Feeding people for Thanksgiving is a big news story. Feeding people after Thanksgiving gets little press. Today is the annual date my sister harangues me into doing my part to help feed hungry people. Throughout the day, (mostly) women will traipse to the Beth David kitchen to prepare special foods to feed the college students home for the holiday after Shabbat services and leftovers (there are lots of leftovers) find their way to feed the hungry among us. Each person makes two of whatever she’s baking so there are lots of pristine leftovers.
Although every religious institution has its share of volunteers (or it’d cease to exist), my sister is one of the more prolific Beth David volunteers. We’re proud of her for alleviating our Jewish guilt about not volunteering more than we do.
[See the rest of the pictures at Flickr]
Early Friday morning, I was greeted (as will everyone else volunteering today) by the very-early-arriving sister-of-mine in her special apron:
She gets the kitchen ready for everyone to use all day. The paper keeps the long counter clean (easy to clean up) and helps keep the kitchen kosher. There is a lot of work in maintaining the kitchen’s kashrut (kosher certification) and we all try to follow the rules. Keeping kosher isn’t about rules, though. It’s about holiness. (“You can be holy because I, the Lord Your G-d am holy” is from Lev:18 and is a guiding principle about kashrut. Rules are secondary but important. It’s worth repeating: keeping kosher is about holiness.)
When I arrived (and I’m an early bird), she had all my ingredients laid out and measured. Imagine trying to buy and portion all the ingredients for us to use all day long!
I got to cooking with measuring, finding the right utensils in the enormous dairy-side of the storage room.
There were a LOT of lukchen (noodles, to you civilians) and the strainers and bowls were bigger than me!
Some finished kugels (lukchen dishes) were finished before mine. Apparently, the Rabbi requested a special kugel and because no one had signed up for it, my sister made it at the crack of dawn. Mine are in the convection oven (right).
I like a group that has a healthy respect for coffee in quantity.
Keeping a huge kitchen kosher requires signage
Lots of signage and pantries that are separated for meat, milk, Passover and pareve (neither milk nor meat; think: vegetables)
The pantries are stocked because when you can find kosher staples, you buy them for later.
