I came to college convinced that I would never intentionally eat non-kosher food again, a resolution that lasted until the second night of orientation when they were giving out free, unhechshered, and incredibly delicious ice cream sundaes. So much for that religious resolution.
But I decided that I wanted to eat food from a kosher kitchen, even though I knew that I would eat at decent tasting pizzas in non-kosher pizzerias on occasion. I shipped myself off to be a counselor at progressive Zionist hippy camp the summer after freshman year in the hopes of not eating bacon-greasy eggs.
The camp was part of a secular Jewish socialist movement. I did not understand their definition of “secular” until one of the Israeli counselors told me he intentionally mixed up the milk and meat silverware for fun and my nine year old campers taunted me for keeping Shabbat. One freckle-faced third grader set up a rock altar “to the gods” to pray that she wouldn’t come down with the pink-eye virus that was sweeping the camp. “I’m all for religious pluralism,” I said, “but can we hold off on the idol worshipping until you go home?”
Though I was clearly not cut out to be a summer camp socialist pedagogue, I landed a fun filled job my sophomore year of college as a Brandeis Kosher Kop. Brandeis University has two cafeterias, one of which has a kosher and non-kosher side. It is the job of the Kosher Kop to make sure that the kosher and non-kosher food never mix. Though it was pretty good money, I had constant nightmares that the head Kosher Kop would catch me eating non-kosher vegetarian food in the Other Cafeteria.
The next summer I sought out a kosher kitchen by interning at an amazing Jewish retreat center-cum-summer camp for adults, in the hopes that at least I wouldn’t cause any small children trauma, and would not feel responsible if the guests worshipped an occasional idol. Half of the day I baked cookies in the retreat center’s wonderful kitchen, and the other half I spent taking a series of increasingly absurd Jewish mysticism classes while fantasizing about clawing my eyeballs out with fishhooks. “Look!” said one of my teachers. “I found a miracle! A rock with pebbles on it in the shape of a smiley face! Now go into the woods and find your own miracle!”
I trudged bitterly through the woods, fantasizing about paving them over, filling in the creek, and skewering the adorable chipmunk darting in front of me, turning it into a nice shish kabob. Grilling it at the retreat center would treif up their kitchen, so I ceased attending classes that caused me to have such hunter-gatherer impulses and I spent every day elbow-deep in melted gourmet chocolate. Having ditched the Kaballah class for kitchen duty, I had a very powerful experience of the emanation of G-d while almost exploding from chocolate.
I now live in a university-owed apartment with four people, five classifications of dishes (treif, non-kosher dairy, kosher dairy, meat, and pareve), and an occasional mouse. The latest mouse was a picky eater, boycotting the peanut butter, cheese, and chocolate that we placed in his humane trap in favor of the chemical scent on the deadly mouse trap. The mouse had grown fat on my organic produce, and it seemed like a shame to let a locally raised, organic mouse go to waste. I pictured it freeze dried with a crab apple in its mouth on a shelf in Whole Foods, but I don’t think even a rabbi at the hippy retreat center would be willing to hechsher a freeze-dried mouse snack.
My mother always believed that it was okay if one chose to have a kosher kitchen, but only eating in kosher restaurants was an act of profound masochism which one would deeply regret if there turned out to be no G-d. The various kosher kitchens I have attempted to surround myself with haven’t always provided me with good-tasting food, but attempting to find them did lead me to interesting Jewish experiences. Thankfully, none of them were too far away from a decent pizza place.
