You made too much chicken, said the voice in my head as I stood staring at the pot in which there was enough paprikash to feed a small army. In my previous life I would have shrugged off the miscalculation, invited more guests, and told the voice to stifle itself. After all, it’s better to have too much food than not enough.
Except that in that former existence this would not have been an error in judgment, just like I wouldn’t have been stumped by how many plates to pull out of the cabinet, how much water to boil for the morning coffee, how much space to leave empty in a carry on for a trip. At the point in my life when most everything that should have been figured out would have been, I find myself relearning what had already been memorized, undoing years of conditioning, recalibrating a navigation system that had veered dangerously off course. For someone who isn’t crazy about change, this is a veritable nightmare.
So I covered the pot, walked away from the stove, and peeled too many potatoes. That it was Passover night was already fraught. There used to be a lovely man at the head of our table during holidays.
For this particular one he would work his way through the Haggadah, skip pages so no one would drift off, fill the room with his booming voice and get a real kick out of hiding the Afikoman, a broken piece of matza meant for the children to find. He was also quite good at making the wine disappear from the extra cup set out for Elijah, a silver goblet filled t.
