Good morning. Passover begins this evening, and we’re in the middle of Easter week, but celebrations of rebirth and spring joyousness are going to be difficult this year, with everyone locked down and self-isolated.
Still, I hope those celebrating can find ways to gather symbolically, to observe and feast in safety. (There’ll be plenty of ritualized washing of hands, to be sure.) And I hope all of us can strive to recognize the small moments of magic that these awful days can bring, sometimes when you least expect it.
For instance, I scored a few avocados during a surgical strike on the market the other evening, and the next day at lunch one of my kids went full no-recipe recipe on a ripe one: the flesh mashed with lime juice and salt, then spread onto toast and sprinkled with bean sprouts, red-pepper flakes, a grind or two of black pepper. The preparation was a clattery affair in the kitchen right next to the room where I was working. I grumbled about that. But then she slid a soft fried egg onto the top of one of the toasts and brought it to me for lunch and we ate together quietly and for a moment there I thought, I’m never going back to an office again.
It wouldn’t be bad to be quarantined with David Tanis, I don’t think. Check out his latest daily menu, which you can stretch out over a few days: steel-cut oats with spinach, za’atar and fried egg for breakfast; grilled chicken pita for lunch; and spicy meatballs with chickpeas for dinner.
