April 8, 2005/Adar II 28 5765, Volume 57, No. 32
'Let's make a meal': A Monty Hall sederBEVERLY LEVITTMonty Hall spent 27 years making outrageous deals with anxious contestants on his television game show, "Let's Make A Deal." But the sweetest deal he ever made with his mishpacha (family and close friends) was for a plate of pickled herring if they'd join him for Passover seder.Which of Monty and Marilyn Hall's three children - actress Joanna Gleason, filmmaker Richard Hall, director/writer Sharon Hall Kessler, or even their spouses - wouldn't want to gather around the large stone dining table to eat and retell the Passover story of the Jewish people's journey from slavery to freedom? Even the real deal-makers of the family - the Halls' five grandchildren - get to put in their two cents. The youngest child will ask the Four Questions, Hall will set out his silver chalice filled with Manischewitz wine for Elijah and everyone will get a taste of the ceremonial foods: bitter herbs to incite the sorrow of slavery, matzo to awaken memories of deprivation and honeyed charoset to taste the sweetness of freedom. Hall greets visitors in his gracious home, where his O.C. medallion (Order of Canada - the highest award the government bestows) bumps up against three honorary doctorates, Israeli artist Reuven Rubin's suite of lithographs entitled "The Prophets," and a collection of plaques honoring his charitable works. Hall picks up the antique chalice that has become Elijah's dedicated wine goblet, translating the words engraved on the side - "Borei P'ree haGafen," "blessed be the fruit of the vine." "Marilyn and I found it at a flea market in Jaffa, Israel. One Passover we opened the door to put it out for Elijah; the dog walked in," he quips. When asked which flavor of the sugary sweet wine is his favorite, Hall grins. "After the third cup, who cares?" In the Hall family, Passover is a time to ask questions. "We stop halfway through the service, discuss a topic of interest; everyone joins in. Sometimes it gets heated - about politics, about Israel. The only subject two Jews agree on is what the third person should give to charity," he says wryly. "We stop the service at different sections; we eat gefilte fish, sweet and sour herring; we read some more; we stop, we eat chicken soup, matzo balls; we sing. The happening goes on for four hours. Our seders are wonderful. I'm big daddy. I am what my grandfather was. "Every year we host the seder and invite close friends, cousins; there's usually 35 of us. We take in lots of strangers, people who don't have any place to go. It's a mitzvah I can do this," he beams. As Hall wades through this embarrassment of riches, it's obvious his grandchildren bring the biggest twinkle to his eye. As any grandfather is entitled to, Hall kvells over his grandson. "Last year, when he was 4 1/2, he was reciting his version of the story of the Exodus," relays Hall, chortling at the memory, "where the Red Sea parts just long enough for the escaping Jewish slaves to plunge into the dry seabed to escape from the Egyptian soldiers." The young boy told the guests at the Passover table, "The water was spewing up on both sides, very, very high, and the Jews walked across where the sea was empty. But they were unhappy because they got mud on their shoes. And then they built a boat, and came over on the Mayflower to America." Hall tells the story as if it's a prized joke. Passover memories are precious to Hall, especially now that he's the patriarch. But a very special Passover, when he was only 6, and his beloved grandfather, David, was the patriarch, never strays far away from his heart. Monty Hall grew up in Winnipeg, Canada, in his grandfather's house. He lived with four generations of family - aunts, uncles, cousins, his grandparents, and two sets of great-grandparents. "It wasn't a big house and we used every conceivable square inch - four people in one bedroom, three in another," Hall reminisces. "My mother's three young brothers - my uncles - and I slept in the same room. With all those people, we had only one bathroom. That's where you learn patience. I also learned to wait in line." He laughs at the memory. "More importantly, when you grow up in a house like that, you learn about respect," says Hall. "One of the most beautiful sights I remember is sitting at the dining table, watching my aged great-grandfather feeding his wife, who had gone blind," Hall relays, still touched. Hall's grandfather, David Rusen, had arrived in Winnipeg in 1901 from the Pavelich shtetl in the Ukraine. He started out with a pushcart, selling fruit and vegetables on the street. Subsequently he bought a truck, and started a wholesale produce company. By 1906, he had earned enough to bring over his wife and children, his wife's parents and two sets of grandparents (Hall's great-grandparents). Grandpa David subsequently sponsored not only the rest of their family - aunts, uncles and cousins - but 100 impoverished Jews from their shtetl who wanted a respite from their life in Czarist Russia. On this particular Passover the family was in the middle of the service when the phone rang. It was the stationmaster from the Canadian Pacific Railroad. "I have this family - they gave me a piece of paper with your number. What do I do with them?" the stationmaster asked urgently. "Put them in a taxi," Rusen said, "and tell the driver to make it quick." The new arrivals were cousins who had set foot on the shores of Canada from the Ukraine on the first night of Passover, Hall says. "They were sponsored by my grandfather. Grandma ordered us all to stop eating - 'We have six more mouths to feed,' she told us. "Because the cousins spoke no English and we spoke no Ukrainian, we communicated in Yiddish," Hall said. "There were four