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To anyone who has issues findign Kosher for passover food:

NYC Dept. of Consumer Affairs use to (and still may) conduct a survey of Kosher for Passover staples - to fight off the price gouging that takes place outside New York.

Try www.nyc.cov

I'm not Jewish - but a friend has forwarded me the cutest youtube clinb with a young girl relevant to kosher food on Passover from the British TV show Are you Smarter than a 10 year old

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJrKPb95YzU

I'm a non-Jew who grew up in the Coops in the northeast Bronx and attended a secular shul after school as a teenager, so observing certain Jewish holidays has been a part of my life for a long time. I attend the interfaith seders at Community Church and enjoy the mix of cultures.

Fairway probably has the some of the most affordable kosher food in Manhattan; folks might also try Trader Joe's near Union Sq. For those who can make it to Brooklyn, the Park Slope Food Coop has amazingly low prices - I just joined and wish I'd done so years earlier! I even found spelt matzoh there.

The Gristedes in Chelsea, on 8th and 22nd has a bunch of more affordable passover foods, including those kosher marshmallows with toasted coconuts, yum!

My advice to those attending their first Seder with a significant other: Be sure you understand just how traditional you dear one's family is. When my future husband invited me to a seder 20 years ago I went crazy trying to find recipes for an appropriate dessert. I worked for hours preparing it and was very proud of my efforts. At the end of the meal when dessert was brought to the table, my pitiful, entirely appropriate, matzoh based cake was surrounded by Enteman's cakes. Go figure...

Tomorrow, my mixed up Jewish, fallen Catholic, Agnostic Sedeer will not include Entemans.

It is perfectly all right to say "celebrate." We do "celebrate" the survival of the Jewish people. That's what Passover is all about.

Let's not use the dour word "observe." it's to cold and distant for this occasion.

For the first time in my life I am not celebrating Passover. I have been an atheist for most of my years and in the past I always felt like such a hypocrite going to the dinners. My main excuse was well, this is just a way for family and/or friends to get together and to have a good meal. But my family is now either stretched out all over the U.S. or dead. My girlfriend, who is very devout, goes to a a resort in the Catskills so she can more properly observe the rituals. She doesn't mind my own disinclinations.
And though I have been invited twice this year to spend the first or second night at nearby friend's houses, I have decided that it simply would not be right for me to take part.

I had a roommate who was Jewish, getting his PhD in clinical psychology and hated to go to Passover dinners with his family every year. He said that everyone smoked, the food was horrible and they fought, but he went every year anyway.

I told him that made him a sedermasochist.

Don't bring anything without first asking your host. Passover kashrut must be observed!

Cheap Passover foods can be found at Fairway and Pathmark.