season my first stop was Los Bagels,where I purchased scrumptious homemade matzo and chocolate coconut macaroons for the Seder. A few days into Passover I went back to the shop and ordered a Mexican mocha and matzo with cream cheese — and discovered that the unleavened bread, central to this ancient feast, could only be bought in a package; it wasn’t served in the store. It seemed reasonable that a Jewish-identified store would offer an unleavened option on its menu during the holiday. There were the wonderful macaroons, but that wasn’t lunch. I was frustrated. I couldn’t eat a bagel for four more days.

That year the Co-op had an island of Passover boxed mixes, but instead of the Passover favorite potato kugel there was potato latke mix, which can be eaten any time of year but is traditionally a Hanukah food. The next year, rather than create a special place for the holiday, the Passover foods were on the shelf with all the other Jewish foods in the ethnic section, which was disappointing. Of late, the island has been restored.

Last year when I went to Safeway in Arcata on the second day of the holiday the store’s holiday supplies were wiped out. In a panic I rushed over to Wildberries, where I’d bought Kosher wine and Joya chocolate-covered jellyrolls in years past, and, to my dismay, could not find a Passover section. The shift manager was surprised when I went to him with my problem. He took me to the front of the store, where a Passover section had stood the day before. We found that the Jewish foods had been returned to their regular spot. He was quite apologetic, surmising another manager must not have realized that Passover hadn’t ended.

For the record: Passover lasts eight days and isn’t a fasting holiday. We Israelites not only eat for the whole week, we pretty much feast all week, on special foods.

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