Cleaning Utensils

Housecleaning for Passover started weeks before the holiday: airing out the clothes from the winter dampness, washing out all the baking utensils, whitewashing the stoves, and covering the earthen floors with a new coat of yellow mud that we dug up from the backyard and mixed with water.

The old worn benches were scrubbed with a brush, using sand as a cleanser. I used to sweep the earthen floors with the broom my father made from birch twigs. I was young and could hardly hold it in my small hands -- the broom was as tall as me