We took the kids to Legoland on Sunday. We have annual passes, so sometimes when we’re looking for something to do to kill a few hours and tire the kids out, we take them there and make them walk. Well, we make the older one walk. Oddly enough, the younger one usually wants to walk while the older one whines that he (at 45 pounds) wants to sit in the stroller. Older boy is almost 4, and tall, so there’s several rides he can go on. The baby is not yet 2 and there’s less for him to do, but fortunately he’s still in the stage where looking at things is fun, too. So he looks at things, and his brother does the go-carts and helicopters and the big slide, and they’re happy.
We always notice the Jews wherever we go. It’s natural to seek out your own kind. I always realize almost too late that the others might not realize I’m actually one of them. You see, I know they’re Jewish because they’re wearing the “uniform.” The men and boys have kippot and tzitzit, and the women are wearing long skirts and long-sleeved shirts, even in August, and many have head-scarves. When you see a family dressed that way, you know you’re looking at Orthodox Jews.
We specifically noticed on Sunday because our dinner plans were to go to a local Chabad’s weekly summer barbecue. It occurred to us that the tourist-Jews might be interested in a convenient kosher dinner, as Legoland is not even 10 minutes from this particular Chabad.
But, because we don’t wear the “uniform,” the religious Jews would not know to look at us that we are also Jewish, and I couldn’t think of a way to approach them that wouldn’t seem weird to me. In all honesty, it might not seem weird to them to be approached, but I’m not the salesperson type, so it felt weird to me. We were coming up with all sorts of ways to get them to overhear us about the barbecue so that they would ask, like getting in line behind them and speaking loudly about our dinner plans, but we didn’t follow through because we felt silly. It came to the point where I wished we had t-shirts or something to wear that designated us as representatives of Chabad or something, even without the “uniform,” so that we’d have a starting point. In retrospect, “Hi, I thought you might be interested in knowing that there’s a Chabad barbecue not far from here, if you’re looking for an easy dinner” might be a good starting point, but, as mentioned above, I’m just not the type to go up to someone and say that.
Which brings me to WHY we don’t wear the uniform.
When you wear a uniform, it serves to identify you to other members of your group, but it also designates to outsiders that you belong to a particular group, whether it’s private security or Hot Dog On A Stick employees or an army. Thus, whatever you do while wearing that uniform represents your entire group as behaving this way. That’s why most stores have their employees remove their nametags or other uniform pieces when they go on break, and why acting inappropriately while in uniform, even if off duty, can be punishable in some arenas.
Since we do not keep Shabbat and holidays or kosher particularly well yet, if we wore a uniform announcing ourselves as members of the Orthodox Jewish Group, people who are not part of the group might see us do something like go through the McDonald’s Drive-Thru or stop at Starbucks on the way to shul on Saturday morning and think that it’s okay for Orthodox Jews to do that. It would make all Jews look hypocritical, for saying that they don’t do “that,” when here are two Jewish-looking people doing exactly “that.”
Perhaps at some point our level of observance will merit us to don the uniform. Then when we meet others of our kind at Legoland, we can unabashedly advertise the Chabad barbecue. In the meantime, though, we'll remain fairly anonymous to both worlds.
Showing posts with label kosher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kosher. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Where's the Beef?
We are not strictly kosher, but we do try to keep to some semblance of the laws. For example, we don’t bring any non-kosher meat into our house and avoid eating meat at all that isn’t kosher. We never eat meat from a non-kosher animal. We never eat non-kosher seafood. But, we do buy things that don’t have a heksher (a mark designating the food as kosher), and we do eat out in restaurants, but we stick to vegetarian/dairy. The goal is to continue moving toward being more kosher, so that at least in our house we only have truly kosher food, but we’re not there yet.
The other day, we had dinner at Souplantation. For the benefit of those who may not know, Souplantation is a buffet-style restaurant that is basically a huge salad bar. They also have several different kinds of soups, some pastas, and a few other hot things such as pizza and baked potatoes. It’s all-you-can-eat, and there’s a lot for us to choose from there, which is why we like to eat there. They clearly mark all items as “Vegetarian” or “Non-vegetarian,” which is very helpful when it comes to foods like cream of mushroom soup, that may or may not be vegetarian depending on the stock they use.
Anyway, back to the other day when we had dinner there. My husband chose a soup that was clearly marked Vegetarian. As he got toward the bottom, he felt like he was tasting beef, and, sure enough, he found bits of ground beef in his soup. Those were not supposed to be there, and if he had known it was there before he started eating, he would have thrown it away. So, he told the manager about it, and the manager was very apologetic and gave us free cookies, which, well, who could argue with cookies? He said that the soup was absolutely supposed to be vegetarian, and it looked like some of the chili that was in the next tureen over probably spilled into this one. They tossed the whole pot of soup! The manager thanked my husband for pointing it out so they could take care of it.
