20 Apr 2025 3 min read Supper Club

Exile and the Taste of Liberation

Berkeley Supper Club – Passover Seder, April 13, 2025

This Passover, we left our home in Berkeley and made our way to Fairfax.

It wasn’t planned. But like so many stories at the Seder table, this one became about leaving one place behind and finding community in another. And just like that, our exile became its own kind of liberation.

We gathered around the table—25 strong (which, for the record, didn’t feel like too many)—to tell the story of freedom, identity, and transformation through food. Each course was a page in the Haggadah we never quite wrote down.

The Menu

We began with Palestinian olives, a tortilla del exilio (our matzah-laced ode to diaspora), and a Point Reyes Toma / Seville Orange Jam board. We paired it with a figcelllo milk punch that took me 3 days to make and took folks 3 minutes to polish off.

Then came the mushroom burekas, each one topped with onion mirin-brined parsley—a nod to the bitter and the umami of life.

Of course, horseradish made its way into a course — we served a hand broken slice of Matzah with a horseradish-labneh, smoked mackerel, and a bronze dill frond to garnish.

There was chawanmushi standing in for the Beitzah, silky and golden, crowned with asparagus tips and laced with spring onion slivers.

And then came the fried artichoke salad — which was inspired by one of Chez Panisse’s amazing salads (shout out Grace) — which was served with gems, mint, opal basil, horseradish labneh, and kumquat kosho vinaigrette. The artichokes were fried and then tossed in a crazy good chili oil.

Our Z’roa was a spice-crusted rack of lamb, seared and fragrant, nestled in fennel purée and served with Tokyo turnips bathed in green garlic bagna cauda. A nepitella gremolata brought brightness and bite.

And for dessert: a black arkansas charoset tart with a walnut crumble, spiced apple-date filling, and topped with torched merengue . A new take on something ancient.