Our breakfast room has become an island of "chametz," the depository for all the leavened, non-Passover items we plan to consume or use before the holiday begins in just a few days.
On the table: an almost empty box of Fruit Loops, one and a half bottles of caffeine free Diet Coke, nine bottles of diet peach Snapple, half a rye bread, half a whole-wheat challa, a can of roasted (unsalted) almonds, two small bags of pistachio nuts, three packets of Quaker Oats instant oatmeal (low sugar), biscotti, pumkin seeds, a mini bottle of Pellogrino, three bottles of Martinelli's sparkling cider (they may be a tad old, so I'm not sure how "sparkling" they are), a mini packet of peanuts that I took home from some flight, one-and-a-half chocolate cheese Danish.
On a utility cart: our toaster oven.
In the scrupulously-cleaned-for-Passover fridge, quarantined from the food that is kosher for Passover: half a loaf of seven-grain bread, French Vanilla non-fat creamer (an interesting oxymoron), two pieces of broiled chicken, a salami.
I'm a creature of habit. I need my creamer in my morning and mid-afternoon coffee. I figure that I will have just enough creamer to last until Friday, when the entire house will be "chametz" free. We probably won't finish the bread, and certainly not the Fruit Loops. We bought it for our grandchildren, and I don't even like it. But we are loath to toss anything, in case we run short before Friday. (My friend Judy Gruen writes about her pre-Passover meals.)
It's not as though there's a shortage of kosher-for-Passover edibles in the house. I spent the equivalent of our mortgage payment on Sunday for food to sustain us through the eight days of Passover. And I can live without bread or rice or pasta for eight days.
But it's almost like a game -- rationing the "chametz," making it last.
And there's always chocolate...
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