“THAT MAN CALLED ME ZIPPY”

When my little Chanaleh was a toddler, she was sweet as sugar. Biologically, she was only one-quarter Yekke, but she looked like a real Deutsche Madchen – sunflower hair, creamery-butter complexion. I recently asked her if she remembered the meaning of the German “golden Suppe.” When she said that she didn’t, I thanked God that one more child had dodged ten years on Dr. Freud’s couch.

Then again, the episode of “golden Suppe” was 34 years ago, and the trauma came by way of my cartoonish friend, Stanley. He was the only American-born Yekke I knew who actually acted like a stereotypical German faux-aristocrat. At age 21, he wore a tie and vest to do his laundry. When he was introduced to you, he would click his heels like a Prussian Hauptmann. He would show his disapproval to an etiquette gaffe by muttering a deferential “We don’t.”

The only flaw in Stanley’s Teutonic propriety was that he was an inveterate moocher. Suppertime Sundays he would appear at our door, looking particularly doleful, always knowing that Shabbos leftovers awaited. Little Chanaleh would sit tableside in her highchair, as the matzo ball soup would appear.

One evening, the soup was particularly delicious. Stanley, ever the gracious guest, exclaimed, “You know what they call that wonderful soup in German? Golden Suppe!” At that, Chanaleh started to scream inconsolably. Scream and scream. “What’s wrong, Chanaleh?”

At first, she was reluctant. Then, “That man with the beard called me Zippy!” – a reference to Zippy the Chimp, a television star du jour.

“No, no, no. Stanley said “Suppe. It means “soup.” No, never, Chanaleh would never believe it. “That man called me Zippy! That man called me a monkey!”

Meanwhile, Stanley scowled and refused to apologize. After all, you know, children and all that . . .

Never again did Stanley cross our threshold. At every attempt, no matter how well rehearsed Chanaleh was, screams of “That man called me Zippy!”

One consolation: From that Sunday onward, we ate our dinner undisturbed. As for Stanley, he would take his dinner at a kosher dive called Reb’s, where they deep-fried knockwurst in rancid oil and never once served golden Suppe.

FOIE GRAS FAUX PAS

When you stop to think of it, most of the food we eat is pretty funky. Beef – muscle fiber, connective tissue, blood (let’s not kid ourselves; even kashering gets rid of only some of it) – even from lamb and veal. Babies, mind you. Organs – who knows what kind of poison has made its way through those? Chickens roll around in barnyard shmootz. Fish swim around their own waste.

But, the most disgusting is foie gras, the fancy name for goose liver. A kosher species, you say? Just broil it up, grind with onions, eggs, and a little schmaltz, and good Shabbos, right? Only if you are a culinary ignoramus who thinks that Thousand Island dressing is haute cuisine.

Foie gras producers force-feed sweet little goslings, offspring of our beloved Mother Goose, by inserting a feeding tube and swelling their liver to the size of footballs. Our lovable goslings, who would otherwise have a life expectancy of 60 years are then slaughtered. Even the pictures give you the creeps, maybe more than watching a cow being shechted, another case for vegetarianism.

Kosher foie gras? Why not treife? A clear-cut case of tza’ar ba’alei chayyim, inflicting pain on an innocent animal, n’est pas? Not so easy. One of those black-hat high-rollers from Bnai Brak, who owns controlling interest in a foie gras operation, posed the question to rabbinical authorities from – you guessed it – Bnai Brak. One of them, age 90, pronounced foie gras permissible, opining that the rule of tza’ar ba’alei chayyim is suspended when “the suffering has some tangible benefit to man.” This, of course, is tantamount to the Medellin drug cartel claiming that it is selling cocaine “only for medicinal purposes.”

Ironically, the snooty Upper West/East Side kosher-chic consumer doesn’t get much Israeli foie gras. The primary supplier of kosher foie gras to the US is France. Who would have guessed it? The same country that thinks horsemeat is a delicacy and an Erector Set project gone wrong is a wonder of the world, has us believing that livers au hepatitis are haute cuisine.

My fellow Jews, arise! Don’t be hoodwinked! Just schmeer some honest-to-goodness gehakte leber on your challah. Paris will soon start looking like Calcutta.

TASTES GREAT, LESS FILLING

My little town of Greenville has two newspapers, which is remarkable for a city that has only seven policemen (or so it sometimes feels). One paper caters to everyone who isn’t illiterate. The other is directed to the well-heeled Upper Middle Class.