children - Aaron, Kieva, Miriam and Numa. "There were more tears, but they were for joy, as my grandmother began babbling in Ukrainian to these cousins she hadn't seen in 21 years." Fifty years later Hall was speaking in Canada at a large Hadassah fund-raiser. He was retelling the story of how a poor Russian family walked into his grandfather's seder and changed the way he looked at the world. "After I finished speaking, people began gathering around me," Hall remembers. "One very pretty woman whispered, 'That story sounds familiar. My name is Miriam Margulies. Could we be related?' "I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck," says Hall. He told her, "Miriam, didn't you hear the story? There were four children - Kieva, Aaron, Numa and Miriam. Your family crashed our Passover seder. "We both cried," Hall says, tearing up. That Passover seder sticks in Hall's mind as one of the defining moments of his life, where he learned about charity, philanthropy and from "Fiddler on the Roof" - "We all know who we are and what God expects of us." "That was my grandfather's creed and mine," Hall radiates. "My grandfather was like Tevye the Milkman. I guess in my own way, I am too." Hall's wife Marilyn (an award-winning producer of "A Woman Named Golda" and "Do You Remember Love?") compiled "The Celebrity Kosher Cookbook: A Sentimental Journey with Food, Mothers and Memories," with Rabbi Jerome Cutler. The recipes, anecdotes and jokes were from Jewish entertainers. Originally published in 1975, the book was a fund-raiser for the Synagogue for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles and other Jewish charities. Monty Hall's Sweet and Sour Herring Hall learned how to make this recipe from a friend. When time was scarce, Hall would make the recipe from Matjes herring he would buy in a tin. This sweet/sour appetizer developed quite a following; it was the perfect appetizer for Passover. One year he and Alan Alda went to a second night seder. "I brought two jars of the herring; we passed the first jar around and it disappeared," Hall says. "So, apparently, had the second jar. We looked high and low for it; then I walked into the kitchen and there was Alan, devouring the herring, a guilty look on his face. I've never let him forget it," Hall laughs. You can buy pickling spices in a package or combine your own. Matjes herring take one hour to soak. Salt herrings might take longer, so talk to the fish man about it.
Marilyn Hall's Favorite Baba Ghanouj (Eggplant with Tahina) From "The Flavor of Jerusalem" by Joan Nathan and Judy Stacey.
Walter Matthau's Raspberry Tea From "Celebrity Kosher Cookbook." Beloved comedic actor Walter Matthau called his mother an "Emese aishes chayil," "truly, a woman of valor." He described how she would boil a chicken with eight or nine different soup greens for about 10 hours so that "All the goodness of the greens went into the soup." The only way she could get her son to eat the chicken was smothering it in a number of condiments such as sauerkraut, mustard, catsup, horseradish, Russian dressing, Italian dressing and more. "She had 17 spices so I could dip the chicken into them," Matthau admitted. Crystallized sugar or "rock candy" can be found at Middle Eastern markets.
To make tea: Place a spoon into the glass. This will prevent it from breaking. Add hot tea, raspberry jam and candle sugar to taste. Makes 4 glasses or 1 pot of tea. Ross Martin's Fleishidike Matzos (Non-dairy Matzos) From "Celebrity Kosher Cookbook." Actor Ross Martin was born Martin Rosenblatt and grew up on New York's Lower East Side. His mother and grandmother, with whom they lived, cooked side by side in a manner Martin called "kinesthetic," meaning the recipes were done by feel, not measure. "My mother's recipes say things like "you'll shake in a little," he relays. If you asked her much that was, "her only answer would be, 'You'll see how much you need.' If a recipe turned out badly she'd say, with disappointment, 'It isn't faithful to me this time.'"
Henny Youngman's Essig Fleish with Prunes and Apricots (Pot Roast with Fruit Ragout) Adapted from "Celebrity Kosher Cookbook" by Marilyn Hall and Rabbi Jerome Cutler. One of the most famous Jewish jokes of all time was Youngman's "Take my wife ... please." He used to thrill audiences with self-deprecating food jokes, usually about his wife's or his mother's cooking: "My wife's cooking is so bad ... pygmies send their darts to be dipped into her soup to shoot at their enemies." "My mother's cooking was so bad ... her matzo balls were in demand for hockey pucks."
Kirk Douglas' Chicken in Dill Sauce From "Celebrity Kosher Cookbook." Kirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch Demsky, the son of a poor Russian immigrant ragpicker. "While other kids dreamed of baseball I dreamed of chicken soup," he laughs. When Douglas got his first big break with a major studio, he couldn't wait to tell his mother. "Ma, I just signed to star in three motion pictures," he reported, excitedly. She replied, "That's nice, dear, but are you getting enough to eat?"
Morey Amsterdam's Matzo Shalet From "Celebrity Kosher Cookbook." Best known for his role as a wisecracking television writer on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Amsterdam remembers fondly his mother's penchant for "international delicacies" such as calf brains and eggs, which she loved making for his father's breakfast. One day Amsterdam overheard her placing an order with the butcher. "Hello, have you got any brains..." She stopped and corrected herself: "I mean, have you got any brains at all?" Amsterdam fell off the couch laughing; his mother couldn't face the butcher for weeks. This sweet, fruity side dish can be scrambled with eggs for a delicious variation of matzo brei.
|
