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Almost Done
Mar. 27th, 2002 09:21 amThe house is in a sgood a shape as it ever needs, although the living room needs to be straightened out and vacuumed. The important rooms - the dining room and most especially the kitchen - are done completely. The living room is vacuumed, neatened, the table is washed and will be covered with our Passover tablecloth. The kitchen.
The kitchen counters are covered in aluminum foil. The refrigerator has been emptied and cleaned and interior shelves covered with plastic liners. The door shelves are covered with aluminum foil. The freezer has been emptied and cleaned. The bottom is covered with a plastic garbage bag, the rack by, you guessed it. Alcoa must love this time of year.
The oven was cleaned and burned - left on a high temperature for about two hours, or the time it took us to go out and eat dinner. :) The racks and bottom were covered by foil oven rack liners. The burner grates were turned upside down and the burners turned on full force until the grates glowed in the dark. After they cooled, I covered the stove in af. And, just to say it, this isn't the normal af you might buy to line a pan or wrap around a sandwich or what have you. This is super heavy duty stuff that resists a little when you bend it, and stays bent. Nothing less will work. This is thick enough that cutting it leaves little splinters. I'm told that in Israel, they use an even thicker foil - more like very thin sheets of metal - which they use to lay on their counters.
I also mopped the floor.
To some people, what I've done may look extreme. I view it as extremely relaxed. Sufficient, but relaxed. I didn't line my oven with a metal insert, but I plan to use it, I didn't put a plastic insert into my sink - my sink is stainless steel, so I poured boiling water over it. Quite sufficient. I cleaned off all visible dirt, but I didn't go after the backs of things with toothbrushes or even tooth picks. I didn't line all interior surfaces of my fridge with foil, nor did I put a handle of foil on the fridge handle and another on my phones. I didn't clean every other surface in my house. I did get my bed quilt and sheets washed. Even my dining table was just *cleaned* and I'll have a table cloth on it. I'm not covering it up with foil and plastic.
My year round dishes and things are either put away someplace or hidden in my kitchen. My Passover dishes and utensils are all out, and I even cooked the other night. The few items of chometz - our whiskey and vodka and a pancake mix and a small box of Isomalt candies - that are hidden in our house - will soon belong to someone else. If he came to us and demanded them, we'd hand them over. Actually, we'd ask him to take them himself, once he proved owner ship. We did it through our rabbi, so we don't know who he is.
As I write, it's 9:15AM EST. In an hour or so, we will declare all the chometz, leaven, in our possession to be null and void, as the dust of the earth. This is so that if you miss some - a hazard for poor housekeepers like me or houses with small children who hide things - you won't eat it. Actually, the thought of eating such things becomes akin to my feeling about non-kosher foods, but only during this time. I was quite happy to eat pasta last night, and I'll be quite happy to eat pizza or pasta next Friday. But not now. Now the idea feels wrong.
The first seder is tonight, the second tomorrow. Friday night is Shabbat. That's three days at my inlaws, which is why we'll be in a hotel a block away instead. Praying I am for a low floor.
I should be home on Saturday night.
The kitchen counters are covered in aluminum foil. The refrigerator has been emptied and cleaned and interior shelves covered with plastic liners. The door shelves are covered with aluminum foil. The freezer has been emptied and cleaned. The bottom is covered with a plastic garbage bag, the rack by, you guessed it. Alcoa must love this time of year.
The oven was cleaned and burned - left on a high temperature for about two hours, or the time it took us to go out and eat dinner. :) The racks and bottom were covered by foil oven rack liners. The burner grates were turned upside down and the burners turned on full force until the grates glowed in the dark. After they cooled, I covered the stove in af. And, just to say it, this isn't the normal af you might buy to line a pan or wrap around a sandwich or what have you. This is super heavy duty stuff that resists a little when you bend it, and stays bent. Nothing less will work. This is thick enough that cutting it leaves little splinters. I'm told that in Israel, they use an even thicker foil - more like very thin sheets of metal - which they use to lay on their counters.
I also mopped the floor.
To some people, what I've done may look extreme. I view it as extremely relaxed. Sufficient, but relaxed. I didn't line my oven with a metal insert, but I plan to use it, I didn't put a plastic insert into my sink - my sink is stainless steel, so I poured boiling water over it. Quite sufficient. I cleaned off all visible dirt, but I didn't go after the backs of things with toothbrushes or even tooth picks. I didn't line all interior surfaces of my fridge with foil, nor did I put a handle of foil on the fridge handle and another on my phones. I didn't clean every other surface in my house. I did get my bed quilt and sheets washed. Even my dining table was just *cleaned* and I'll have a table cloth on it. I'm not covering it up with foil and plastic.
My year round dishes and things are either put away someplace or hidden in my kitchen. My Passover dishes and utensils are all out, and I even cooked the other night. The few items of chometz - our whiskey and vodka and a pancake mix and a small box of Isomalt candies - that are hidden in our house - will soon belong to someone else. If he came to us and demanded them, we'd hand them over. Actually, we'd ask him to take them himself, once he proved owner ship. We did it through our rabbi, so we don't know who he is.
As I write, it's 9:15AM EST. In an hour or so, we will declare all the chometz, leaven, in our possession to be null and void, as the dust of the earth. This is so that if you miss some - a hazard for poor housekeepers like me or houses with small children who hide things - you won't eat it. Actually, the thought of eating such things becomes akin to my feeling about non-kosher foods, but only during this time. I was quite happy to eat pasta last night, and I'll be quite happy to eat pizza or pasta next Friday. But not now. Now the idea feels wrong.
The first seder is tonight, the second tomorrow. Friday night is Shabbat. That's three days at my inlaws, which is why we'll be in a hotel a block away instead. Praying I am for a low floor.
I should be home on Saturday night.
