If tradition dictates we can't eat anything leavened during Passover, it makes sense that Jews the world over would respond:

JESSICA MCGOWAN/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)

Matzo balls are definitely a no-stress undertaking for Nancy Geller, whose virtually foolproof recipe is based on whipped egg whites.

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Fine. No biggie. It's just one time during the year. We'll make do with flat, hard matzo. There are worse fates (boils ... locusts ...).

But, no. When life hands us matzo, we make matzo balls — dumplings so light they float like buoys in their bowls of soup, so soft on the tongue they make you regret the intrusion of your teeth, and so warming in the stomach they serve as the nourishing soul of the Passover meal.

Then why do so many of us make matzo balls from a mix?

I use the mix.

I — a cooking school graduate, a former chef and a food writer who has published hundreds of recipes over the years — admit this fact with shame.

True, I set foot inside synagogues only for weddings and bar mitzvahs, but doesn't the Big Guy work in mysterious rather than vengeful ways? Would he really smite my matzo balls?

Besides, the recipe looks so easy. You mix water, oil or maybe some chicken fat, matzo meal and eggs. You let the mixture rest. You roll it into balls. You poach the balls.

Not so easy. I've had successes — soft! airy! — followed by failures — rubber bullets! — that left the assorted kids at the table wondering why they had to sit through an hour of mangled Hebrew looking at a burnt bone and a hard-boiled egg for this.

Once, in 1999, I tried to go all foodie. I made a concentrated, pellucid chicken consommé for the broth and then chopped $40 worth of Oregon black truffles into the matzo balls. They were rocks.

Guess what? I've used the mix ever since. My kids now have a fifth Passover question to add to the four traditional ones: Why on other nights does my father make soup from organic chickens, but on this night he uses a pouch of yellow powder?

Why indeed? For this year's Seder it was finally time for a lesson.

I called a friend who is both an observant Jew and the best baker I know. If anyone could mentor my matzo balls, it would be this lady.

"I'm horrible at it," came the quick reply. "I end up using the mix because otherwise my matzo balls are like little lead pellets. Or big lead pellets. Or cannonballs."

I put out an A.P.B. Is there anyone out there with an idiot-proof matzo ball recipe who would be willing to share?

A friend of a friend named Margo Geller finally responded. A former caterer who now works as a life coach, Geller had what seemed the flawless résumé for this project. All day long she tells writers they can write, bankers they can bank, small business owners they can make a profit. How hard would it be for her to share some "You can do it!" with a sad schmo who just wants to make soup.

Geller — a tiny woman with a huge smile and a head of bouncy black curls — met me at her front door and promised, "You'll see this is such an easy recipe." Then she opened the door further to reveal her secret weapon: her mother, Nancy Geller. She was 73 but looked a decade younger, was groomed to a T, wore a smile as wide as her daughter's and had eyes like lasers.

With a few pleasantly lobbed questions, Nancy learned I was Jewish, my wife wasn't, we didn't belong to a temple but we did celebrate Passover, though not very traditionally, but that was still OK.

"So how do you make matzo balls?" she asked.

"I use the mix. They always come out."

"They're always good from the mix? Then maybe I'm going to switch to the mix," she said, causing the two women to erupt in laughter.

"I hope you don't mind fingers," Margo said, cracking an egg into her palm and letting the white run off. "I'm a hands-on person." She separated three eggs and whipped the whites until stiff. Scooping the yolks in with her index finger, she whipped the mixture until it looked like fluffy lemon pudding. I had never seen a matzo ball recipe like this. Where did it come from?

"My mother used to make it like this," said Nancy, pouring a quarter-cup of matzo meal from a cardboard tube. "It's just the way she's always done it."

Nancy folded in the meal, scant quarter-cup by scant quarter-cup — one measure per egg. "I don't like it too stiff," she said, showing me a mixture that looked exactly like stiff grits. A little salt, and the mixture was ready to rest 10 minutes in the fridge before boiling.

And that was it: easiest matzo ball recipe I've ever seen.

Nancy moistened her palms and rolled the matzo balls into a pot of simmering water, which she covered. Later, they would go into a chicken soup made with a large broiler chicken, garlic and lots of root vegetables.

The matzo balls should have taken 25 minutes. After nearly 40 minutes of rapid-fire conversation with the two Gellers, I asked if maybe the matzo balls were ready.

"They might be overcooked," worried Margo.

"You can't overcook them," said Nancy.

"You can't overcook them?"

"No," said Nancy. "But we're too busy gabbing. That's the problem when you cook with a mother and daughter together."

The matzo balls were everything I could hope for: light, airy, soul-satisfying.

Why don't more people make matzo balls from scratch, I wondered.

"Some people just don't like cooking," Nancy answered emphatically. "Some people think shopping is so easy. They love going to shopping centers and don't think it's a chore," she continued, making it clear that to her shopping is a big chore.

Maybe she's right. Or maybe the problem is that everyone makes matzo balls like their mothers did.

Mine, you see, used the mix.

Chicken Soup for Matzo Balls

12 servings
Total time: 2 1/2 hours
Hands on: 40 minutes

Look for a hen in the freezer case; it is older and has more flavor than a basic broiler. Nancy Geller, by the way, never adds pieces of chicken back to the broth when she serves this soup for Passover.

1 broiler or hen, about 3 1/2-4 pounds, washed
1 unpeeled onion, stuck with 1 whole clove
3 garlic cloves, peeled
3 medium carrots, peeled
4 ribs celery
1 medium turnip, washed and quartered
1 medium parsnip, washed and chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Put chicken in large (6- to 8-quart) stockpot; cover with about a gallon of water. Bring to boil.

With a large spoon, skim off the scum as it rises to the top. Add onion, garlic, carrots, celery, turnip and parsnip and reduce heat to simmer for 1 1/2 hours, uncovered. Strain solids from broth and reserve. Transfer broth to a clean pot and remove any fat that settles on top. Season to taste. You can use this broth to poach the matzo balls, or you may poach them in salted water and then add to this broth.

Discard onion, turnip and parsnip. Shred the chicken meat into pieces with your fingers, discarding bones and skin. Cut the carrots and celery into bite-size pieces. Add the chicken, celery and carrots to the soup once the matzo balls are ready.

Per serving: 125 calories (percent of calories from fat, 30), 14 grams protein, 7 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber, 4 grams fat (1 gram saturated), 40 milligrams cholesterol, 77 milligrams sodium.

Matzo Balls

6-8 servings

Hands on: 10 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes

If you're worried about making matzo balls from scratch, try this unusual recipe in which the batter gets its porous, spongy structure from whipped egg whites. You can make the balls in advance and freeze them, either in a container or right in the soup. They may shrink when cold but will regain their puffiness once heated.

3 eggs, separated
3/4 cup matzo meal, or a bit less
1/2 teaspoon salt

Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form — about 2 minutes. Beat the yolks in a small bowl with a fork until uniform. Fold the yolks into the whites and beat with electric mixer until mixture is well-blended and uniformly pale yellow. With a rubber spatula, fold in the matzo meal a scant 1/4 cup at a time until the mixture looks like stiff grits. Stir in salt. Cover and refrigerate for 10 to 20 minutes.

Set a pot of broth or salted water on the stove to reach an active simmer. Moisten your hands with water, roll out golf-ball-size portions and drop them into the water. Cover the pot and cook for 25 minutes. Monitor temperature to keep the pot at an active simmer.

Per serving (based on 6): 98 calories (percent of calories from fat, 23), 4 grams protein, 14 grams carbohydrates, trace fiber, 2 grams fat (1 gram saturated), 94 milligrams cholesterol, 206 milligrams sodium.