This, then, is the problem with eating out. If you’re ethically/morally vegetarian but not bound by any sort of law, then a problem like that would merely leave a bad taste in your mouth (literally), but you didn’t eat the meat on purpose, so you’ll just know to be careful. But, when you keep kosher, this is exactly the reason you don’t eat in a non-kosher restaurant, even if you only eat vegetarian. You never know what has touched what. For example, you can’t guarantee that only vegetarian soups have ever been cooked or ladled using those particular tureens and utensils. There’s plenty of crossover. According to the laws of kashrut, you can’t eat food that was cooked in a utensil that has been used for treif (non-kosher food). So, vegetarian or not, it’s not actually “kosher” to eat it.
I say this only to point out some of the more “hidden” problems of keeping kosher in a non-Jewish world. The short answer is, of course, to simply not eat in non-kosher restaurants, which is really what we’re supposed to do. We make compromises so that we can be more comfortable living amongst our non-Jewish friends, but it is incidents like these that make us remember why keeping kosher is so much more complicated than just “don’t eat pig.” The “extra” laws are there for a reason. You never know when you’re going to get tripped up like that.
I was telling a Catholic friend about the incident, and he asked if we keep kosher. It was hard for me to say yes, because we don’t really keep kosher, but we still try to make some kind of separation between our eating habits and those of our non-Jewish neighbors. We try to acknowledge that we do have this massive body of laws that we’re sort of only doing some of, but I think it’s a step in the right direction that we can admit that we’re not doing it quite right.
I do think that making some kind of nod toward being different is better than totally ignoring the issue. Even if it makes me look hypocritical, I still think it’s meaningful to do something over nothing.
The other day, we had dinner at Souplantation. For the benefit of those who may not know, Souplantation is a buffet-style restaurant that is basically a huge salad bar. They also have several different kinds of soups, some pastas, and a few other hot things such as pizza and baked potatoes. It’s all-you-can-eat, and there’s a lot for us to choose from there, which is why we like to eat there. They clearly mark all items as “Vegetarian” or “Non-vegetarian,” which is very helpful when it comes to foods like cream of mushroom soup, that may or may not be vegetarian depending on the stock they use.
Anyway, back to the other day when we had dinner there. My husband chose a soup that was clearly marked Vegetarian. As he got toward the bottom, he felt like he was tasting beef, and, sure enough, he found bits of ground beef in his soup. Those were not supposed to be there, and if he had known it was there before he started eating, he would have thrown it away. So, he told the manager about it, and the manager was very apologetic and gave us free cookies, which, well, who could argue with cookies? He said that the soup was absolutely supposed to be vegetarian, and it looked like some of the chili that was in the next tureen over probably spilled into this one. They tossed the whole pot of soup! The manager thanked my husband for pointing it out so they could take care of it.
This, then, is the problem with eating out. If you’re ethically/morally vegetarian but not bound by any sort of law, then a problem like that would merely leave a bad taste in your mouth (literally), but you didn’t eat the meat on purpose, so you’ll just know to be careful. But, when you keep kosher, this is exactly the reason you don’t eat in a non-kosher restaurant, even if you only eat vegetarian. You never know what has touched what. For example, you can’t guarantee that only vegetarian soups have ever been cooked or ladled using those particular tureens and utensils. There’s plenty of crossover. According to the laws of kashrut, you can’t eat food that was cooked in a utensil that has been used for treif (non-kosher food). So, vegetarian or not, it’s not actually “kosher” to eat it.
I say this only to point out some of the more “hidden” problems of keeping kosher in a non-Jewish world. The short answer is, of course, to simply not eat in non-kosher restaurants, which is really what we’re supposed to do. We make compromises so that we can be more comfortable living amongst our non-Jewish friends, but it is incidents like these that make us remember why keeping kosher is so much more complicated than just “don’t eat pig.” The “extra” laws are there for a reason. You never know when you’re going to get tripped up like that.
I was telling a Catholic friend about the incident, and he asked if we keep kosher. It was hard for me to say yes, because we don’t really keep kosher, but we still try to make some kind of separation between our eating habits and those of our non-Jewish neighbors. We try to acknowledge that we do have this massive body of laws that we’re sort of only doing some of, but I think it’s a step in the right direction that we can admit that we’re not doing it quite right.
I do think that making some kind of nod toward being different is better than totally ignoring the issue. Even if it makes me look hypocritical, I still think it’s meaningful to do something over nothing.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Footloose and Dairy-Free
A good friend of mine is trying to eliminate, among other things, all sources of dairy from her diet. She was soliciting advice for substitutes and alternatives to dairy products, as well as non-dairy versions of her usual recipes. One thing she specifically requested was a recipe using ground beef that was non-dairy, because they were moving in a few days and needed to use up the ground beef in their freezer.
This was surprising to me, because in my own personal context, I would never cook ground beef with dairy to begin with, and I couldn't fathom a world in which you wouldn't know how to make a dish without dairy. It occurred to me then to suggest to her that she invest in a kosher cookbook, because any meat recipe in there would be guaranteed dairy-free. I also told her to look for kosher symbols that indicated that a food was pareve, because, again, guaranteed dairy-free, without having to decipher a long list of ingredients for dairy “code words.”
