Try as I might, I could not muster the time or energy to blog on Passover. Much like our ancestors, my experience of the holiday began with the food preparations. Thursday before the holiday was devoted to purchasing. I went from store to store to find all that I needed for the three day beginning (Shabbat and the first two days, including the two seders) and all the family I was truly delighted were coming. My seemingly, out-of-character, apparently indulgent - not to mention expensive - food shopping spree so alarmed my credit card company that they froze my card temporarily, not for lack of funds but for suspicious activity.

Thursday night was devoted to the final marathon cleaning, putting hametz dishes away and bringing down the passover ware.

Friday was devoted to cooking. And more cooking.

Friday night, we were off and running.

Between exhaustion, guests, work and the incessant cycle of cooking/cleaning/cooking/cleaning, there was little time to blog. For the reality of a home that that is the hub of Passover is that for a whole week, every morsel of food that we eat has to be prepared from scratch, by hand in one’s kitchen that very week (unless you are really good and either transform your kitchen weeks earlier or have the indulgent luxury of a separate kitchen. Or I supposed you could hire someone to cook for you, but now we trespass in the territory of make-believe.) No eating out, no buying prepared food, no dipping into the freezer for food you cooked weeks earlier for such a occasion.  The constancy of the kitchen, for those of us who ordinarily spend as little time as possible there, is all-consuming.

But that is not the point of this blog. Just an explanation for the blog blackout period.

The point of the blog is this: a month before Passover, I disconnected our second refrigerator/freezer. It has become de rigueur in the burbs to have two, sometimes three, refrigerators and freezers. But that appliance is one of the greediest power eaters in our homes. A 20 cubic feet refrigerator/freezer (roughly the one I have and most likely you too) uses 2700 KW a year.  That annual usage is exceeded in most typical homes only by the water heater and air conditioner. (To check out typical home energy consumption rates, go to http://www.oksolar.com/technical/consumption.html)

We too have two r/fs. And that was perhaps, maybe, somewhat defensible when my children were smaller and thus the household larger. But today, there are three of us in this large home. So a month before Passover, I determined, by fiat, that we were going to reduce our cold food storage to what we could fit into one unit, our 19.7 cubic foot refrigerator/freezer in the kitchen.