When the latter started, I applied to become its food editor. They rejected my application, telling me that they were afraid that my recipes would be “too Jewish,” despite my protests that I made an award-winning lobster bisque. Instead, they hired a shiksa (politically incorrect?) whose hair was so blonde that all she missed was a dirndl.

To reassure me that they weren’t being anti-Semitic, they promised that she would include a “Jewish style” recipe during every holiday season. And, so she did: Hamantaschen for Purim. Latkes for Chanukah. Honey cake for Rosh Hashanah.

Came Pesach, a recipe for Pesachdik brisket. Now, how many ways do you know to make a Pesachdik brisket? With potatoes, carrots and prunes, onions, tomato sauce, red wine? Of all the briskets that our shayneh shiksaleh could have chosen, she honored Yom Tov with her special recipe for “brisket in beer.”

Were we in Greenville or Chelm? I penned a respectful letter to the editor trying to set the record straight about beer being “leavened.” Oh, they printed it. But what did the headline read? “Chief Rabbi Denounces Recipe as Violation of Ancient Hebrew Law.”

The response was swift and ruthless. I received mail from three community members accusing me of “stirring up anti-Semitism.” Another wrote to remind me that kashrut was, indeed, “ancient Hebrew law.” One opined, “Well, that may be your opinion, Rabbi.” The columnist herself sent me an email accusing me of being “jealous,” saying that her Jewish friends declared the recipe “simply delicious.”

From that time on, I kept my big mouth shut. That was, until she ran a recipe for pork-stuffed wonton. She was quick to remind readers “Our Jewish friends call wonton kreplach.” Local Yehudim were quick to show me the column and praise the recognition of her “Jewish friends.”

“You know, Rabbi,” one of them said, “I never thought of it until the last time I had wonton soup at Chong Wah Express. It was even better than my bubbe’s!”

WATER, COKE, OR A PESACHDIK MARTINI?

If you’re a fresser like I am, you know very well that we affluent Jews eat more like Pharaoh on Pesach than did our enslaved ancestors.

“Why is this week different from all other weeks of the year?”

. . . on every other week of the year, if we crave sweets, we eat a chocolate bar. But, on this week, we eat only kosher li-Pesach marshmallow-and-macadamia truffles bathed in real Swiss organic 83% cacao chocolate?

. . . on every other week of the year, if we want a piece of fruit, we take an apple or orange. But, on this week, we eat only imported kosher li-Pesach Barbary figs glazed in turbinado sugar.

. . . on every other week of the year, if we want to schmeer cream cheese on a cracker, we break off a piece of matzo. But, on this week, we schmeer only kosher li-Pesach bagels.

In fact, last year as I was doing my Pesach shopping, I spied a box of kosher li-Pesach bagel mix. When I thought no one was listening, I mumbled, “I can’t believe it. Now we’re ready for Moshiach to come.” A young Lubavitcher overheard me and exclaimed, “Why? Have you heard something about the Rebbe?”

My congregation in Atlanta had one Pesachdik quirk. Although it was no longer strictly orthodox, its rabbi still supervised the production of kosher li-Pesach Coca-Cola. Why? Because some 80 years ago, the schule’s orthodox rabbi was the first to ascertain that Coke was suitable for Pesach.

So, I would travel at 4:00 AM to watch bottles go round-and-round, filling up with soda and syrup on which some Chasidische rov in New York had already put his hechsher.

Then came that first fateful Pesach. The Jews of Atlanta drank Pesachdik Coca-Cola to their hearts’ content. All but the orthodox Jews, that is. When they discovered that my schule had no mechitza, they refused to drinks the beverage that was bottled under my watchful, but obviously heretical, eye.

Nebbish. You think that the tzaddikim had to suffice with drinking water? Not for long. Now Carmel makes kosher li-Pesach vodka, so they can enjoy a martini with their Seder dinner. Mah nishtanah?

OBAMA AND HIS PREACHER: REJECTING THE MESSAGE BUT NOT THE MESSENGER

In 35 years in ministry, I I have exhorted my parishioners from the pulpit some 1,855 times, excluding weddings and funerals. I’ve rallied them to observe the Sabbath and Holy Days and kosher laws, to be more compassionate and socially conscious, and to love their neighbors and their God.

I have also exhorted them about some pretty nasty, meanspirited things, too, particularly in my youth: Hate the Palestinians. Hate the Arabs. Hate Reagan. Hate the military-industrial establishment. Hate the Religious Right. Hate Falwell. Hate Jesse Jackson. Hate. Hate. Hate.

