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Hear us out: Everyone and their grandmother makes a traditional brisket for the Seder main course, so why not shake things up a bit with our barbecued brisket? The weather is finally warm enough to grill outside without five down parkas (knock on wood), and doing so will free up your oven space for other dishes like roast carrots, salt-roasted potatoes or oven-roasted salmon (if you’re going for a surf-and-turf effect). Whether you’re in Kansas City, Texas or Jerusalem, the key to good barbecued brisket is the right balance of smoke, fat, moisture and tenderness. A low temperature for a long period of time is a given for this tough cut of meat. We’ve developed a few other strategies as well:
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Next Monday night, all over the world, people will gather to celebrate Passover - the holiday that commemorates the Jewish people's escape from slavery in Egypt. For seven or eight days (depending on where you live), families and friends come together for festive seder meals packed with ritual foods and a few dietary restrictions (for instance, no leavened grains).

And while many traditions remain the same the world over, favorite regional recipes can bring communities closer together. Here, families from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan share a few of their favorites, courtesy of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, to make your celebration a little larger in spirit.

Passover recipes from Israel, Estonia and India
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5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe.

Tradition!

The week-long Passover holiday kicks off at sundown tonight with the ritual Seder meal. The centerpiece of the feast is the Seder plate, brimming with symbolic foods that commemorate the exodus of Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The plate includes:

• bitter herbs, typically freshly grated horseradish

• a lamb shankbone

• a roasted, hard-boiled egg

• a vegetable, usually parsley, dipped in salt water

• charoset/haroset, a sweet mixture of apples, nuts, wine and spices

• a bitter vegetable, like romaine lettuce

Founder Nick Wiseman and chef Barry Koslow of DGS Delicatessen in Washington, D.C., have a few tips to help freshen up the traditional Passover Seder menu without upsetting your bubbe too much.

Five Ways to Modernize Your Seder: Barry Koslow
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Plenty of traditional foods pack an emotional whallop, but few of them back it up with a sensory punch as strong as horseradish's. The pungent root is a key part of a Passover Seder plate (along with salt water-dipped vegetables, a shank bone, a hard boiled egg, a sweet paste of apples and nuts called charoset, and a bitter vegetable - often lettuce) and symbolizes the harsh lives of the Israelites before they were delivered from slavery in Egypt.
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