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March 19, 1999/2 Nisan 5759, Vol. 51, No. 25
Passing the matzo-ball test
MICHELLE ACKERMAN
Staff Writer
"Mmmm, smell that?" I think to myself as my stomach growls.
I take another deep breath as the smell of fresh, homemade chicken soup wafts under my nose from the kitchen.
Grasping my blue Maxwell House Hagaddah even tighter, I fidget restlessly in my mom's dining room chair. Grandpa Milt sits next to me. Noticing my movements, he reaches over to squeeze my hand, smiling at my anticipation.
Finally, I hear my dad utter the closing words of the first part of the seder.
As my mom pushes back her chair and starts to make her way to the kitchen, the sound of her heels on the polished wooden floor is drowned out by a shout.
"Make sure I get a hard matzo ball," yells Uncle Jerry at my mom's retreating back.
The scramble begins. The dash for the kitchen - and the perfect matzo ball - is on.
While my aunt, uncle, mom and cousins like hard matzo balls, my dad and Grandpa like them soft. My sister and I just like them.
The hard vs. soft matzo ball debate is one that has been in my family for as long as I can remember, and remained a major part of every Passover family meal - until the day I tried my hand at making them.
It was a year ago, and my mom was having the seder at her house.
"Can I help?" I asked. "What can I do? Let me make something," I pleaded.
I should have kept my mouth shut.
Carefully, she wrote out the directions for me: 1 cup of matzo meal, 1/2 cup of water ...
"You sure you don't mind?" she asked, looking doubtful.
"No problem," I thought. "I'm great at chicken soup and I can make meatballs. How hard could this be?"
I woke up early on the day of the seder, all set to make the perfect mixture of hard and soft matzo balls. I poured. I mixed. I chilled. I rolled. And then I dropped my strangely sticky matzo balls into the pot of boiling water.
My boyfriend, Dan, who was helping me, turned to me with a look of pure doubt in his eyes.
"Are you sure they're supposed to look like that?" he asked.
I looked at the directions again. I had done everything I was supposed to do, added what I was supposed to add in all the right measurements.
My sickly, mis-shapen matzo balls began to float to the top. Gingerly, I scooped them out.
For some reason, they were gray. Mushy, ugly gray.
"You try them," I insisted.
Looking at me with that "this is one of the things I can (and will) hold over you in the future looks," Dan scooped off a tiny piece and put it in his mouth.
"Actually, it doesn't taste so bad," he said.
Nevertheless, I took the batch, dumped it down the garbage disposal and determinedly started measuring again.
This time, they came out perfect - I have no idea how, or why, since I made them exactly the same.
When I brought them to my mom's that night, everyone "oohed" and "aahed."
I felt like I'd achieved something great, and I was proud, especially when Aunt Lois took me aside.
"Honey," she said. "For some reason, no one's matzo balls come out right the first time; it's like a Jewish law."
Thou shalt not have matzo balls of perfection on thy first ever try.
Like my naming ceremony and bat mitzvah, my matzo balls were a rite of passage, a test of my knowledge of culture, religion and family recipes.
Please pass the soup.
If there are young adult (20-40) issues that you would like to see coverage of in future issues of the Jewish News, send your ideas and/or comments to: Michelle Ackerman, Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, 1625 E. Northern Ave., Suite 106, Phoenix, AZ 85020 or email michelle@jewishaz.com.
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