karpas

Karpas is the green vegetable dipped in salt water early in the Passover seder--parsley in my family, symbolizing Spring rebirth and renewal and the tears of slavery. I've always liked the notion that Passover asks for us to recall the deprivations of the past even as we recline in the luxury of present freedom. We tell it as a progression from the salt tears of bondage to the hope and greens of liberty, but I think Passover is also the story of how to think about two things at once. It's about how to hold on to hope in the face of hardship and delays and 40 years in the desert, and how to celebrate the first eggs and green vegetables of Spring.

On my last jog out to Bartram's, I arrived just as the gardener finished prepping the beds by the house. Nice wide beds of dark, crumbly earth, raked flat around a few carefully preserved weeds. What are those, I asked? And she said watercress, and that I should try a leaf. I've always liked mustardy greens, and these were that. What's better than the first greens of spring? Ones that lasted all through Philadelphia's snowiest recorded winter, and put you in mind of winters past and the spring still to come. And tasty too!