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I am forty one years old, and I have battled with this problem for most of my life—every year, when Spring beckons images of dewy meadows, daffodils, and fuzzy chicks, I am painfully reminded of how this time of year, being a Jew is the definitive “odd-man-out”. Today at our local gourmand market, the Easter displays were over flowing with bejeweled foil wrapped eggs, hatched from must what be the most magnificent birds ever bred in captivity. In fact, I can only imagine the painstaking labor of collecting these rarest of eggs, available only once a year in a multitude of speckled hues, from atop their highest of perches in a magical place not unlike Seuss-ville. The gorgeous array of gold foiled bunnies and pastel marshmallow chicks, dusted with the finest of powdered gem stones, cellophane bags of brightly colored jelly beans a light the shelves with childlike whimsy and a faint, sticky sweet whisper “buy me, and eat me up, it is Easter, after all”.

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I will be the first one to admit that this seasonal depression stems from absolute jealousy. As a Jew, our big Spring holiday, Passover, a last supper of sorts that lasts hours and hours and hours, and then continues the following day, actually for a week, falls, traditionally, a week or so after Easter, every year. There are no gaily colored candies to commemorate our Holiday, in fact, it is a bit of a gruesome week, with no leavened bread, (ie. No pizza, cake, cookies, cupcakes, rolls, tortillas, etc…) repeated references to the slaying of the first born and cattle and lots and lots of locusts. Now don’t get me wrong, in theory, Passover is an awesome holiday, I actually look forward to it every year, because it symbolizes freedom, tenacity, and civil rights, ancient and current; it is a very self affirming holiday, and bonus--you get to watch “The Ten Commandments” with Yul Brenner, Edward G. Robinson, and the oh so lovely Yvonne De Carlo (Lily Munster), and the food, though fairly predictable, is pretty delicious in an old world kind of way.

> But we have no good candy, no-try if you might, but your Aunt Tillie’s chocolate covered matzo does not compare to the plethora of Easter Sweets. Now, I was thinking today at the store that there is definitely an untapped market here-the New Passover Confection craze. Foil wrapped milk chocolate mini lamb shank bones, vials of crimson red sugar syrup “blood”, gummy frogs and locusts, super sour salty tears in cute little dropper bottles in a myriad of rainbow colors, candied coated “lice”, sugared hallow eggs intricately depicting the parting of the red sea inside. Given some time, money, and an evening brainstorming with a handful of my drunken friends, we could come up with many, many more ideas. So, look for our festive Passover Candy end cap display next year at your local super market…This is a veritable gold mine, I am already coming up with more ideas as I type his: build your own chocolate pyramids with nugat-y mortar, jaw-breaker matzo balls, Swedish gefilte fish, now, if I could only come up with something to use all that damn parsley in…