My father, too, has been dairy-free for quite a while now, and he has found the kosher symbols particularly useful. My father doesn’t keep kosher, and my friend is Christian and thus doesn’t need to keep kosher, and yet, one aspect of kashrut became useful to them for health reasons.
I suppose the thing that struck me most was not knowing how to cook without dairy. I understand that most people very much enjoy dishes that involve both meat and milk products all mixed together, like cheeseburgers, burritos and enchiladas and quesadillas, Egg McMuffins, and so forth. It’s one thing to be used to eating such foods, but quite another not to know how not to eat them. I suppose, the fact that I’m used to mentally rewriting recipes to be kosher (see my bacon post a few weeks ago) makes it easy for me to see a world without dairy. But for someone who has always been able to eat whatever is put in front of her, without having to ask after the ingredients, it must be a big, scary new world.
This dairy-free issue came up with another friend and reader (*wave*) as we were discussing cake recipes. There are degrees of strictness when it comes to keeping kosher, and she is quite a few degrees above my own level of observance. For people at her level, it is almost mandatory to make desserts pareve. One reason is that many strict kosher-keepers will only use dairy products that are chalov yisroel, meaning that a Jew has watched from start to finish to ensure that only kosher milk went into that product. It can be hard to find chalov yisroel products, depending on where you live, and so it’s easier just to avoid the dairy altogether. Another reason is that since typically at least one meal per day will be meat, it is useful to have a dessert that can be served afterward (i.e., not a dairy dessert). (Feel free to let me know if I’m off the mark with what I just said here…)
Anyway, she knows all kinds of dairy substitutes. I made a red velvet cake for myself for my birthday, which involves butter, cream cheese, and buttermilk (among other decadent ingredients). I have no idea how the cake would taste if you substituted margarine, Tofutti, and rice milk and vinegar, respectively, for those ingredients, but I suspect not quite the same. Last week, I made a Paula Deen Mississippi Mud Cake, which was also heavy on the dairy. My friend told me all the substitutions she’d make, and we were discussing whether it would taste as good. I think it would work out.
Finally, it’s interesting to note that Duncan Hines cake mixes are largely non-dairy and kosher pareve, so if you’re into the cake-mix scene and have to go dairy-free, you’re good to go.
I’m not saying it’s easy to be dairy-free. We’re a cheese-loving country (and, heck, I’m a cheese-loving person!), heavy on the dairy products in general, and dairy sneaks into places you’d never think to look for it, like breadcrumbs. You never know when a restaurant might be using a dairy product where you wouldn't expect to see one. Sometimes, even items marked as “non-dairy,” like non-dairy coffee creamers, are not actually 100% non-dairy. But with a little savvy, you can find that dairy is not as necessary as it seems. And if you need to know some good dairy substitutes or non-dairy brands, I know someone you can ask!
Judaism has given a lot to this world, and it’s always exciting to see new ways in which Jewish observance impacts non-Jews in a positive way.
This was surprising to me, because in my own personal context, I would never cook ground beef with dairy to begin with, and I couldn't fathom a world in which you wouldn't know how to make a dish without dairy. It occurred to me then to suggest to her that she invest in a kosher cookbook, because any meat recipe in there would be guaranteed dairy-free. I also told her to look for kosher symbols that indicated that a food was pareve, because, again, guaranteed dairy-free, without having to decipher a long list of ingredients for dairy “code words.”
My father, too, has been dairy-free for quite a while now, and he has found the kosher symbols particularly useful. My father doesn’t keep kosher, and my friend is Christian and thus doesn’t need to keep kosher, and yet, one aspect of kashrut became useful to them for health reasons.
I suppose the thing that struck me most was not knowing how to cook without dairy. I understand that most people very much enjoy dishes that involve both meat and milk products all mixed together, like cheeseburgers, burritos and enchiladas and quesadillas, Egg McMuffins, and so forth. It’s one thing to be used to eating such foods, but quite another not to know how not to eat them. I suppose, the fact that I’m used to mentally rewriting recipes to be kosher (see my bacon post a few weeks ago) makes it easy for me to see a world without dairy. But for someone who has always been able to eat whatever is put in front of her, without having to ask after the ingredients, it must be a big, scary new world.