I don’t preach hate any more, having attained the years that bring the philosophical mind. But, oh, there were the days. More importantly, though, my parishioners didn’t really listen to too much of what I said, nor internalize it, nor certainly act upon it.

Looking back, that was a good thing. Ironic, then, that despite not listening to me, they by-and-large loved me. They routinely renewed my contracts, invited me to dinner, and told me that my sermons were great.

Did that make me an ineffective preacher? Probably not. It is more about the dynamics between pulpit and pew. Good preachers are expected to make incisive, even acerbic, pronouncements. They will more often be criticized for being limp-wristed than for being brusque. A preacher will more likely get fired for not visiting the sick and bereaved than he will for speaking controversially from the pulpit.

Parishioners in the pew, on the other hand, are expected to listen politely, nod appreciatively, occasionally criticize respectfully, and tell the preacher that he “really told them today!” but still take his imprecations with a grain of salt. “That’s what he’s supposed to do,” they say.

To understand the relationship between pew and pulpit is to make sense out of the relationship between Barak Obama and his rancorous pastor. Sitting in his congregation and mindlessly soaking up his preacher’s venom simply “because he said so,” is about as likely as getting my congregants sufficiently whipped up to drop a half-eaten cheeseburger.

My mean-spirited pronouncements were wrong then, and Barak’s preacher is wrong now. Somehow, though, most of our congregants stuck with us and either miraculously, or out of sheer indifference, neither of us was fired.

Perhaps Barak should have taken a posture of conscience and resigned his membership. Maybe my parishioners should have done the same. But, standing by ones preacher bespeaks a complex web of relationships that transcends his preachments, even if they are sometimes wild-eyed. Staying loyal to ones errant preacher might be about his having talked your kid out of suicide, or bailing you out when you were destitute, or saying just the right words when you were grieving, or being by your side when everyone else had rejected you, or adding to your celebration at a joyous moment in your life.

These are great reasons to remain faithful to ones preacher that might even exceed vituperative preaching. Looking back, these are why so many of my parishioners held me in respect even during my most nasty sermons. And, I would like to believe that these are the reasons that Barak stands by his preacher, but not his preachings.


Once upon a time, I took my kids to hear Louis Farrakhan speak, primarily so that they could be inoculated to hatred and anti-Semitism up close and personal. In some perverse way, we were not disappointed.

The next morning, the kids and I had breakfast at the Adams Mark, and who should be sitting alone in the next booth but Minister Farrakhan. I approached him, yarmulke on my head, and introduced myself as a local rabbi. I said that I had attended his speech the night before.

Ignoring my comment, he beckoned my kids closer, and said, “You are fine children. Remember to study well and say your prayers so that you grow to be good people,” and shook each ones hand.

I harbor no delusions. Louis Farrakhan will always be a skunk. But, for that moment, I could appreciate even from one so despicable, that being a preacher adds up to more than the pronouncements from ones pulpit.

As one truly comes to understand the complex dynamics of ministry, the idea of rejecting the message while standing by the messenger sounds less like doubletalk and more like the prudence that good judgment demands. I thank my parishioners for frequently cutting me that slack. One hopes that the same is true of Barak and his scurrilous preacher.

LUNG-AND-LIVER AS CRIME-STOPPER

A woman recently wrote me to take exception to my observation that pitcha (jellied calf’s foot) was the most disgusting of all Jewish foods. “Actually,” she wrote, “The worst is a stew made of cow’s lung and liver.”

“Lunge-und-leber?” I’d entirely forgotten. Thoughts of a steaming tureen of lunge-und-leber ironically brought back a rush of memories about one of the least detestable characters in my life, my Uncle Joe. Joe was a “lovable scoundrel.” Pa paid for a year’s tuition at the University of Chicago. But Yossel never attended a single class, out shooting craps in some Southside alleyway.

Joe was no surrogate father to me, but he coaxed me through the more robust edges of childhood. He took me to the White Sox games and bought me sports regalia and comic books. He died childless at 48 of too much rare steak and too many Lucky Strikes.

He also had his brushes with the law. Nothing violent, mind you. A little shaving of his taxes, changing a number on a check, playing loose with the books. The only victim was the IRS, so you might have even called it “naughty,” but not evil.

But Joe never spent a moment in jail. Whenever he would go astray, Pa knew just the right politician to schmeer, to keep Yossel beyond reach of the law. After all, this was Chicago.

