Every year, as February rolls into March, I start to crave brisket. And potato kugel.

You see, I didn’t grow up in a kosher home, so my memories of Passover are colored by only a fraction of the normal constipation that afflicts most Jewish people as they consume matzoh and matzoh related products in bulk for a week straight. And every year, my mother and I steal the Haggadah from the Women’s Seder at our synagogue and force it down the throats of our amazingly unsuspecting family members. Every year they return, having seemingly forgotten our ten plagues as revised by the shul’s sisterhood to reflect leaping birthrates, inadequate access to affordable birth control, and domestic violence; etcetera, etcetera. As long as we give my father free reign to play either Hothouse Flowers or Poi Dog Pondering over the dining room speakers, he keeps his complaints at a low volume.

My mother and I have been attending the Women’s Seder at Temple Jeremiah yearly for nearly a decade. In the past, I have been a recalictrant guest…at best. Between the time of my Bat Mitzvah and, well, maybe two years ago, walking through the doors of our synagogue was an act of bravery. I just couldn’t stand the female congregants, my Hebrew school classmates or their skeletal mothers. I always felt like I was being trotted out to the judging block. And I never seemed to match up to my contemporaries. Something about thick hindquarters.

In all my years of experiencing High Holiday performance anxiety, never once did I suspect the awesome power of my own self absorption. Never, or at least not until very recently, did it occur to me that my own obsessive belly gazing may have been what produced the bulk of my fear.

So through copious amounts of therapy, I have been able to regain my ability to walk into shul with my head held relatively high. Two years in a row! And it is with this newfound comfort with myself that I arrived at the Women's Seder this year, big purse in hand (necessary for the lifting of the earlier referenced Haggadah). Don't ask me how my mother and I legitimate stealing from our shul every year. We find a way, somehow.

I can remember thinking to myself, after my mother and I had taken our seats: We can't possibly still enjoy this thing. Maybe this is the year that our luck will run out; our table certainly looks like it could be a dud. But once the young Israel activist sitting at our table said--of her marriage to a Russian man and all its attendant tea-drinking: "I have never peed so much in my life!" I knew the evening would unfold in the most beautiful way.

The women at our table kibitzed gently and I talked their ears off about the experience of marrying into a more observant family than my own, and my refusal to keep a kosher kitchen. I probably offended someone in the process. I actually found I greatly enjoyed the company of the young activist, who described herself as a slightly mellowed radical Zionist, a turn of events I couldn't have predicted. And at one point, I had the chance to regail a woman three years my junior with stories about how I had met my fiance on J-Date. She had just joined the ranks of women on the website and seemed very excited and encouraged by the outcome of my own experience. Her mother looked on as I gave her some J-Dating advice, like never commit to dinner for a first date unless you are ready to spend three valuable hours of your life listening to your date chew loudly with his mouth open and name everything he sees pass by through the restaurant window -- oooh, a bus, an umbrella, a BMW! (This actually happened to me). I couldn't tell if her mother was suppressing horror or joy at the thought of her daugther trying online dating. She was definitely suppressing something.

It warmed me to be surrounded by other Jewish women of varying backgrounds and ages. And I have to say, when we sang the go-to Passover song about the prophetess Miriam, my mother and I smacked the shit out of our little plastic tambourines (a very cute giveaway--well...at least my mother came home with hers--used in lieu of place cards). That night, my mother left for home with a wide smile on her face and a purse that was heavier than when she first arrived. I left for home with a renewed faith in the Women's Seder and in the benefits of looting.

Later, during the weekend, my fiance and I made the trek down to the south suburbs so that my mother-in-law-to-be could teach me how to cook real live, honest to goodness, kosher for Passover chicken soup. From scratch! We spent hours at her kitchen counter, surrounded by collaged pictures of her husband and three children. She showed me how to--with the business end of a small knife--scrape off the pinfeathers which are often still stuck to kosher chickens, and how to skim the water of all the scum that is inevitably produced in the process of boiling the meat with its skin and bones. We let ourselves enjoy the process, taking a side trip to Jewel for a strainer. She gave me free reign over the matzoh balls, and I produced what my soon-to-be-father-in-law called "Titleists." I pretended to be embarassed but internally I was thrilled. I love a dense matzoh ball.

Soon, I will have the pleasure of heading to the North Shore to help my mother prepare for her Seder. I will most likely borrow an apron from her, and we will stand around her beautiful kitchen with the decorative tiles painted by a close artist friend, looking like 50s housewives and laughing hysterically until there are tears running down our faces and at least one emergency trip to the bathroom. I can't predict at what we will be laughing, but this happens to us invariably--especially if we are in a place where quiet decorum is required. We will cook the standard Passover fare, farfel and brisket and maybe some roasted potatoes. We will also try some new recipes we collected at the Women's Seder. The oven will warm our faces and bellies intermittently, depending on whether we are checking on something or waiting for a timer to go off in order to check on something.

I am betting there will be hugs.

Over time, a holiday that reflects the typical Jewish holiday pattern: “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!” has become for me a holiday of female togetherness. Perhaps this is just the normal progression of things, that I would recognize Passover as a deeply significant holiday for Jewish women just before I approach the time in my life when I might actually have to host a Seder meal.

So if observing the Jewish holidays (in my own, slightly untraditional context) means dusting off your best jewelry for shul, making like a sweetheart at the Women's Seder until you realize you actually really like everyone at your table, and spending quality time in the kitchens of two incredible women....where do I sign up?