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This Jewish Holiday Begins at Sundown April 2.

Passover begins with a seder, a family meal that includes many joyous songs and a reading of the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt.

In 2007, the Jewish holiday Passover begins at sundown on April 2 and lasts through sundown April 10. As Jews celebrate the flight of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, many rituals are performed to mark this holy period.

1. Passover, also known as “Pesach,” is observed for seven or eight days, depending on where you live. Jews in Israel and Reform Jews, those who came through Europe, celebrate Passover for seven days. Jewish people living elsewhere in the world celebrate for eight days.

2. Passover also refers to the Biblical story of the 10th Plague. According to the Bible, God brought a plague on Egypt for keeping the Jews in bondage, and the first-born child in every Egyptian household was killed. However, God passed over the homes of the Israelites, allowing them to live. According to the Bible, Exodus 12:20-22, Moses instructed the Israelites to sacrifice a Passover lamb and put the blood of the lamb around their doorframes.

3. Passover can be in March or April. It begins the 15th day of the Hebrew month Nisan. A lunisolar calendar, still based on 12 months, is used to determine religious holidays.

4. What is Seder? Passover begins with a ceremonial feast called the Seder. At the Seder, the story of the flight of the Israelites is read from a book called the Haggadah.
The Seder plate contains foods that have special meaning for this holiday:

Haroseth
Parsley (dipped in salt water)
Roasted egg
Shank Bone
Bitter herbs

5. Unleavened bread is eaten during Passover. According to the Bible, when the Israelites fled, they didn’t have time to let their bread rise, so they made flat, unleavened bread called matzah (also spelled matzo) instead. Therefore, Jews eat matzahs during Passover.

6. There are several foods that may not be consumed during Passover. Chometz, or anything that contains barley, wheat, rye, oats and spelt — a kind of wheat often fed to livestock — is forbidden during Passover. Some Jews avoid corn, rice, peanuts and legumes. Foods not cooked within 18 minutes of contact with water are also forbidden.

7. Orthodox Jews Prepare Their Homes, Cooking and Eating Utensils for Passover. Sinks, refrigerators, ovens and stoves must be scoured and left unused for at least 24 hours before Passover. Special plates, “Passover china,” must be used, and silverware is boiled.

Some recipes for Passover:
Marinated Chicken

2 chickens, quartered
1/2cup wine
juice of 2 oranges
juice of 2 lemons
2 tablespoons olive oil
2-3 large onions, sliced
10 potatoes, halved

Clean chickens and place in large pot, upside down. Mix wine and juice and pour over chickens. Cover and marinate in refrigerator overnight.

Remove chicken from pot. Pour juice into container and set aside.

Coat bottom of Dutch oven with olive oil. Add layer of sliced onions and potatoes. Top with chicken. Pour half of marinade over chicken. Cook over low flame, checking frequently and adding water as necessary, to prevent sticking.

Mix remaining marinade with 1/2 cup water and pour over chicken ten minutes before end of cooking. May also be baked in oven following the above instructions, at 350° for 1 1/2 hours. Serves 6-8.

Potato Kugel

10 large potatoes
1 carrot
1 onion
5 eggs, beaten
3/4 - 1 teaspoon salt

Peel all vegetables and shred in food processor or hand grate. Mix in eggs and salt. Pour into greased ‘wonder baker’ and cook over low flame for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until brown and crispy.

Stewed Zucchini

1 onion
juice of 1/2 - 1 lemon (2 tablespoons)
2-3 medium zucchini, peeled
1/2 teaspoon salt
4-5 tomatoes, peeled
olive oil for frying

Peel and slice all vegetables. Saute onion in olive oil until translucent. Add rest of vegetables and seasoning. Cook over low flame, 10-15 minutes. Serves 3-4.

Variation: After cooking 15 minutes, add 4 beaten eggs and cook for an additional few minutes until done.

Passover Sponge Cake

7 eggs, separated
1 whole egg
1 cup potato starch, sifted twice
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 1/2 cups sugar

Separate eggs. Add the whole egg to yolks, then beat whites until stiff gradually adding sugar. Set aside.
In separate bowl, beat yolks. Add lemon juice. Gently fold yolks into whites. Gradually fold potato starch into batter.
Pour into ungreased tube pan and bake at 350 for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Invert cake to cool.

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The way a table is set contributes to the ambiance of a meal as much as the food and the wine. A few simple guidelines will help you establish the tone you want.

Glasses
Each place should be set with all the glasses that will be used during dinner (except dessert-wine glasses, which may be brought out when the dessert is served). The water glass belongs to the right of the plate, just above the knife. Wineglasses should be set to the right of the water glasses in the order in which they will be used.