This dairy-free issue came up with another friend and reader (*wave*) as we were discussing cake recipes. There are degrees of strictness when it comes to keeping kosher, and she is quite a few degrees above my own level of observance. For people at her level, it is almost mandatory to make desserts pareve. One reason is that many strict kosher-keepers will only use dairy products that are chalov yisroel, meaning that a Jew has watched from start to finish to ensure that only kosher milk went into that product. It can be hard to find chalov yisroel products, depending on where you live, and so it’s easier just to avoid the dairy altogether. Another reason is that since typically at least one meal per day will be meat, it is useful to have a dessert that can be served afterward (i.e., not a dairy dessert). (Feel free to let me know if I’m off the mark with what I just said here…)
Anyway, she knows all kinds of dairy substitutes. I made a red velvet cake for myself for my birthday, which involves butter, cream cheese, and buttermilk (among other decadent ingredients). I have no idea how the cake would taste if you substituted margarine, Tofutti, and rice milk and vinegar, respectively, for those ingredients, but I suspect not quite the same. Last week, I made a Paula Deen Mississippi Mud Cake, which was also heavy on the dairy. My friend told me all the substitutions she’d make, and we were discussing whether it would taste as good. I think it would work out.
Finally, it’s interesting to note that Duncan Hines cake mixes are largely non-dairy and kosher pareve, so if you’re into the cake-mix scene and have to go dairy-free, you’re good to go.
I’m not saying it’s easy to be dairy-free. We’re a cheese-loving country (and, heck, I’m a cheese-loving person!), heavy on the dairy products in general, and dairy sneaks into places you’d never think to look for it, like breadcrumbs. You never know when a restaurant might be using a dairy product where you wouldn't expect to see one. Sometimes, even items marked as “non-dairy,” like non-dairy coffee creamers, are not actually 100% non-dairy. But with a little savvy, you can find that dairy is not as necessary as it seems. And if you need to know some good dairy substitutes or non-dairy brands, I know someone you can ask!
Judaism has given a lot to this world, and it’s always exciting to see new ways in which Jewish observance impacts non-Jews in a positive way.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Bacon, Bacon, Bacon
I have kept kosher to some extent pretty much all of my life. I’ve had varying levels of kashrut observance, from keeping separate dishes to eating certain kinds of meat in restaurants. Right now, we don’t eat meat that isn’t specifically kosher, but our kitchen isn’t 100% kosher, either. We’re sort of in the middle on the “kashrut spectrum,” if you will, where at one end is zero kashrut - eat anything, cook anything, try anything - and the other end is 100% kashrut, with carefully checked and marked food, separate dishes, utensils, cookware, and appliances.
That said, I remember eating bacon exactly one time in my entire life. Bacon is simply not in my culinary vocabulary, nor is any other kind of pork, shellfish, or game. It’s just something I would never eat. I don’t remember what bacon tastes like. I don’t have a clue why scallops and shrimp and lobster are so popular. To me, crustaceans look like giant bugs, and mollusks like big bags of mucus, and why would anyone want to eat that?
The thing is, I watch a lot of Food Network. (A lot.) I’ve learned quite a bit about cooking in doing so, and I consider myself a pretty decent cook (if I do say so myself…). Just about every chef on Food Network cooks a dish containing one or more non-kosher elements in just about every show. As an example, I was watching a rerun of “Giada at Home” this afternoon, and Giada de Laurentiis made stuffed peppers with ricotta, peas, and pancetta. She rhapsodized over the crispiness and saltiness of the pancetta, reveled in cooking it, and I sat there with a blank stare, because I couldn’t even begin to imagine what her dish would end up tasting like. As far as the rest of the ingredients, I could totally see myself making that dish – it looked delicious – but is it the same without the pancetta? I’ll never know.
I’ve learned not to let it bother me too much, the ubiquitousness of bacon and other pork products in most of the major world cuisines. I still enjoy watching the cooking shows, and I mentally remove the non-kosher items from a given dish, imagine what it might taste like, and decide if I’d like to try making it. (I won’t go into how chefs seem incapable of cooking anything without both meat and dairy products in them!) I’ve found some really brilliant and delicious recipes this way, such as Rachael Ray’s pumpkin soup (YUM). Simply replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock, or with a chicken-flavored, parve chicken soup base, and voila! Kosher soup. But I digress.
I understand that if you don’t keep kosher, bacon is pretty much a staple for breakfast, and bacon/pork fat are a perfectly reasonable thing to use to flavor your dishes. I don’t begrudge you non-kosher-keeping folks your bacon and pork. Really, I don’t. I don’t want any, but you’re welcome to eat it.
But recently I came upon a product in the store that I simply couldn’t get past. I couldn’t get it out of my head. That product is Kraft Deli Deluxe Cheese Slices, Bacon Cheddar. As far as I can tell, this is basically Kraft American Cheese with bacon in it. (I’m sure you’ve seen the idiotic commercials, with the “bomb squad” raiding a woman’s cooler, only to have the woman take the package of cheese out of the cooler, thank the bomb squad man, and happily put a slice of her bacon-cheese on a very nice looking sandwich.)
Is the American need for bacon so strong that it is now necessary to put bacon IN the cheese? See, this gets me on two levels. First, it’s bacon, as discussed above. Second, it’s meat and dairy together, which really doesn’t matter all that much, seeing as it’s bacon, except that I would never make a sandwich with both meat and cheese in it, so I simply cannot fathom the need to have a product which fuses the meat and the cheese into one simple slice.
