Kosher krazy

The other day, I read this article. I know you won't click on that link, so I'll summarize it.

Non-Jewish woman starts work at a religious Jewish institution. She is told that she cannot use their microwave because the kitchen is kosher and she is not. Woman complains. Woman gets fired.

Now here's the disclaimer before I get into my point. I don't think this woman should have been fired. No one should be fired for complaining.

The thing is, I don't think this woman should have complained in the first place. I would hope that before she was hired, someone would have informed her about any relevant Jewish laws and customs, particularly about the kitchen. If she wasn't warned, this is her employer's fault.

Orthodox Jews don't mess around with their kashrut (the act of keeping kosher), friends. Examples:

1. "Oh, but it's just a microwave, let the woman heat up her bacon cheeseburger in it because no one cares about a microwave." NO.

2. "Alright, well maybe she can bring something that doesn't involve pigs or meat + cheese and heat it up." NO.

3. "What if she cooks something entirely from certified kosher ingredients and we mean REAL kosher like the O U, not that bogus star-K crap (see pictures below)." NO.


Non-kosher food is not kosher. Food that is not blatantly non-kosher is not kosher. Kosher food prepared in a non-kosher kitchen is not kosher.

People who keep kosher keep two sets of silverware, dishes, etc - one for meat, one for dairy. You wash your dishes with different sponges and, in some households, even different sinks. Now that it's Passover and there's a whole array of food you can't eat for 8 days, if you mean business, you have 2 additional sets of silverware and whatnot because your Passover dishes are free from ever touching leavened products and everything else you can't eat on Passover (full explanation for another day). And this is only the tip of the kosher iceberg.

The point is, I understand that it's annoying for this woman to not be able to heat up her leftovers or whatever in the microwave at her job, and as ludicrous as these laws may seem, they still mean a lot to the people who observe them. People take religion pretty damn seriously, don't mess around.

I wouldn't go into a church dying of thirst and then complain that no one let me drink the holy water, would I? No. (You..can't drink the holy water, right? And what makes it holy? Is it blessed? Does it come straight from God's water fountain? I don't get it).

That's all for today's Jewtastic lesson.

Why I hate Twitter

Yes, I'm on Twitter. I don't know why, though, because I don't tweet that often and I get annoyed by at least 90% of tweets. I guess I stick with it so I can stalk the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. Which I only visited about 6 times last summer.

Here are some specific types of tweets that drive me nuts:

1) FUCKING FOUR SQUARE. Full disclosure: if I had a smartphone, I probably would have joined it. However, I haven't, and I DO NOT GIVE A RAT'S ASS WHERE YOU ARE. I don't care what dumb place you're the mayor of or what you're doing there or anything of the sort. Didn't anyone read about that website that's something like pleaserobme.com that utilizes stuff like Four Square to know when you're not home so they can STEAL YOUR CRAP? Doesn't that worry anyone? Obviously not.

2) Tweeting to tell me you blogged. Newsflash: if I wanted to read your blog (and if I follow you on Twitter, I do), I WOULD SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR BLOG. I don't need you to tweet me a link to your newest post. I HAVE IT.

3) Too many back and forths between the same 2 people. If you want to have a conversation, I should let you know about this great invention called calling/texting/gchatting/whatevering. If it only concerns the 2 of you and you're going to go back and forth "@"ing each other, please understand that I will want to taser you.

4) Excessive tweeting about niche subjects I don't care about. I know I can't really stop this one because people get involved in whatever they get involved in and you want to tweet 100 times an hour with the same hashtag that I don't even understand. You're free to do what you want, but after awhile I will unfollow you. Sorry.

5) Telling a story through multiple tweets. Hi, it's called microblogging for a reason. You get 140 characters. If you have something lengthier to say, take it to your blog (just don't tweet to tell me you took it to your blog, mmkay?).

After writing this, I feel like maybe I should delete my Twitter account. Except seriously, I do love following food trucks. Dilemma.

First time waitress at 25

Despite the fact that in an average week, I spend way more time at work than I do in class, I haven't talked much about my job here. I really should have, though, because, HELLO STORIES. Anyway, so I'm going to start writing some posts about catering, AKA what I've been doing to keep busy and, more importantly, to keep myself in school since I decided not to take out any additional loans this year.

I originally wanted to find a bartending job when I came back to Boston this school year, but I soon realized that with 100% late afternoon/night classes, that wasn't at all feasible. I somehow found my way into the world of catering and applied to be a bartender. I was accepted, and they asked me if I wanted to do waitstaff as well since there were far more waitstaff shifts than bartending shifts. I said I had zero experience as a waitress, but they offered to train me.

And here I am. As predicted, I wait far more often than I bartend. This involves everything from fancy-pants plated dinners to being one of those people that walks around passing hors d'oeuvres at cocktail parties to running back and forth replacing food trays as they run out on a buffet table.

Considering that I've always had office jobs (except babysitting and camp counseloring and tutoring and working at my temple and OKAY that sounds like a lot of non-office jobs but it's not), this is a crazy, crazy world that I've been exposed to.

To wrap up this first catering post, here is a list of useful life things I have learned on the job:

1) How to set a table. This is something I only half knew before (as in, fork on the left, knife on the right). Now I know EXACTLY where everything goes including dinner silverware, salad silverware, dessert silverware, water glass, wine glass, bread and butter plate, coffee cup and saucer. I will set the shit out of any table. My mom utilizes me for this purpose when I come home. You can bet I will be setting the table for the Passover seders.

2) How to open bottles of wine without one of those corkscrews with arms. This is also something a lot of people know how to do without being a waiter. I was not one of those people. The number of waiter's corkscrews (also called wine keys) that I've broken in my pre-catering life is absolutely obscene. Now I am supremely good at it. This is also apparently something bars will sometimes ask you to do if applying for a bartending job. If you can't use a corkscrew you are essentially saying "HELLO, I HAVE NO BARTENDING EXPERIENCE, PLEASE DO NOT HIRE ME."

3) General food knowledge. Still working on this one because I'm pretty much the anti-foodie, but in paying attention when chefs tell you what's what, you pick up on some things. I don't know a ton, but I know way more than I did 6 months ago.

There are a lot more things that I've learned from catering, though not necessarily general life lessons. Stay tuned for more catering craziness.