Tis the season for garlic and matza

Fresh garlic season is upon us and every year I try to do the whole plaited garlic drying thing, but it never seems to last, at some point I find it gets mold or starts to rot, summers are too humid.

My plan this year is to try plaiting and drying some in the kitchen where we just double glazed our door, so hopefully better insulated against the humid summer weather, and freeze the remaining garlic.

Hedging my bets, but maybe this will be the year I succeed in drying out the fresh garlic and making it last?

Meanwhile I'm taking some of the fresh garlic greens along with the garlic itself to use in my chicken soup (well, it's really turkey soup, but same idea). I find they add great flavour and this time of year I use them instead of leeks. Putting up a big pot with kneidlakh (matza balls) for this Passover holiday weekend.

Usually this week we'd do a communal matza bake the traditional way, so much fun and a great way to get everyone involved from kids to grandparents.

The trick with matzah is that to be considered kosher for Passover the entire matza making process, including baking must happen in under 18 minutes. It's a mad race to mix the dough, knead, roll it out and get it in and out of the oven within the time limit or else it is considered leaven. Not only that, but everything must be thoroughly scrubbed down within that 18 minutes so that not even a dot of dough or flour might remain stuck to anything, hands, surfaces, utensils, not a thing. Would make a great tv game show.

It's a rubric that lends itself to team work and a fun community project, with everyone assigned a job, including someone to man the stopwatch, do a count down and call time.

Last spring we were under strict lockdown, only allowed 1000 metres from our homes, no mixing with anyone outside our households. Definitely no community baking, even some families who traditionally bake their own had trouble getting out to bring the fresh spring water used to make matza.

This year with Israel's high vaccination rates the covd situation is much better but in most places still no communal matza baking or else just for those who have been vaccinated, so children under 16 who are not yet eligible for vaccination can't participate, though some schools managed to have matza baking. Lets hope for next year for everyone.

I will miss using matza we've made with our community, but we'll be fine with only bought matza this year, both machine made (square) and handmade (round, think pita/matza hybrid). I see so much matza lasagne, farfel and matza brei in our immediate future.