Celebrating Passover

Growing up, all Jewish holidays were a big deal for my family. We were five; my mother had a sister with a husband and two kids; their brother had a wife and five kids. And, of course, there was my grandmother, the matriarch of the tribe and solo cook for all feasts. She was a wonderful cook.

I would have loved to have helped, but I was a kid and wasn’t getting anywhere near her food. She was a clean freak. She eschewed germs. And to her, when she cooked, I was a germ. We were all germs, every last one of us. But I did get to taste.

My mother and her family grew up in an orthodox home and followed
all the rules, with which she really didn’t always agree. By the time
my mother was an adult, she had joined the Army, met and married my non-Jewish father, and began her life with her children as Jewish, but with a sprinkling of rules.

As I said, holidays were a big deal. Food was plentiful as were the mouths ready to consume it; all of us: Cousins, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and one very strict grandmother.

She made gefilte fish, charoset, chicken soup with kneidlach (matzo balls), chicken liver, brisket with potatoes and carrots, and sponge cake with fresh fruit.

It was difficult for any of us to get up from the table to clean. Jewish food is very filling and fattening. While it took me many years to appreciate and finally love gefilte fish — maybe because they look like little brain dumplings — the rest was just fine with me.

I’m offering two recipes today, exactly how my grandmother and my mother made them. I have not changed anything. The recipes are at least a century old, probably older, but I suggest using fresher ingredients. I’m happy to say that our two daughters also have carried on these recipes.

Chopped chicken liver

  • 1 lb. chicken livers – fat removed
  • 1 large yellow onion, chopped
  • 1 small yellow onion
  • 5 hard cooked eggs
  • chicken fat (schmaltz) 2 tablespoons to sauté livers and onions and more to mix with eggs and raw onion salt and pepper

Make sure the livers are dry. Melt the 2 tablespoons of fat in a 10-inch fry pan. Add livers and onions and cook until cooked through. No pink in livers, but do not overcook because it will taste dry.

Add this mixture to a wooden bowl and chop that along with the raw onion and the hard cooked eggs. As you mix, taste for seasonings and texture. I like the moisture the added chicken fat brings. I also don’t chop it to death. I like a few lumps in my chicken liver.

I use the fifth egg chopped fine in the food processor to sprinkle on top of liver.

In my family we would eat this before the soup and after the gefilte fish.

Chicken soup

  • 2 roasting chickens, quartered. Do not use the liver.
  • 1 bunch of fresh dill
  • 3 to 4 medium yellow onions, peeled and quartered
  • 1⁄2 bunch curly parsley
  • 4 to 5 large, peeled carrots
  • 4 to 5 celery stalks, leaves included
  • 2 turnips, peeled
  • 1 parsnip
  • Kosher salt
  • 10 to 15 peppercorn 

Using a 14-quart pot, add chicken and allow cold water to run into pot until it runs clear. Add enough water to cover by about three inches. Bring to a slow boil. Do not allow to come to a hearty boil which will darken the soup. As it boils, slowly remove the scum that comes to the top.

When all scum has been removed, take out the chicken parts that have the breast meat. Allow to cool to the touch and remove the meat from the breasts. I leave this meat intact until the next day so it doesn’t dry out. Then I pull the chicken apart to use in the soup when served. Return the bones to the soup and add onions, carrots, celery, turnips, dill, parsley, salt and pepper. Bring again to a slow boil. Allow to cook, uncovered, for about two to three hours. If any other scum has come to the top, remove it also. At this point I turn the soup off and allow it to cool. Strain the soup and put back the chicken parts. Refrigerate overnight, UNCOVERED.

The next morning you will have a layer of fat on the top. It can be removed easily with a large spoon. Discard. Bring the soup to a slow boil and add new vegetables. I use the same amount of new onions, celery, carrots, turnips, parsnips, parsley, and dill. Allow to simmer until the vegetables are tender. Usually about one and a half hours. If they are not tender, continue to cook until they are. Now you can taste for seasoning. Add kosher salt and white pepper.

I make white rice and/or noodles to go with the soup. If you make matza balls, follow the directions on the box of Manischewitz or Streit’s matzo meal. They will be delicious. Either of these recipes can be cut in half if you’re serving fewer people or you have the same aversion to leftovers as my husband.

Cold fronts slow down 2 largemouth bass

The cold fronts that sweep through South Florida in February have a dramatic effect on the fishing for largemouth bass.

