Oh, yes, a purple bouquet "just because" does sound wonderful, Askye.

Hil, good luck getting some relaxation in.

JZ, I hope it does turn out to be fixable and the guy gloms right onto the car.

Oh! I have a story to share.

So, I informed my mom that, when she's making plans for Passover food, she should keep in mind that I'm not eating eggs anymore. (For the seder, we go to my aunt's house, and my aunt cooks a few things but we buy most of the food already made.) So my mom passed this along to my aunt. My aunt said that she wanted to make me potato latkes that I could eat. She found a recipe using Ener-G Egg Replacer, which is kosher, but she wasn't sure if it was kosher for Passover. She looked up the organization that certified it kosher, so that she can call them and ask, but it's a NJ number, and she doesn't want to make an unnecessary long-distance call, so she emails my mom and asks her to call and ask if this stuff is Kosher for Passover, since it will be a local call for her.

My mom says fine. She calls, figuring she'll get a secretary or somebody who can just look it up. They transfer her call to the head rabbi of the organization. She's totally embarrassed and feels like this is a ridiculous question to have to get transferred all the way to the head rabbi, but she asks anyway, and also asks if there's another similar product that is kosher for Passover if this one isn't. He says he's not sure, but he'll get back to her.

Ten minutes later, he actually does call back. The product she asked about is not kosher for Passover, and he can't find any similar ones that are. My mom figures, since she's got the head rabbi of a kosher-certifying organization on the phone anyway, she might as well ask him to settle a debate she'd been having with some people at work -- are chicken feet kosher? She thinks they are, her coworkers think they're not.

If the chicken feet come from a kosher chicken, the rabbi says, they are indeed kosher, though he's not sure where you could buy kosher chicken feet.

The drunk people outside are cheering for something. I'm not sure what. The way the overhang is constructed, I can hear them, but can't see them.

Hee! But what about the latkes?

I keep hearing, "Do it! Do it! Go go GO!" then a pause of about five seconds, then wild cheering. What the hell is going on out there?

Oh, my aunt found a recipe online that uses apple sauce instead of eggs. There are enough Jewish vegans that there are vegan recipes for practically every traditional Jewish food online.

"Do it! Do it! Go go GO!"

sounds like a drinking contest.

So... for Passover things have to be more kosher than usual?

So... for Passover things have to be more kosher than usual?

Yep. No leavening. I'm betting that the issue with this egg replacer is that it has corn starch.

sounds like a drinking contest.

Hmm. Possibly. But would they do that outside? I'm nearly certain that it's undergrads, most of whom are too young to drink legally.

my curiosity would have gotten the better of me by now.

Well, finding out what's going on would require getting dressed, going outside, and walking around the block to the entrance to the alley, and then finding where in the alley they are, since there are a bunch of little nooks and stuff.

This is the egg replacer in question: [link] It's pretty good for baking and stuff like that.