China
The only pieces of china that should be part of a table setting are the bread plate and a charger, if desired. A charger (or service plate) is a purely decorative oversize plate used to add texture, color, or pattern to the table. Chargers may be made of china, pewter, brass — even straw or papier-mache. Food is never served directly on a charger, but a first-course soup bowl or salad plate can be set on top of it. The charger should be cleared along with the bowl or plate.

Silverware
A proper silverware setting follows one simple rule, no matter how formal or relaxed the event: Set the silverware on the table in the order it will be used, from the outside in. The fork for the first course is the one farthest to the left; to the right of the plate, the knife for the first course is the farthest to the right. Any spoons needed before dessert (say, a soupspoon), should be placed to the right of the knives. Dessert utensils should always be placed horizontally above the plate, or they can be brought in later, with the dessert course.

Glassware:
1. Water glass
2. Red-wine glass
3. White-wine glass
4. Champagne flute
5. All-purpose glass

China:
1. Dinner plate
2. Salad plate
3. Cup
4. Saucer
5. Bread-and-butter plate
6. Charger
7. Dessert plate
8. Soup bowl

Flatware:
1. Salad fork
2. Dinner fork
3. Dinner knife
4. Soupspoon
5. Teaspoon
6. Butter knife
7. Fish fork
8. Fish knife
9. Dessert fork

Table Setting
While a harmonious table maintains a uniform level of formality, creating a mix-and-match table from your collections of china, glassware, and silverware is appropriate on many occasions — and has the benefit of providing you with a unique table setting for each event. Just keep in mind that something should tie the elements together: If you combine dishes and flatware from different periods and styles, make sure that they share similar proportion or complementary lines.

Dessert Table Setting
When dessert is served, all wineglasses (except dessert-wine glasses), bread plates, and salt and pepper shakers should be cleared from the table. Dessert flatware can either be set above the dinner plate or charger at the initial table setting, or it can be carried in on a tray at dessert time, along with coffee cups and saucers. Water glasses remain on the table for the duration of the meal.

U.S. women who eat a lot of beef while pregnant give birth to sons who grow up to have low sperm counts, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Pesticides, hormones or contaminants in cattle feed may be why pregnant women in the U.S. who consume a lot of beef give birth to sons who grow up have to low sperm count, according to researchers.

They believe pesticides, hormones or contaminants in cattle feed may be to blame. Chemicals can build up in the fat of animals that eat contaminated feed or grass, and cattle were and are routinely given hormones to boost their growth.

“In sons of ‘high beef consumers’ (more than seven beef meals/week), sperm concentration was 24.3 percent lower,” the researchers wrote in their report, published in the journal Human Reproduction.

The team at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York studied data on the partners of 387 pregnant women in five U.S. cities between 2000 and 2005, and on the mothers of the fathers-to-be.

Of the 51 men whose mothers remembered eating the most beef, 18 percent had sperm counts classified by the World Health Organization as sub-fertile.

“The average sperm concentration of the men in our study went down as their mothers’ beef intake went up. But this needs to be followed carefully before we can draw any conclusions,” said Shanna Swan, who led the team.

Swan said she would like to study infertile men to see if similar findings might hold for them.

“I was really surprised when we found this. It was a really strong association,” Swan said in a telephone interview.

Swan is perhaps best known for controversial findings that male sperm counts are falling in many regions. She has been doing research to find out if environmental hormones may be to blame.

“We know from rodent studies that even tiny amounts of estrogen in utero (while in the womb) can affect sperm count,” Swan said.

TALKING TO MOTHERS

She and colleagues set up a study of pregnant women and their partners, with funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

“They came in, we got a sperm count, they did an interview,” Swan said. Starting in 2000, they also gave questionnaires to the mothers of the men.

So her team went back through the questionnaires and the data on sperm count and analyzed the data.

She admits the study is limited — this type of study, called a retrospective study, is not as powerful as a study that follows people in real-time.

But she believes that women can remember fairly accurately what they ate while pregnant.

“When you are pregnant you are very aware of what you eat — you are watching your weight and some things make you sick and you need to get enough of x and y so you focus on that,” she said.

The mothers of the men were asked only if they ate beef more than once a day or less — something Swan believes they could remember accurately.

Swan now wants to test young men living in the European Union , where hormones have been banned in beef since 1988.

“Given the widespread use of hormones to stimulate animal growth in the United States, the findings of this study that a mother’s consumption of beef could be linked with a reduced sperm count in her son is plausible,” said Alastair Hay, professor of environmental toxicology at Britain’s University of Leeds.

Swan said beef eating was the only real link between the women whose sons had low sperm counts.

“Almost nobody ate a lot of other meat and if they did, they also ate a lot of beef,” she said.

source: Maggie Fox
Reuters
WASHINGTON