On a similar note, I heard a commercial on the radio for turkey breast slices with bacon flavor. Apparently, the turkey is smoked along with the bacon, and you can actually see bits of bacon on your turkey! Wow!
I like turkey. I have nothing against it. But the thought of, well, contaminating it with bacon confuses me almost as much as the cheese.
I genuinely need some enlightenment, here. Is bacon that amazing that it needs to feature in every meal in the United States? What is it about bacon that makes people salivate so? And why, oh why, does Kraft need to put the bacon IN the cheese?!
That said, I remember eating bacon exactly one time in my entire life. Bacon is simply not in my culinary vocabulary, nor is any other kind of pork, shellfish, or game. It’s just something I would never eat. I don’t remember what bacon tastes like. I don’t have a clue why scallops and shrimp and lobster are so popular. To me, crustaceans look like giant bugs, and mollusks like big bags of mucus, and why would anyone want to eat that?
The thing is, I watch a lot of Food Network. (A lot.) I’ve learned quite a bit about cooking in doing so, and I consider myself a pretty decent cook (if I do say so myself…). Just about every chef on Food Network cooks a dish containing one or more non-kosher elements in just about every show. As an example, I was watching a rerun of “Giada at Home” this afternoon, and Giada de Laurentiis made stuffed peppers with ricotta, peas, and pancetta. She rhapsodized over the crispiness and saltiness of the pancetta, reveled in cooking it, and I sat there with a blank stare, because I couldn’t even begin to imagine what her dish would end up tasting like. As far as the rest of the ingredients, I could totally see myself making that dish – it looked delicious – but is it the same without the pancetta? I’ll never know.
I’ve learned not to let it bother me too much, the ubiquitousness of bacon and other pork products in most of the major world cuisines. I still enjoy watching the cooking shows, and I mentally remove the non-kosher items from a given dish, imagine what it might taste like, and decide if I’d like to try making it. (I won’t go into how chefs seem incapable of cooking anything without both meat and dairy products in them!) I’ve found some really brilliant and delicious recipes this way, such as Rachael Ray’s pumpkin soup (YUM). Simply replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock, or with a chicken-flavored, parve chicken soup base, and voila! Kosher soup. But I digress.
I understand that if you don’t keep kosher, bacon is pretty much a staple for breakfast, and bacon/pork fat are a perfectly reasonable thing to use to flavor your dishes. I don’t begrudge you non-kosher-keeping folks your bacon and pork. Really, I don’t. I don’t want any, but you’re welcome to eat it.
But recently I came upon a product in the store that I simply couldn’t get past. I couldn’t get it out of my head. That product is Kraft Deli Deluxe Cheese Slices, Bacon Cheddar. As far as I can tell, this is basically Kraft American Cheese with bacon in it. (I’m sure you’ve seen the idiotic commercials, with the “bomb squad” raiding a woman’s cooler, only to have the woman take the package of cheese out of the cooler, thank the bomb squad man, and happily put a slice of her bacon-cheese on a very nice looking sandwich.)
Is the American need for bacon so strong that it is now necessary to put bacon IN the cheese? See, this gets me on two levels. First, it’s bacon, as discussed above. Second, it’s meat and dairy together, which really doesn’t matter all that much, seeing as it’s bacon, except that I would never make a sandwich with both meat and cheese in it, so I simply cannot fathom the need to have a product which fuses the meat and the cheese into one simple slice.
On a similar note, I heard a commercial on the radio for turkey breast slices with bacon flavor. Apparently, the turkey is smoked along with the bacon, and you can actually see bits of bacon on your turkey! Wow!
I like turkey. I have nothing against it. But the thought of, well, contaminating it with bacon confuses me almost as much as the cheese.
I genuinely need some enlightenment, here. Is bacon that amazing that it needs to feature in every meal in the United States? What is it about bacon that makes people salivate so? And why, oh why, does Kraft need to put the bacon IN the cheese?!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Hearing Both Sides of a Story
I don't usually post two days in a row, because, frankly, with two kids and a job, that's way too much of a commitment for me. Once a week has been working out well, and I hope that the intervening days don't leave you hanging too much.
No, that's not true. I hope that the intervening days make you very antsy waiting for the next post!
Anyway, something very interesting happened today, and it fits so well into the theme of this blog that I thought an extra post was warranted.
On Sunday, many of the Chabad communities in the Greater San Diego Area participated in a joint "Unity" Lag BaOmer celebration. (I'll probably write more about this next time.) There were bounce houses, arcade games, cotton candy, snow cones, a drum circle, and catered kosher food (burgers, etc.). I think a couple hundred people showed up.
I study on Tuesday mornings with my rebbetzin, along with another woman or two, depending who's available. Today, it was just me and C studying with the rebbetzin. C has several food intolerances and is in the habit of being very careful with what she eats, so that she doesn't spend the whole day throwing up or what-have-you. Which is reasonable. She can't have dairy or soy or gluten, primarily.
