Marmalade Daydreams

Well, not exactly, but that's what Passover would have you believe. Well, not exactly. It's just that when slaves are on the run from their masters, they don't have the liberty to wait for fermentation to work its magic (bread rising, beer brewing). So for eight days a year, Jews live in a world without yeast, and I can tell you, it's a sad, sad world. Instead of bread, we get crackers. Instead of delicious beer, we get crappy wine (why is pesadik wine so bad?). Yeast -- come back!

So, for the first year ever, I attempted to keep kosher for Passover. But rather than eat matzah 24-7 like most Jews, I went balls-out and multiplied my self-denial ten-fold. For a week I ate nothing but fruit, vegetables, tofu, and brown rice (I'm not Sephardic, but I play one on TV). The only oil I'd allow myself was olive (that means no delicious potato chips, even while my mom was eating them in the car and offering them to me, foul temptress...). I did excellent, that is, until Arlene's Grocery Rock & Roll Karaoke last night.

I convinced myself that whiskey was kosher (I was at a hard-rock karaoke show and not drinking beer -- the red wine they had was terrible. Am I made of stone?) The whiskey told me to sign up to sing with this hard rock band. (If you need to book entertainment for a party in the NY area, I highly recommend looking into these guys.) I got up there and sang Roadhouse Blues by The Doors (which has an awesome scat section which I remember rocking out -- we're all awaiting the videotape, which I'll post as soon as I get it). So everything was great, the crowd was diggin' it, and just before I got to the line, "I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer", the band's regular singer came up and handed me an open can of PBR. What was a newly-somewhat-observant Jew to do? I was caught between listening to the God of the Old Testament and being a rock god myself. Well the rest is history -- Nietzsche would be proud of me, and my ears are still ringing. Wicked, wicked yeast...