Of course, since Yossel was basically a good Jewish boy, he would pledge to Bubbe, “Ma, if you make me a bowl of lunge-und-leber, I’ll never go wrong again.”

So Bubbe would make lunge-und-leber. The aroma was so toxic that even Amaryllis the cat would hide. Joe would bathe in the nasty stuff and sop up the gravy with chunks of challah.

His pledge, naturally, lasted three months. Then the cycle resumed: Bad check. Bail out. Promises. Lunge-und-leber. And . . .

Pa would admonish me, “Just remember that if you ever rob a bank, Bubbe will have lunge-und-leber for you.” I swore to live a life free of crime. You may be certain that with a deterrent like that, even Chicago’s meanest streets would soon become cheery and bright.

A ROCKEFELLER AT MY SEDER

Sometimes it feels like I’ve spent every day of my career apologizing for one insufficiency or another. “I’m sorry that I didn’t compliment you enough at the Sisterhood meeting.” “I’m sorry for saying that Hamas was our enemy. After all, Children of God have no enemies.” “I’m sorry for not being able to make all Yom Tovim on weekends.”

My flock rarely apologizes to me. “After all, we’re paying him.” Funny, though, that they routinely apologize for breaches of observance, especially when I have “caught them” in an infraction, forgetting that they weren’t a bunch of Satmar Chasidim.

A mother recently squirmed and apologized, telling me that my services were no longer required to officiate at her daughter’s wedding. “The kids” had decided that it would be too late to start the ceremony after Shabbos, as if I didn’t know that in June we don’t recite Havdalah until 10:00. Apology accepted.

How many times have I strolled through the supermarket and chanced upon this or that parishioner reaching for a package of ham? “It’s for an elderly neighbor,” they stammer. Apology accepted.

Then there was the time that I visited a congregant in the hospital. Immediately upon seeing me, he threw a napkin over his breakfast bacon. Seeing the fat seeping through, he sheepishly declared, “Sorry, Rabbi. Bacon. Doctor’s orders.” Apology accepted.

Looking back over my three-decade-plus career, I can think of only one transgression that really curled my tzitzis. When we moved into my first congregation, one couple was especially helpful in getting us settled in our new environs. With our thanks, we presented them with a beautiful Seder plate. They gushed with gratitude.

Months went by, and they joined us for Shabbos dinner. Again, the wife gushed, “The plate you gave us is so beautiful. And useful, too. We used it just last week.”

“In November?”

“Of course. Those little cups make it just perfect for serving Oysters Rockefeller.”

I gagged on my brisket. “Oysters Rockefeller??? Oysters Rockefeller???" I kept my mouth shut, but couldn’t help thinking, “The chutzpah! I don’t even like Oysters Rockefeller!”

DADDY, WHY AREN’T FISH-EGGS KOSHER?

You cannot escape the reality that caviar is fish eggs. Why some people find that disgusting is beyond understanding. After all, we eat chicken eggs in a hundred different ways. Yet, a chicken looks far nastier and googlier than a sleek, shiny sturgeon, salmon, or whitefish any day.

If you find fish eggs disgusting, you are mistaken, my good friend. Caviar is a supreme delight – beadlike as freshwater pearls, yielding to the caress of tongue with a beckoning “pop,” melting into a briny essence, not unlike nibbling on your lover’s, uh, belly button.

The most sensual caviars derive from the Caspian, surrounded by our enemies, Russia, Iran, and the various “stan’s.” Besides, to strictest standards of Halacha, they come from treife fish. This raises ponderous questions of divine justice in which God must perforce assume the role of bad guy.

The gentiles have discovered the only way to savor caviar: a dab atop a lightly buttered, crust-less triangle of toasted bread, and perhaps a sprinkle of finely chopped egg yolk. Purists will not quaff vodka, as alcohol numbs the taste buds. It must be served from mother-of-pearl spoons, lest a metallic taste be transferred even from the finest sterling.

Yehudim are at a disadvantage with caviar. Beluga, as I say, is treife. We are thus relegated to ball-bearing sized salmon eggs, or gravelly whitefish or mullet roe. You may purchase them online for about $100 a kilo. Did anyone ever use a kilo of mullet eggs before it spoiled?

The only time I have seen Yehudim eat caviar is as a murky layer atop a bowl of egg salad. I have no idea from whence this ignoble recipe came, but I have been proudly served it at more than one Chanukah party. Invariably, only one spoonful has been removed, after which everyone discovers that the egg salad has turned yellow-grey and that mayonnaise and mullet do not go together.