The kosher catering at the Lag BaOmer event included grilled corn-on-the-cob. C ordered corn and was asked if she wanted butter. She automatically said no, since when she hears butter, she thinks "dairy", and therefore doesn't want it. When she went to pick up her order, they asked if she wanted margerine. She asked whether it was margerine or butter, since the other guy had said butter, "because I can't have dairy." The woman who was handing her the order got extremely indignant and said something along the lines of "Of course it's margarine! We don't serve dairy with meat! I would never have butter available when I'm serving meat." C felt very bad that she'd made such a silly mistake. She hadn't been thinking, and she's so used to automatically checking exactly what she's eating that she didn't consider that, if this was a kosher meat meal, of course there would be no dairy in sight.
It affected her enough that she told us about it today when we were studying, prefacing the story with, "I made a faux pas." This is where things get interesting. C told it as though she felt very bad for making such a silly mistake and didn't understand why the woman had been so mean about it. The rebbetzin then said that the caterer had come to her and told her that someone had insinuated that her kashrut wasn't good enough, and was very indignant that someone would have the gall to question her on whether she was serving dairy or not! In other words, where C felt silly and a little insulted that the woman got so indignant, that woman though C was accusing her of trying to serve dairy and meat together and took C's innocent question as an insult! It's just coincidence that both women chose to tell the rebbetzin about it, so she could clear it up.
Rarely do we get the chance to understand why someone reacted the way they did in this kind of a disagreement. Rarely do we actually get to truly hear both sides. Both women involved misunderstood what the other wanted to convey, and both came away insulted when neither should have.
I just found this so incredibly fascinating. It reminds us to take a moment to examine our motivations before we jump down someone's throat.
The thing is, if C were religious, she would never have thought to raise the question, because she would have known instinctively that, if a bunch of Chabad rabbis have sanctioned the kashrut of this caterer, they definitely aren't serving any dairy. But because she's so used to having to police what she eats when she goes out, and she was thinking of this as "going out," her first instinct was to be sure. There's nothing wrong with being sure, and her impulsive question is completely understandable, especially since the guy she ordered from DID call it butter.
But on the other side, apparently the caterer was fed up with her kashrut being questioned and took it out on poor C, who really wasn't even thinking about kashrut at all! I think it's sad that Jews would question other Jews' kashrut in a situation like this one, but that's a topic for another post.
No, that's not true. I hope that the intervening days make you very antsy waiting for the next post!
Anyway, something very interesting happened today, and it fits so well into the theme of this blog that I thought an extra post was warranted.
On Sunday, many of the Chabad communities in the Greater San Diego Area participated in a joint "Unity" Lag BaOmer celebration. (I'll probably write more about this next time.) There were bounce houses, arcade games, cotton candy, snow cones, a drum circle, and catered kosher food (burgers, etc.). I think a couple hundred people showed up.
I study on Tuesday mornings with my rebbetzin, along with another woman or two, depending who's available. Today, it was just me and C studying with the rebbetzin. C has several food intolerances and is in the habit of being very careful with what she eats, so that she doesn't spend the whole day throwing up or what-have-you. Which is reasonable. She can't have dairy or soy or gluten, primarily.
The kosher catering at the Lag BaOmer event included grilled corn-on-the-cob. C ordered corn and was asked if she wanted butter. She automatically said no, since when she hears butter, she thinks "dairy", and therefore doesn't want it. When she went to pick up her order, they asked if she wanted margerine. She asked whether it was margerine or butter, since the other guy had said butter, "because I can't have dairy." The woman who was handing her the order got extremely indignant and said something along the lines of "Of course it's margarine! We don't serve dairy with meat! I would never have butter available when I'm serving meat." C felt very bad that she'd made such a silly mistake. She hadn't been thinking, and she's so used to automatically checking exactly what she's eating that she didn't consider that, if this was a kosher meat meal, of course there would be no dairy in sight.
It affected her enough that she told us about it today when we were studying, prefacing the story with, "I made a faux pas." This is where things get interesting. C told it as though she felt very bad for making such a silly mistake and didn't understand why the woman had been so mean about it. The rebbetzin then said that the caterer had come to her and told her that someone had insinuated that her kashrut wasn't good enough, and was very indignant that someone would have the gall to question her on whether she was serving dairy or not! In other words, where C felt silly and a little insulted that the woman got so indignant, that woman though C was accusing her of trying to serve dairy and meat together and took C's innocent question as an insult! It's just coincidence that both women chose to tell the rebbetzin about it, so she could clear it up.
Rarely do we get the chance to understand why someone reacted the way they did in this kind of a disagreement. Rarely do we actually get to truly hear both sides. Both women involved misunderstood what the other wanted to convey, and both came away insulted when neither should have.
I just found this so incredibly fascinating. It reminds us to take a moment to examine our motivations before we jump down someone's throat.
