One of the signature foods used in the Passover Seder is the charoset, a mix of nuts, fruit, spices, and wine that is ground into a paste. The consistency and texture of charoset is meant to resemble the mortar that would hold bricks together.
Within the construct of the general charoset formula of nuts, fruit, spice, and wine, different families use different ingredients depending on the origins of their lineage.
In my family, which traces its origins to Eastern Europe, charoset is a mix of apples, walnuts, cinnamon, and sweet red wine.
I’ve been making the charoset for our family seders for over 25 years.
If you look up recipes for charoset, most will tell you to use a food processor to combine the ingredients. If you’re looking for efficiency and optimization, this seems like a smart move.
Charoset isn’t a main food in the meal. It’s a condiment used for ceremonial purposes. Most people don’t eat it again after the Passover seder. For a holiday dinner with a lot of things to prepare, this seems like a good place to saving time and energy.
But I never use a food processor.
Instead, I use an old-fashioned wooden chopping bowl and a mezzaluna chopper. I peel and cut the apples, then chop them fine before I add the walnuts. Then I continue chopping the apples with the walnuts until I can’t tell the difference between them. Only then do I add the cinnamon. The wine gets added last.
In total, I spend about an hour chopping.
This might seem like a waste of time, but I enjoy it. I’ve yet to find a match to my charoset in terms of taste or texture — and my family agrees. When we were away for Passover last year, everyone spoke about how they missed my charoset.
From my perspective, I get satisfaction from preparing this ceremonial food for my family in this way. Rather than being merely another task in an endless stream of holiday prep — just another thing to check off my to-do list — the preparation of the charoset is a ritual that brings me into the mindset of the holiday.
From pulling out the old wooden bowl and chopper to filling the containers with the charoset, every step of the process is imbued with intention and meaning.
As a productivity coach, I’m usually all about doing things efficiently. If you have a tool that can help you do something faster, it generally makes sense to use it. Give yourself the advantage. Save time and energy.
But optimization isn’t always the right answer.
When you find joy or meaning in the process, optimization removes that element. Then your task becomes just another item on a to-do list, instead of the ritual that feeds your soul.
Instead of optimizing for time, sometimes we need to optimize for joy.
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