The incompatibility of Yiddishkeit and caviar remains an enigma. Why? Why? Perhaps when we line up to ask Moshiach to resolve our vexations, one of us should ask that penetrating question . . . but only after someone else demands that he ask God about declaring lobster and shrimp kosher.

“WE ANSWER TO A HIGHER AUTHORITY”

Did you know that in the US, “wiener” is slang for a man’s private parts? The wiener’s vulgarity does not stop with its name. A sage once opined that you never want to watch two things being made: politics and wieners. The wiener is made from meat of the lowest consumable level: no steaks or chateaubriand. The stuff of wieners may be ground up, but don’t look for hamburger in them.

What then? It comes from the nastiest of the cow or whatever, spongy, quivery organs, snouts, ears, entrails, you can imagine the rest. When a wiener manufacturer boasts “no artificial additives,” you wish there were; they are likely less disgusting than the natural ingredients.

A few years ago, the US media exposed the noxious contents and insanitariness of the American wiener. Hebrew National kosher sausage, however, capitalized on the scandal and actually drove many manufacturers out of business.

A deep voice on TV would read off a lengthy list of ingredients that could be unhealthy or unsanitary in treife wieners. Then, the well-dressed star would officiously hold his Hebrew National wiener-in-a-bun heavenward, as the narrator intoned, “You won’t find any of that in Hebrew National. We’re kosher. We answer to a Higher Authority.”

Oy, the poor goyim. They have no idea of what kind of “all beef” goes into Hebrew National wieners. It’s the same sludge that goes into all the others, except that it hales from kosher cows. But, ask most goyim, and they will tell you, “Kosher means pure and sanitary.” Right? Not the last time that I studied Leviticus 14 or visited my local slaughterhouse.

I guess none of that matters, because overnight Hebrew National’s market share increased tenfold, primarily by attracting the gentile palate to the kosher wiener.

Only one other “kosher style” wiener competes with Hebrew National, a venerated icon, Nathan’s. It is so popular in New York that they hold a wiener-eating contest each year that is internationally televised. Huge bulvans gobble up wiener after wiener, but the surprise winner is always a scrawny kid from Japan who weighs no more than 64 kilos.

As for me, you may bring on the sushi, and I’ll take on anyone.

OBAMA'S CANDIDACY USHERS IN A TIME FOR
AFRICAN AND JEWISH AMERICANS TO REAFFIRM COMMON GROUND

The emergence of Barack Obama as a serious presidential candidate raises again, if only by inference, the oft tenuous relations between African and Jewish Americans. While the issue may not be of widespread gravitas, it again precipitates the uncomfortable question of whether Jews and African Americans share common values or mutual distrust.

The cynic would say that the case for distrust can be easily made. Yet, the alliance between African and Jewish Americans is long, deep, and shaped by shared values and visions.

Rather than leave shared values and visions as a matter of blind, axiomatic faith, why not pause for a moment and examine the ground that African and Jewish Americans do share?

We both know the bitterness of oppression.

Negative forces are not the glue that cements lasting relationships. But one cannot deny that there must be some natural affinity between two peoples whose histories so closely parallel each other’s: enslavement, exile, ghettoization, subversion of family ties, severance from cultural identity, educational and economic disenfranchisement. African Americans and Jews share a close-up, bitter knowledge of inhumanity. Shouting matches of “who’s had it worse” demean the ravages that both our peoples have sustained. Let us acknowledge that there has been more than enough to go around.

Persecution has taught us to be more humane.

A persecuted people may learn one of two lessons from its persecution: callous cynicism or heightened compassion. All told, African Americans and Jews have chosen the latter. The ancient Hebrews were repeatedly that the ultimate lesson of bondage was kindness to the stranger in their midst. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Elie Weisel and their coreligionists cried out for social justice because a redoubled commitment to human decency is the only divinely-ordained response to the inhumanity that any one people has suffered.

Dr. King embraced would speak of the African American struggle for liberation only in the context of justice for all the oppressed. The message was overwhelmingly universalistic. Persecution has left us with the same indelible message: Pain must be replaced with compassion.

We overcome oppression through an amalgam of faith and initiative.

The loudest voices crying for social justice among African Americans and have almost invariably been ones of spiritual calling. We, more than any other people, share in the commitment that faith and determination be totally interrelated.

Neither Jews nor African Americans have ever waited helplessly until God redeemed us. Yet, neither of us has maintained that freedom could be attained solely by human devices. Divine providence is an equally crucial element of the equation. We share an abiding belief that God and humankind must work in partnership if the world is to be set on a righteous course.

