Passover/Pre-Pasqua Soiree – Ray The Ray Style [POLL]

It's the weekend of the "3 P's"!

Passover and Pre-Pasqua.

Here at Casa Rossi, we celebrate both.

In the traditional “Erasmo” fashion, meaning we do it Our Way!

Our family is a “mischiada” (proun: Meesh-kyah’-dah in the Neapolitan dialect) meaning we’re all over the road.

The wife is Jewish. You already know my deal.

And we have a Chinese niece.

Everybody contributes.

My mother in law does the “baking”...or as she like to say “bayyyy-king”.

This year’s specialty is some kind of crumb cake that sort of slumped in the middle.
She said that wasn’t supposed to happen…(in fact anytime she makes the cake, it’s never supposed to happen, but still does!)

Personally, I don’t care. It always tastes fine to me!

This isn’t too different than my mom’s dilemma.

She too does the baking, although she never calls it “bayyy-king”.

She just calls it “a pain in the ass!”

She makes tons of pies.

In fact, the “pre-Pasqua” portion of the show is all about pies. (The Saturday before Easter, besides being Holy Saturday, is called “the pies”. Not, "the day of the pies", or "Pies Saturday"….just “the pies”!)

And just what are "the pies?"

Well, there's pizza ‘gain…or full pie…with cheese, all kinds of salami, prosciutto. You name it.

Then there ‘o pastierre’ or pizza gran’…grain pie.
(Yeah, I know it doesn’t sound appetizing, but trust me, it IS!)

Made with ricotta, cooked barley that someone stole from the barn at Freehold Raceway; and dried fruit; topped with some delicately laid strips of sweet dough and baked till a golden brown.

Notice I said “delicately laid.” Very delicately laid.

I’ve seen times when my mother, while laying the strips atop the pie oh so delicately would watch them break up. This would be followed by, “…Jesus Christ!”!

That’s when I knew that they weren’t oh so “delicately laid.”

There’s something that always either “came out great”; or “didn’t come out as good as I thought!” this year.

Times when my mother would try to make the pannetone like my grandmother did; and she’d always say, “….your grandmother’s always came out perfect!”

(Sure, if you were 150 and making it since Columbus left Genoa, yours would come out perfect too!)

Back to what passes for a Seder.

Even though we don’t go full tilt “Seder”; there’s still some semblance of Passover amongst the goyim and non-goyim alike.

Like no “Passover Donuts!”.

My sister in law’s jello mold. (I’m the only one that eats it…she puts nuts and little pieces of mandarin orange in it, and it’ll last me a week!)

And my niece’s stir fry vegetables.

Back to Pasqua, besides the manicotti, there’s usually both ham and lamb.

(There HAS to be lamb…you know, “lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world…etc.”)

I loathe lamb. LOATHE it!

One year, my wife took a look at it when it had come out of the oven and said it, “…was just sitting there, swimming in a layer of grease!”

Nothing like "muttony tasting greasy lamb to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

And “slumpy in the middle” coffee cake, and fruit laden jello mold to recall the freeing of the Jews from the bonds of slavery at the hands of the Pharaoh.”

Get out the mint jelly…you’re gonna need lots!

So with this in mind, the Posse wants to know, what's your favorite meat for the holiday?