Breaking Tradition: April Holidays

There is nothing more peaceful and relaxing than biking home from a long day of work and reflect on my day and think about the next coming days.  I’ve been talking a lot lately with my mom, my sister, and my best friend, Ayla.  Ayla has just gotten a new apartment, my sister is going on a quick holiday to Prague, and my mom is excited but tired from all of the construction work going on at the house in the states (which is finally almost finished!).

Talking with Ayla, we really realized that this is the first year that we will not be completing our normal April Holiday traditions…

Ayla and I…since we were about 8 or 9 years old have been best friends.  Each year we have a holiday exchange.  Once in the winter for Christmas and Hanukkah, and once in the spring for Passover and Easter.  We are honorary family members in each others families.  This will be the first year ever that we are unable to attend the spring celebrations with each other.

Next Monday marks the first evening of Passover.  Ayla would always come over to my house and help us prepare our meal and then she, my parents, my sister (sometimes via Skype) and my mother’s parents would sit down to a glorious meal with multiple courses.

The Seder Plate in all of it’s glory

Salad

Matzoh Ball Batter

Matzoh Ball Soup (I don’t know what April is going to be like without my mom’s amazing soup and my matzoh balls)

Veggies

Kuggel (one of my other favorite passover treats, and in the background, my mom’s amazing chocolate/caramel covered Matzoh…TO DIE FOR!)

Chicken (or salmon for my grandma)

Matzoh (Specifically making Hillel Sandwiches with charoset and maror)

the crazy story my sister and I tell of Passover (We like to modernize things and have fun basically outlining the story of the DreamWorks movie Prince of Egypt… otherwise it’s a pretty long seder)

and last but not least, finding the Afikomen and my grandfather paying us for it.

Passover, although you can’t eat real bread or anything leavened is probably one of the most fun holidays to celebrate with my family.  (And if you’re lucky, someone will get in a fight…me and my sister, my sister and my grandma… it’s always entertaining!!)

Celebrating Easter with Ayla is just as fun.  We go over to her Aunt Sara’s house in East Providence.  Sara lives at the end of a cul de sac.  We usually arrive to Sara’s, help a little with setting the table/ prepping a few things, talking in the living room, and then it’s time to eat.

We get to eat an amazing ham with pineapples and cherries, lots of mashed potatoes, carrots, asparagus, cream of corn soup, green bean casserole, and for dessert, usually some fruit salad and an amazing Trifle that Sara makes! Before we start the meal, there is always a game also.  Sara fills a random jar full of jelly beans.  Everyone must make a private guess as to how many jelly beans are in the jar and submit it.  At the end of the meal, Sara announces the winner and they get all of the jelly beans.  I’ve won before and it’s amazing. I love jelly beans.

After the meal, we have an easter egg hunt in Sara’s yard and the eggs are filled with amazing little easter candies.  

After the easter egg hunt, we open all of our eggs to find our candies and then play a big game of catch at the end of the cul de sac.

Writing about these two days we spend together really is making me miss home a little.  I can’t wait to be reunited with my friends and family over a big meal.

Lucky for me, I get to experience a new fun holiday in just a few weeks…King’s Day!

Do you celebrate Easter or Passover? What are your favorite foods from these spring holidays? What are your favorite traditions?

Some Housekeeping…and Other Thoughts

So first thing is first. A new look.

We have really been wanting a simpler, more appealing blog layout.  We worked hard all last week going through hundreds of layouts until we found this one which we think is simple, but still fun! We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

So we no longer look like this^^

We’ve been cooking a lot and have a huge backlog of stores to tell you.  Right now I’ve been gearing up again to start working and getting myself prepared for that.  Job has obviously been working so we are working to fit in time on our days off to keep you up to date and posted on our amazing meals.

I’ve also started running so that has been occupying my time a bit more.

Yesterday I also went to my first Meetup.com meeting for “Unemployed Expats”.  I had signed up for the meet up before I had my job and was really interested in meeting some new people because in all honestly, I don’t have really any friends here besides Job and a few of Job’s friends…who are primarily obviously his friends, not mine. (For those of you reading this, please do not take that the wrong way as I love you all as well.  I’m just stating a fact.)  It’s really nice to meet other expats because both you and they understand the struggle of fitting in to Dutch society, where as speaking with someone who is Dutch can’t quite relate on the same level unless they’ve been an expat elsewhere.  I’ve joined a few of the other expat meetup groups, however most of them are late at night or at bars or clubs which really isn’t my scene.  I’d prefer to go out and have a nice cup of coffee to just chat and get to know someone in the morning or afternoon.

Anyways, I met some lovely people at the meetup and we met at Harvest and Company which is a very cute cafe/antique/furniture shop off of the Overtoom.  The coffees, teas, and baked goods were all delicious! I had a cappuccino and a bread pudding. The interior of the cafe is very home-y and relaxed and as I watched people come in for their coffees and teas, everyone was so friendly and there was such a lovely atmosphere.  They all greeted and said hello to one another and it was just a very happy feeling all around.

After the Meetup, I met Job for lunch and we got some lovely bagels at Bagels & Wraps.  I love the Dutch Bagel.  Job usually gets the Valley Girl or a Tuna Melt. For the amount of times we go here, I strangely have no photos of the bagels, but they’re delicious!

From lunch, we took a nice little walk around the area.  It’s really starting to become spring here!

Crocuses are popping up everywhere!

After our walk, Job had to get back to work.  I stuck around for another hour (I had a meeting with one of the managers for work an hour later) and first walked by this huge chess game…

and then went to people watch in Vondelpark until the hour had passed.  An ominous cloud sat above me.

Unfortunately it did start to rain. I found some refuge and the rain passed quickly.  I went to my meeting, had a nice chat, and then went home.

A few hours later, Job came home and we cooked up some dinner and relaxed together which was really nice.  

We watched some Gordon Ramsay before bed and it was a good night.