Wow, who knew a Seder could be so cool? The Yellowtail gang really got it right.

The Miller Community Center in Carnation, WA is a great venue for an intimate gathering of, say, fewer than 50 people. Part store during the day, all the cute merch had been pushed into two corners to make way for 7 tables and a stage. Prayer flags and other swag hung from the rafters. The green walls kept the mood cozy. The wooden floor spoke of a time when this was a hardware store, times bygone.

Andrew's daughter, about ten or eleven years old, took tickets as the guests arrived in ones and threes. The bands had set up all their gear, and potluck items were arriving and quickly filling the table along one side of the room.

Our table was Linda, David Roth (one of the musicians), another David, his son Joel (who led the Seder), two women whose names I didn't get, and me and my date. Luckily only about half the people there were Jewish, by which I simply mean that I was not the only shiksa and therefore not the only person looking like I didn't know what to do. I had decided earlier to just open my eyes, ears and mind, and follow along. It worked.

We dipped the parsley in the salt water. We heard the four questions and the answers. We drank the oh-so-sweet Manishewitz. We flicked the drops on the table.

The food? Some good, some fine but unfamiliar, some just odd. No one seemed to like my apple cake (again with the shiksa problem; there seemed to be something I didn't know about how it would turn out. Tasted fine, but a little dry). I liked the quinoa salad, the spinach salad, and the brisket-type stuff. Someone made a heavenly blueberry pie. Yum.

I didn't tell anyone that my mom used to feed me matza with butter. Kosher violation, that, apparently.

The music was stellar. There wasn't one familiar song in the whole bunch, but they were all amazing. Of course, the psychological impact of live music is so strong to begin with. Then you get six singer-songwriters up there, and a classical guitarist, and you've got something expansive.

Matt Price sang about cowboys and sailors and a new kind of lonesome. Scott Katz sang everything irreverent in language of my sarcastic heart. Hilary Field (Andrew's wife) played impeccably on a beautiful classical guitar, accompanying Patrice O'Neill on night songs from around the world. David Roth came out from Cape Cod to share this Seder with his Yellowtail alums, providing poignant roots-style folk songs about Israel, forgiveness, letting go of what's not working, and things of a go-forth-in-peace nature.

I recommend you come to next year's Seder, should the group put one together. What a treat.