OVERVIEW:

Storytelling and good food are at the center of Passover! So what better way to prepare for (or celebrate) Passover than with this Passover Recipe Swap?! Gather your community to share Passover recipes from your house or from your community members. With each recipe residents or community members will share the significance of the recipe, instructions for making the recipe, and even offer the chance to taste the dish! Guests will also be invited to make/take recipe cards so that recipes can be brought home and added to the rotation of Passover recipes for years to come!

TIP: Consider applying for the Jewish Culture and Holiday Grant to cover the cost of the recipe card supplies and ingredients to make the special Passover recipes.

MATERIALS:

• Printed recipes
• Index cards or cardstock
• Writing implements (pencils, pens, markers, etc…)
• Stickers (Passover stickers?!)
• Computer or phone
• Speaker
• Passover Playlist:
  • Passover Parody Playlist
  • (Mostly) Chill/Soulful Passover Playlist
  • Nisan Playlist from At the Well
  • The Prince of Egypt Soundtrack
• Optional (but encouraged): ingredients to make the 3-4 recipes shared in the recipe swap.

PROGRAM OUTLINE: ~1 hour

• Program Prep
• Welcome Guests/Intro (10 min)
• Recipe Sharing/Tasting (30 min)
• Recipe Card Making (20 min)

Program Details

Program Prep:

• Collect 3-4 Passover recipes from residents or community members. Family/personal recipes are ideal!
• Decide whether you are going to make the recipes as part of the program (this is highly encouraged!
• Have the people sharing the recipes answer or prepare to answer the following questions.
  • Introduce the recipe to us. Tell us about the dish itself. What does it taste like? What does it smell like?
  • Share a specific memory you associate with this recipe.
  • Is there a person/people you associate with this recipe? If so, who? Tell us about this person.
  • Anything else we should know about this recipe or the memories associated with it?
    • NOTE: Ideally, the people sharing recipes can/will be at the event, but if they are not, have the person who shared the recipe write their answers to the previous questions, and then have someone at the event read their answers to the group.
    • TIP: Set a time limit for the people sharing so they can know how much to prepare and you can keep the event moving.
• Decide if you are going to have guests write down the recipes themselves or just decorate recipe cards.
  • If you are going have guests write down the recipes themselves, print out a few copies of each recipe. Make sure they are easily readable with clear instructions.
  • If you are going to have pre-printed copies of recipes for guests to decorate, format (leaving room for decoration/notes), and print out enough copies of the recipe for each of your guests to take home.

Beginning — Welcome Guests/Intro (10 min):

• Welcome everyone! Do a go around of names and pronouns.
• Consider asking an icebreaker question
  • Ex. What item on the seder plate describes you? Or What’s your favorite or least favorite way to eat matzah? Or what’s your favorite Passover food?
• SAY: Since it is the month of Nisan and Passover is [NEAR/UPON US/JUST HAPPENED] we want to take some time to do a recipe swap of Passover recipes that are near and dear to our hearts…and our stomachs. Tonight we will hear from [INSERT THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO ARE SHARING] community members about their favorite Passover recipe. [OPTIONAL: AND WE’LL GET TO TASTE THEM!] After we hear about these wonderful dishes, we’ll also have time to make recipe cards to take home so you all can add these great dishes to your Passover cookbook.

Middle — Recipe Sharing/Tasting (30 min):

• MH host welcomes resident/community member to share about their recipe.
• Resident/community member shares with the group using these questions as a guide.
  • Introduce the recipe to us. Tell us about the dish itself. What does it taste like? What does it smell like?
  • Share a specific memory you associate with this recipe.
  • Is there a person/people you associate with this recipe? If so, who? Tell us about this person.
  • Anything else we should know about this recipe or the memories associated with it?
  • NOTE: Feel free to get creative with the format of the sharing. Set it up like a mock interview on a TV show, ask the people sharing to make a little slideshow, have the people sharing bring pictures or sentimental family items to show.
• Leave time for guests to taste the dish and ask questions/shmooze.
• Repeat the three previous steps for each of the 3-4 people presenting.

End — Recipe Card Making (20 min):

• Depending on if you are going to have guests write down the recipes themselves or just decorate recipe cards. Pick one of the two options below.
  • If you are going have guests write down the recipes themselves, put out the printed recipes and the paper/craft supplies. Put on a fun playlist (The Prince of Egypt soundtrack anyone?!). And give guests time to copy down the recipes and decorate their recipe cards.
  • If you are going to have pre-printed copies of recipes for guests to decorate, put out the pre-printed recipe cards and the art supplies and give guests time to decorate the recipe cards while they listen to a sweet Passover playlist.