The thing is, if C were religious, she would never have thought to raise the question, because she would have known instinctively that, if a bunch of Chabad rabbis have sanctioned the kashrut of this caterer, they definitely aren't serving any dairy. But because she's so used to having to police what she eats when she goes out, and she was thinking of this as "going out," her first instinct was to be sure. There's nothing wrong with being sure, and her impulsive question is completely understandable, especially since the guy she ordered from DID call it butter.
But on the other side, apparently the caterer was fed up with her kashrut being questioned and took it out on poor C, who really wasn't even thinking about kashrut at all! I think it's sad that Jews would question other Jews' kashrut in a situation like this one, but that's a topic for another post.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Passover Shopping Project
With Passover starting tomorrow night, it seemed appropriate to start off with my first non-introductory post talking about Passover.
To make a long story very, very short, Passover celebrates the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. We eat certain ritual foods and perform certain ritual blessings and activities during two special dinners called seders. The holiday lasts eight days, during which time we are not supposed to eat any “chametz,” which is a whole category of foods including leavened bread, foods made with wheat flour other than matzah, and, in the Ashkenazi tradition (of which I am a part), we also don’t eat corn, rice, or legumes. This eliminates a rather large number of foods from our regular diet.
Thus, in the weeks leading up to Passover, there is a great deal of preparation to do, involving shopping for special foods to eat for the week as well as cleaning the house of chametz and acquiring dishes and utensils to use so that any food we cook or eat will not be contaminated by any chametz remaining on our regular dishes, in the oven, cupboards, or refrigerator.
This “Passover shopping” project means finding replacements or alternatives for just about everything, from ketchup and mayonnaise to starchy staples like pasta, bread, and cereal. Why ketchup? Well, most commercial ketchups are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, and we don’t eat corn products. Why mayonnaise? You have to be careful what oil was used.
We used to live in a suburb of Philadelphia that had a very large religious Jewish population. This meant that the two major supermarkets near us carried quite a lot of kosher products in general, and they brought in a lot of kosher for Passover products in the Passover shopping season. We’re not talking about just matzah. We’re talking just about anything you could think of made from potato starch or potato flour instead of corn or wheat flour, from lollipops to pasta. Cereals made from matzah meal. Kosher for Passover potato chips (not difficult, really), cheeses, canned and frozen products, premade Passover pizza, with dough made from matzah meal, matzah ball soup mixes (of course), potato latke mix, potato kugel mix, Passover egg noodles… the list goes on. And it’s all specially produced and specially watched just for the Passover season.
One thing I should note is that more Jews keep kosher for Passover than keep kosher during the rest of the year, so the market for these products is much bigger than the market for standard kosher products is the rest of the year. (This is a topic that warrants a series of posts in the future, incidentally. I’ll get to it. But not right now.)
Now we live in northern San Diego County, a place with very few Jews. The kosher sections of our local supermarkets carry only very basic products during the year, and finding kosher meat is very difficult. On Passover, they set up an endcap or two with matzah, grape juice, matzah ball soup mix, and some macaroons. Granted, macaroons are tasty, but you can’t eat macaroons three meals a day for eight days, can you?
Certainly, you can eat many fresh vegetables and fruits, so you’re not limited to packaged stuff, but you need the proteins and starches to build a meal. We find ourselves eating quite a lot of eggs and potatoes on Passover.
There is a store about 25 minutes from us with a pretty big kosher section, so for two years, we went down there to do our shopping. This year, we decided to go all out and drive up to Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles, where there are several all-kosher stores and restaurants. Passover shopping was very easy there, very fun, the over 1-1/2-hour drive notwithstanding, and very expensive.
In general, a weeks’ worth of Passover shopping costs, I’d say, three to four times what a standard weeks’ shopping would cost. On top of that is the purchase of whatever utensils, pots, dishes, tablecovers, and kitchen accessories you need to acquire or replace. The idea is that you accumulate all of these things and then don’t need to buy them each year, but it’s hard when you’re first starting out. For example, last year I bought extremely cheap frying pans at Wal-Mart. They were terrible. Just awful. So this year I decided to buy a nicer set of pots so that cooking would be more pleasant. The same went for knives. I went ahead and bought a slightly nicer set of knives to use this year. Those, we’ll keep around for next year, of course. We do a fair amount of cooking throughout the year, but we do even more on Passover, so having useful cooking utensils was an important consideration.
We also decided to go with paper this year for plates, bowls, cups, and flatware. This may not be an environmentally sound decision, but it’s much easier and cheaper in the short run than buying new sets of dishes.
All in all, keeping Passover here is more challenging, and not just because finding kosher for Passover food is more difficult. When you’re surrounded by others keeping kosher for Passover with you, it’s easier to stick with it. But when the guy in the next cubicle over is having pizza while you are eating your matzah with cream cheese, you can feel a little left out. But that’s also another series of posts waiting to happen.
I’ll finish by saying that although Passover itself is only 8 days long, the preparations start weeks in advance, and at least a day or two before Passover, you need to have finished switching over your kitchen so that you can start cooking! My husband is hard at work in the recently switched-over kitchen making meatballs for our second seder right now, in fact! (Don’t worry; I’ll be doing some of the cooking, too. But he’s the meat maker in the family.)