Like locals who stay indoors when temperatures drop to the 40s and 50s, bass slow down and move as little as possible in chilly water. That’s when Team Yo-Zuri bass pro Mike Surman of Boca Raton said anglers have two choices.

“One is to flip heavy cover,” Surman said. “Two is to try to get
some type of reaction bite.

“That’s essentially the only way you can catch them in Florida,
They’re so used to warm weather, they just shut down. The
water is so shallow, it can cool down 10 degrees overnight.”

Over the past 30 years, Surman has been one of the most successful tournament pros in South Florida and won countless
tournaments.

He won the very first FLW Tour tournament in 1996, which was held on Lake Okeechobee during cold front conditions.

Back then, Surman flipped heavy mats of vegetation and that is still a productive cold front tactic. He especially likes to flip in hydrilla, an exotic aquatic plant that offers bass food and shelter.

“During a cold front, the hydrilla stays warm and they feel secure,” said Surman, who flips the middle of a hydrilla mat during a cold front. “They don’t have to go anywhere if they want to eat, but they also don’t have to move. They’re not afraid of predators, they’re holed up in their home, so to speak.

“Hyacinths are my second favorite. There’s a canopy over the top and it’s open underneath. When the bass are a little more active, they can move around.”

Flipping involves dropping a soft-plastic creature bait through the vegetation and, hopefully, right in front of a fish’s mouth. Even if they’re cold and not hungry, bass can’t help but grab the lure. It’s like putting a fudge brownie in front of a person who is cold and doesn’t feel like eating. That brownie is going to disappear.

Back in the 1990s, bass anglers used 1-ounce weights to punch through thick vegetation. Now they can use 2-ounce weights.

“In the old days we didn’t even have a fishing rod that could hold a 2-ounce weight. Now the rods are so good,” Surman said. “I always try to get by with the lightest weight I can use to get through the cover.

“If it’s totally canopied and there are hyacinths on top of hydrilla, that’s when I use a 2-ounce weight.”

Surman, who flips with 65-pound Yo-Zuri braided fishing line, explained that he likes a slower fall for his lure instead of having it plummet in front of a fish.

His “all-time favorite” flipping lure is a Gambler Crawdaddy, which looks like a crawfish. In severe cold front conditions, he’ll use the smaller Gambler BB Cricket.

“Sometimes that little cricket is easier to get into that real thick cover where they are,” Surman said. “There are all kinds of little grass shrimp and crawdads in there, so downsizing is definitely a good thing to try. But if I can get them to bite the Crawdaddy, I’ll use that.”

In the Everglades, Surman said there is not a lot of vegetation to flip, so he uses a square bill crankbait, which he reels so it hits rocks, downed trees, and other structures.

“That works all over the country,” said Surman, who uses Yo-Zuri Hardcore Crank crankbaits. “It bangs into the rocks, then goes up on its side until it starts tracking again. That’s usually when you’re going to get a bite.”

He fishes the crankbait on a 12-pound Yo-Zuri fluorocarbon line to help the lure get down and uses a Witch Doctor 50G crankbait rod that he helped design. It’s half fiberglass and half graphite, so it’s lighter than the old all-fiberglass crankbait rods.

Surman added that fishing is usually much better two or three days after a cold front because the water is warming and bass start feeding.

By then, the fish have moved out of the thick stuff and Surman locates them by making long casts with a Gambler Big EZ swimbait.

Once he finds the fish, he’ll pitch a Texas-rigged Fat Ace into holes in the grass or fish a wacky rigged plastic worm in open water.

In cold front conditions and after cold fronts, the chances of catching a big bass are excellent. Bass in southern Florida spawn during the winter months, so it’s common to catch female bass filled with eggs. If you catch a big female, handle her carefully and release her quickly so she can pass on her good genetics.

Warming weather conditions after a strong cold front resulted in a record-breaking professional bass tournament catch a little more than 20 years ago. A Bassmaster tournament was being held at Lake Toho in Kissimmee, where the water temperatures had been frigid for several days.

By the time the tournament started, the water had warmed for a couple of days and the bass moved onto the spawning beds in
the shallow creeks and canals feeding into the lake.

Dean Rojas of Arizona was one of the few fishermen who saw that the bass had moved onto their beds. On the first day, he set a Bassmaster record that still stands by catching five fish weighing a total of 45 pounds, 2 ounces. His catch included fish weighing 10 pounds, 13 ounces, 10-0, 9-0, 8-2, and 7-3, and he went on to win the four-day tournament.