by Amy Crocker

It's the Yesterday was the last day of Passover so today's our final lunch is all about using up the matzo and distracting yourself until sundown. Today's lunch is therefore not only a meal, but an activity. We will be making Matzo Houses - think of them as Gingerbread Houses, but with matzo. And instead of using frosting for the glue, use peanut butter. Cream cheese is also workable. Feel free to snack as you sculpt - the more matzo you eat now, the less you'll have to waste.

This activity-lunch can have an educational angle as well. If you try to build a Matzo Pyramid, it will help you empathize with the Jewish slaves in Egypt. It is after all, extremely difficult to cut matzo into triangles without having them crumble. Building the pyramid will cost you much time and frustration.

We also recommend using the matzo and peanut butter as bricks and mortar. Stack small pieces of matzo with a thin layer of peanut butter in between to make the Western Wall. If you have time, you can build the entire Second Temple of Jerusalem out of matzo. Then when you eat, the meal will become a re-enactment of the Roman sacking.

Get creative with this lunch. The more you think about it, the more aspects of Jewish history you will be able to create out of matzo.

by Amy Crocker

Today’s Kosher Lunch deals with a tough subject: gefilte fish. White fish mixed with matzo meal and served cold from a jar, gefilte fish has a very strong fish taste. Most people don’t like it ("cat food" is a common complaint). And those who do usually admit to having just grown accustomed to the taste. It is often eaten with horseradish, because horseradish is the only condiment strong enough to mask the flavor.

Many Jews buy it for a seder and by now have a half-empty jar in the fridge - one that will sit there until Yom Kippur because it's the unwritten eleventh commandment not to waste food. Gefilte fish will look even less appetizing after sundown on Tuesday. So while you still have extra horseradish, let’s finish that jar.

To do this, we recommend Gefilte Fish Kabobs. Kabobs are all about joining flavors. Squeezed between fruit and vegetables, you’ll hardly notice the fish. It'll be like free protein. We recommend using apples and onions (not necessarily next to each other), as those do a good job of distracting the palate. Add in vegetables like zucchini or tomato as desired. You can spread a thin layer of horseradish onto the gefilte fish slices before skewering or you can keep it on the side for dipping - depending how much other flavor you need. And who knows, maybe you, like your ancestors, will one day grow accustomed to the taste.

by Amy Crocker

Like the Egg McMuffin, the Egg McMatzo is one of those "breakfast" foods that is appropriate to eat for lunch. Most breakfast sandwiches come with sausage or bacon. Jews, of course, don't eat that. So we'll replace the pig with a potato pancake, or "latke."
Latkes are normally eaten on Chanukah, and they take forever to make from scratch.

Thankfully, Streit's has a kosher for Passover Potato Pancake Mix that takes all of five minutes to prepare - just add water and egg. Then fry it in lots and lots of oil.
You may be tempted to bust out the apple sauce and eat the latkes straight away. But put those aside for just a minute. Your patience will be rewarded. Mix an egg with a little bit of milk to make it fluffy. Don't worry about mixing milk and meat, eggs are in the neutral zone. Then fry it and fold it over to give it some height. Stack the latke and egg between two pieces of matzo and voila! Season with salt or ketchup as desired.

by Amy Crocker

This Passover staple is like a Tuna Melt, but of course, without the bread. It is important to put the tuna on the matzo first so that the cheese will melt over it. Some of you may be thinking, "I thought you couldn't eat milk and meat together." Have no fear, fish does not count as meat; fish falls into the neutral "pareve" zone. It's as kosher as lox and cream cheese.

We prefer to eat matzo melts open-faced, as we find it easier to bite through only one piece of unleavened bread. If, however, you are worried about getting your hands all full of tuna, you may place a second piece of matzo on top of the sandwich for holding, and slide it backwards as you bite along.

Don't forget to adorn the dish with celery sticks.

by Amy Crocker

How to: Heat your favorite burger patty. If you choose a veggie burger, be careful the ingredients do not include bread crumbs. Rice is ok according to Sephardic rabbis, though not for Ashkenazi Jews. An explanation can be found here.

Place the burger onto the matzo and add condiments as desired. Use ketchup sparingly as there is no bun to absorb it. If you put too much on, most of the ketchup will fall out the sides. It is usually easier to dip the burger, bite by bite, into the ketchup. Also, the same Sephardic/Ashkenazi debate applies to the corn syrup found in some ketchup.

In related news, Carly Fiorina made an unfortunate bread-related metaphor in a letter sent to her supporters honoring the first night of Passover. Oops.

Our sister site, Gothamist, snapped up this image of the perfect dinner idea for all of you interfaith couples out there who don't know how to celebrate the first night of Chanukah together.

We got a jump start on the minor Jewish holiday with a plate full of corned-beef and cabbage last night. (And we're not even chosen ones!) If we had only known that the rules of kosher dining were now so flexible, we would have added a tasty velouté sauce to our meal. Oy.

We headed to the Castro on Sunday evening for the SFJFF's Gorgeous! (exclamation included in the title), sort of a Desperate Housewives meets Sex and the City, featuring four women, some single, some married, some divorced, but all Jewish and all uniquely Parisienne.

Instead of NYC, the film’s set primarily in a beauty salon in Paris owned by one of the women, although there are several café scenes, somewhat reminiscent of the restaurants frequented by Carrie and Samantha et al. Like its American counterparts, the Gorgeous! women’s love interests and escapades come in all shapes and sizes, and the film is all about the chase.

The movie's perfectly pleasant and extremely fluffy -- though we will confess we had a hard time telling the characters apart (we went the whole movie thinking all the women were sisters until the scene where one of them ends up hooking up with someone who we thought was her brother, which caused us some panic until we figured it out), and we're still a little nonplussed that one of the characters' plot arcs centers around her going on a diet (she seemed perfectly skinny enough to us!) -- but it was nice to see sexy moms and the family scenes were consistently hilarious.

If you feel like joining these kosher gals for a little action, you can see Gorgeous! this week and next throughout the Bay Area. Here's the trailer.

SFist Wendy, contributing.