I know I left out a lot of details, and I didn’t really get into all the laws here – limited space, you know – but I’d love to entertain questions or comments from you if you want more information on anything I touched upon here.
To make a long story very, very short, Passover celebrates the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. We eat certain ritual foods and perform certain ritual blessings and activities during two special dinners called seders. The holiday lasts eight days, during which time we are not supposed to eat any “chametz,” which is a whole category of foods including leavened bread, foods made with wheat flour other than matzah, and, in the Ashkenazi tradition (of which I am a part), we also don’t eat corn, rice, or legumes. This eliminates a rather large number of foods from our regular diet.
Thus, in the weeks leading up to Passover, there is a great deal of preparation to do, involving shopping for special foods to eat for the week as well as cleaning the house of chametz and acquiring dishes and utensils to use so that any food we cook or eat will not be contaminated by any chametz remaining on our regular dishes, in the oven, cupboards, or refrigerator.
This “Passover shopping” project means finding replacements or alternatives for just about everything, from ketchup and mayonnaise to starchy staples like pasta, bread, and cereal. Why ketchup? Well, most commercial ketchups are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, and we don’t eat corn products. Why mayonnaise? You have to be careful what oil was used.
We used to live in a suburb of Philadelphia that had a very large religious Jewish population. This meant that the two major supermarkets near us carried quite a lot of kosher products in general, and they brought in a lot of kosher for Passover products in the Passover shopping season. We’re not talking about just matzah. We’re talking just about anything you could think of made from potato starch or potato flour instead of corn or wheat flour, from lollipops to pasta. Cereals made from matzah meal. Kosher for Passover potato chips (not difficult, really), cheeses, canned and frozen products, premade Passover pizza, with dough made from matzah meal, matzah ball soup mixes (of course), potato latke mix, potato kugel mix, Passover egg noodles… the list goes on. And it’s all specially produced and specially watched just for the Passover season.
One thing I should note is that more Jews keep kosher for Passover than keep kosher during the rest of the year, so the market for these products is much bigger than the market for standard kosher products is the rest of the year. (This is a topic that warrants a series of posts in the future, incidentally. I’ll get to it. But not right now.)
Now we live in northern San Diego County, a place with very few Jews. The kosher sections of our local supermarkets carry only very basic products during the year, and finding kosher meat is very difficult. On Passover, they set up an endcap or two with matzah, grape juice, matzah ball soup mix, and some macaroons. Granted, macaroons are tasty, but you can’t eat macaroons three meals a day for eight days, can you?
Certainly, you can eat many fresh vegetables and fruits, so you’re not limited to packaged stuff, but you need the proteins and starches to build a meal. We find ourselves eating quite a lot of eggs and potatoes on Passover.
There is a store about 25 minutes from us with a pretty big kosher section, so for two years, we went down there to do our shopping. This year, we decided to go all out and drive up to Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles, where there are several all-kosher stores and restaurants. Passover shopping was very easy there, very fun, the over 1-1/2-hour drive notwithstanding, and very expensive.
In general, a weeks’ worth of Passover shopping costs, I’d say, three to four times what a standard weeks’ shopping would cost. On top of that is the purchase of whatever utensils, pots, dishes, tablecovers, and kitchen accessories you need to acquire or replace. The idea is that you accumulate all of these things and then don’t need to buy them each year, but it’s hard when you’re first starting out. For example, last year I bought extremely cheap frying pans at Wal-Mart. They were terrible. Just awful. So this year I decided to buy a nicer set of pots so that cooking would be more pleasant. The same went for knives. I went ahead and bought a slightly nicer set of knives to use this year. Those, we’ll keep around for next year, of course. We do a fair amount of cooking throughout the year, but we do even more on Passover, so having useful cooking utensils was an important consideration.
We also decided to go with paper this year for plates, bowls, cups, and flatware. This may not be an environmentally sound decision, but it’s much easier and cheaper in the short run than buying new sets of dishes.
All in all, keeping Passover here is more challenging, and not just because finding kosher for Passover food is more difficult. When you’re surrounded by others keeping kosher for Passover with you, it’s easier to stick with it. But when the guy in the next cubicle over is having pizza while you are eating your matzah with cream cheese, you can feel a little left out. But that’s also another series of posts waiting to happen.
I’ll finish by saying that although Passover itself is only 8 days long, the preparations start weeks in advance, and at least a day or two before Passover, you need to have finished switching over your kitchen so that you can start cooking! My husband is hard at work in the recently switched-over kitchen making meatballs for our second seder right now, in fact! (Don’t worry; I’ll be doing some of the cooking, too. But he’s the meat maker in the family.)
I know I left out a lot of details, and I didn’t really get into all the laws here – limited space, you know – but I’d love to entertain questions or comments from you if you want more information on anything I touched upon here.
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