Going Kosher: Kashwhat?

How was I supposed to know there were so many rules to preparing Jewish cuisine? When the rabbi asked if I could cook kosher food I said I could although I was thinking to myself, “um like bagels?” I spent a lot of time smiling and nodding my head, hoping the congregation members wouldn’t discover the fact that I know little about most religions except for Vodou and Brazilian Candomblé. I know what Iemanjá, the goddess of the sea likes to eat, so how about we stop talking about Jesus and whip up a feast for the water mother?

It is not my job to cater in a large Jewish temple but since my mother, who is also very much not a practitioner of Judaism is the catering manager, I often get weaseled into helping in the kitchen. The other day she made a delicious casserole for the congregation lunch and it probably wasn’t her intention to make the whole temple throw up, but who knew it wasn’t kosher to mix diary and meat? Well, at least we remembered not to put pork in there. Wait, did we?

At the tot Shabbat party I couldn’t figure out why all the little munchkins were falling over with laugher, unable to walk a straight line. They had eaten their little kiddy finger food and drank all the grape juice in the refrigerator. The forty little ones loved that grape juice so much I ran out of the 14 bottles and they continued to act freakishly felicitous while the adults looked on and questioned their contentment. It wasn’t until later when someone asked where all the wine had gone that I realized, “oh shit.” Was it my fault that Manischevitz wine says “grape juice” and is deceptively sweet? Once again I say, it wasn’t my intention to get four dozen pre-schoolers drunk.

Despite the fact that I speak four languages, Hebew is not one of them. This became apparent to me when I was supposed to read the Hebrew script on a Sedar plat which has to be arranged per the ritualistic requirements of Passover. I thought if I stared at the plate long enough the language gods would bestow me with the ability to make out the words for “lamb shank” and “egg” and “this apple raison stuff that I am pretending to know what it is”. Luckily there was a children’s cheat-sheet (gotta love the kid-os!) which allowed us to prepare Passover’s symbolic platter.

I don’t know if you have ever worked in the catering business, but it was what motivated me to go to school. In High School I worked a banquet at Stanford and had to carry a tray of flaming cakes that almost set my head on fire. The snooty-patoody Stanford graduates instilled in me the desire to first, burn them with the flames, and second, to not have to do this for the rest of my life. But I do enjoy the occasional interlude in the caterer’s kitchen. Especially since Sonya, or favorite nut, was there to entertain me. And despite the fact that she once threatened to shoot me, to which my mother replied, “don’t worry, she probably won’t” (um, probably?) I enjoy listening to her madness as it makes me feel perfectly sane. She’s about fifty years old now, and has been in college for as long as I have been on this earth. And much similar to the Valley girl’s interjection of “like” after every other word, Sonya Guadalupe interjects a good “fuck” “shit” or “mother fucker” about two to three times per phrase. And because we were in a temple she attempted to sweeten her talk with a nice hardy, “holy shit” for god’s sake.

Whenever we cannot figure something out, god forbid we ask one of the many Jewish individuals at the temple. Instead we consult our handy “Judaism for dummies.” Shabbat Shalom!