Holidays - Ahh yes, springtime. It's the most glorious time of the year. Snow on the ground. Stores full of happy shoppers. Matzo on the shelves. That's not it.

I just got back from Andronico's Market here in Emeryville. They've got fresh soups, and some good sandwiches. It's expensive, but it's a good place to grab a bite. While I was waiting to get some salad, I walked past a small table, pushed into an alcove near the canned tuna and discontinued wine.

"Shit," I remembered. April. My sister's birthday. Delirously expensive Jesus-shaped candy. I get jet lag without the pleasure of going anywhere. And Passover. Every year, Passover is one of those things that's like a dentist appontment. I know it's time. I put off dealing with it because it usually winds up being expensive and full of gelatenous alloys of fish, but all in all, by the time it's over, I'm happy I dealt with it.

For some reason, though, it's very hard to get the right foods for Passover. You see the standard lot of matzo here and there, but if you aren't in a huge rush, you notice tiny print on the underside of the box telling you that even though this has the correct ingredients, is generally kosher, and made by Manischewitz, it's somehow not Kosher for Passover. This means that even if I'm well intentioned enough to try to legitimately keep it real, the one company that I feel I should be able to rely on, has doomed me to another year of inadvertant guilt.

Christians, that's who. "You people," I accused her, "You go into 1000 Jewish homes in July, you won't find a single box of matzo, unless it's there waiting around for next year." It's only non-Jews who think of matzo as a snack, dress it up with avacado, or roasted red pepper hummos and put it out on fancy pastel serving dishes alongside pigs in a blanket, cheese cubes and Bud Lite to eat during the Oscars. She laughed.

I was drawn to the table. Gefilte fish. $4.79 a jar. Tempting. Matzo, Macaroons, Black Raspberry wine. Manichewitz was definately behind this table somehow. I felt something was missing, though, until I noticed it, sitting proudly between the low-sodium horseradish and the borsht.

Chanukah candles. Two tired boxes of Chanukah candles, clearly confused about why they were taken out of hibernation and paraded in front of the world with no makeup. "Hmm," I thought about it, but I think I'll wait until at least October.