Tradition Counts as Much as Raw

Today's Food:
Breakfast:
Blueberry elixir with coconut water and water, frozen blueberries and banana, psyllium seed powder, flax seeds, raw crunchy almond butter, cacao nibs and agave
a few slices of Manna carrot raisin bread (gave the rest away, as I'm done with grain during the 8 days of Passover)

32 ounces lemon water

Snack:
Raw cashews

Dinner (non-raw!):
Shmurah matzoh ( hand-baked matzoh for Passover that is crisp and yummy)
vege chopped liver (made from nuts and maybe peas? though I don't think so because we don't eat peas on Passover)
eggplant salad with olive oil
Charoset: A specialty for the holiday, used to symbolize the mortar that the Jews as slaves used to make the bricks.
a plate of food with: grilled veges, raw carrot and walnut salad (thank you, Fredi!), tomato cucumber salad, and a piece of my mom's (and Nana's) Farfel Pudding that my cousin made tonight, which contains, apples, walnuts, matzoh meal, matzoh farfel and sugar.
One more vege dish that I can't remember

Dessert (yes, I had dessert!):
1/2 special bakery macaroon with chocolate, thin slice of chocolate ganache, 1/2 tortle (chocolate, walnuts and sugar that looks like a "turtle) and some raspberries and blueberries

I love Passover. We always had the best seders growing up, steeped with tradition and tons of fun. Today it's a time I also think of and miss my dad, who has been gone for almost 3 years. When I was a little girl, he would take me with him through a ritual done the night before Passover, where you symbolically clean your house of all bread and grains. He would place small pieces of bread around the entire house, including the basement, and as guided by the doctrines of the ritual, we had a wooden spoon, a feather and a candle. As we crept through the house, room by room, the game was for me to locate each piece of bread in delight. Then my dad would take the feather and bend down to "sweep" the bread onto the wooden spoon. This went on until we had made our way through all the rooms. In the morning, I would watch him outside as he burned the bread and said a prayer. Then I knew it was really Passover.
To this day, I love ritual and engage in it and facilitate it as much as possible, from clearings to honorings to intentionings, I drum and chant and pray and summon in God and my angels, including my father.
I also love tradition as it extends to food. I love that my cousin Fredi made my Nana's and my mom's Farfel Pudding, and I thought about that and felt it as I took each bite. I loved sharing food with family and connecting with others around the table.
I loved the decadence of those Passover tortles that my mom always had at our seder table, too.
I loved the Charoset, as it always holds incredible memories of being in the kitchen with my mom and my first sister-in-law, who has since passed away, laughing and talking like girls and making Charoset together.
With every bite of food, I honor the holiday and the memories and the love and connection of family, as well as the cherished ones who are no longer with us.
Tomorrow I will be back to raw, and tomorrow night a second seder (stay tuned :)
When you choose to honor something important to you, do it completely and with full intention and appreciation.
Please write in and share your family traditions...