I feel like Pesach shopping is basically a scavenger hunt with a very specific list. You have all these things you need to buy so you don’t starve, but you don’t want to buy extra because of money and cabinet space and the fact that Pesach is one week long, and you’re not going to spend the entire week just eating food. For example, at the Seder alone, there’s also hours of talking about the food.

You also don’t want to buy extra, because, for example, Pesach mouthwash isn’t as effective as regular mouthwash, or else we wouldn’t call it Pesach mouthwash—we’d call it mouthwash, and we’d buy it all year. The same goes for Pesach ketchup. Which I don’t buy. My Pesach food is not so bad that I need to put ketchup on it—especially bad ketchup. If leaving out carbs makes your food so bad that adding Pesach ketchup will improve it, maybe you should rethink your menu.

And because there’s so much to buy, you’re going to forget things. After my annual Pesach shopping trip, for example, I go back to the store several times for single items as I remember them. (“Fridge liners! Okay, you hold all this stuff, and I’ll be back.”) And this is even though I keep a series of very detailed lists on a desktop computer that is probably the most chometzdikke appliance in the house.

So here’s a list of some things you have to buy, so you don’t forget. If there’s something on this list that you don’t use—and there will be—make sure to buy it to use the rest of the year, so you can see what the fuss is about.

Produce. My wife and I buy out basically the entire farmer’s market, so try to get there before us. The proprietors (farmers?) are always surprised that all of a sudden, everyone’s buying horseradish. They’ve had the same horseradish out all year, since the last Pesach, and suddenly everyone wants it. It wasn’t even brown when they put it out. It was green.

Foil. In the weeks before Pesach, we’re all in the market for super-strong foil. (“Give me the strongest foil you got. I want it to be bulletproof.”)

Tape. You’re also on the lookout for some kind of masking tape you can use to tape cabinets shut and write “Chometz” on them in Hebrew so the goy can find them easily. You also need tape to stick your foil to your wall so it won’t come down while you’re cooking and injure your entire family. This tape has to work for both your oven and your sink, so it has to be waterproof and fireproof.

Fridge liners. These are the plastic placemat things with ridges that you put in your fridge so that nothing touches the shelves. We actually keep our liners in the fridge well after Pesach, to protect our fridge in case someone spills something in there, or stacks pans so that they sink into each other, at which point we have to throw out the drippy fridge liner and clean the shelf underneath it. So I don’t know what it’s protecting. Maybe I’ve been putting them in upside down. Which way did I put them in last year? I didn’t write it down.

Dish soap. Yes, the manufacturers keep creating things we don’t need, like Pesach licorice, but there’s still room for improvement in the things we do need. Like dish soap. The kosher l’Pesach dish soap that my local store sold last year came in a bottle that was basically rectangular—the sides were perfectly straight. No frills, trying to keep costs down—I can respect that. And then, while washing dishes, I found out why soap bottles are not supposed to have smooth sides. It’s because soap is slippery. I dropped the entire bottle into the sink. I ended up buying like 8 bottles over Yom Tov, all of different colors—because that’s what they’re concentrating on now—and there were bubbles everywhere. And whenever there are bubbles when I’m washing dishes, the kids run over and stick their hands in the sink under me. And they get their hands slippery and knock the dish soap into the water again.

Potato starch. What is potato starch? Why is it so expensive? Can you make it at home? These are some questions we ask ourselves, but I think I have the answer: Yes, you can definitely make it at home. You know when you peel a potato and you wipe your hands on your pants and your wife yells at you, and then you look down at your pants and you see white handprints? That’s potato starch. Do you know how many pairs of pants you need to wring out to get a single pound of potato starch? That’s why it’s expensive.

Matzah. How much matzah should you order? This is a question that plagues us every year. (Though I guess as far as plagues go, that’s not the worst.) You don’t want to buy extra, but you can’t buy it by the individual matzah. You buy it by the hatbox, and it costs about as much as a hat. So you need to start by figuring out how many kezaysim you need based on how many people you’re having (1 k’zayis = about 6 matzos). Then you need to figure out what’s going to happen once Chol Hamoed comes and you break out the cream cheese.

Raspberry syrup, for some reason.

Eggs. I always write down how many eggs we used, so we remember. Last year before Pesach we bought 15 dozen eggs—15 dozen! We bought the rest on Chol Hamoed.

By Mordechai Schmutter

 Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia, The Jewish Press and Aish.com, among others. He also has five books out and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].