Real equality comes through empowerment.

Jewish and African Americans have learned that real self-determination comes not from benevolent gifts of outsiders but from entering the mainstream through processes that make African Americans and Jews total participants in shaping social destiny and in the production and distribution of the American pie.

Jewish Americans in the first half of the 20th century and African Americans in the second have concluded that their energies must be directed to attaining the education, political influence, and economic vitality that bring true empowerment, not continued subservience.

Family and heritage are central to our destiny.

No peoples place more emphasis the family as the taproot from which our personal and communal health must emanate. Enemies always knew that the surest way to demoralize us was to subvert our families. We both know that our families are ultimate in determining whether we will flourish or deteriorate.

We have also both rejected the notion that we must renounce our own “families” to conform to the societal mainstream. To the contrary, we now know that our families are the most ennobling force at our reach.

Let’s harbor no illusions: Important issues still pull Jewish and African Americans in opposite directions. Nonetheless, if we review the values, experiences, and aspirations, that African Americans and Jews do share, we realize that substantive principles go directly to the soul of our two peoples. They form an undergirding of purpose far more enduring than grievances and flash points that tug us to opposing corners.

We could reestablish a potent force for social justice, were African and Jewish Americans to focus on the deep-seated values that we hold dear. We would recognize that our reunion is the natural conclusion to which our ideals lead.

Win or lose, if Barack’s candidacy leads us to reconciliation, then the reunion of African and Jewish Americans, as his candidacy itself, will be the sweet denouement of a hard-fought struggle that has been too long in coming.

FRIED CHICKEN MACHISMO

Ask anyone about fried chicken, and he or she will invariably answer, “The Colonel.” Long before The Colonel, deep-fried chicken was an American favorite. In fact, I have it on good authority that many plebeians of the South have never tasted any chicken other than fried – or at least none of the roasted like bubbe used to make.

But, The Colonel – a chubby old man in a white suit and schpitz-bord – turned his Kentucky Fried Chicken into an international enterprise. I guarantee that there were five KFC’s in Beijing well before the Chinese discovered Ping-Pong.

Of course, The Colonel’s fried chicken is globally treife, except for a couple of spots in Israel. Nonetheless, I have sometimes “experimented” and found it a decadent balm for the yetzer hora. The “original” recipe, in contrast to the “crunchy,” is always my choice. The breading is thick, gooey, salty. The skin oozes grease. The flesh is juicily underdone.

Now, The Colonel has fomented a revolution. Steering away from his unpretentious fried chicken, he has gotten into the business of “The Famous Bowl.” Nauseating. Noxious. Like a biblical excavation gone awry, The Famous is layer upon layer of chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, cheese, more chicken, rice, more gravy, cole slaw, and more cheese.

Eating the toxic Famous while sitting down is sufficient to put you in life-threatening jeopardy. Machismo multiplies the danger exponentially. A “real man” will not merely order The Famous. He will dig in and eat it while speeding along at 75 miles an hour.

Unimaginable, you say. Ha. Just last week, Linda showed me an article about someone who ate The Famous as he collided with an oncoming car. The impact made him suck up his Famous so violently that surgeons were picking out shards of breading from his lungs for 18 hours.

“Let that be a lesson to you!” Linda admonishes me with the authority of a third-grade teacher. I promise her devoutly that I will never, ever again eat The Famous, especially when I am driving.

“OK, no more Famous,” I chastise myself, as I pull away from the Sun Yat Sen drive-thru, balancing a carton of lo mein on my lap and maneuvering the steering wheel with my chopsticks. I’m what you call a “real man.”

GARDEN-FRESH VEGETABLE MEDLEY

Growing up, the word “medley” had two meanings. It either meant fragments of songs strung together by a common theme, like “an Engelbert Humperdinck medley.” Or, it meant a series of similar sporting events, “a backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke medley.”

When I entered into the culinary world, “medley” took on a more dubious meaning: a vegetable medley. This is the haystack of sautéed vegetable matchsticks that resides on the dinner plate next to the blob of mashed potatoes or pasta served at weddings, Bnai Mitzvah, and “finer” restaurants.

Inevitably, there it is on the menu, next to the main course: “served with a medley of garden-fresh vegetables.” The vegetables, alas, are not garden fresh, or even distinguishable, and oh yes, they are greasy as my 1957 Volvo.

Truth: The medley is comprised of the cheapest vegetables available that week, green and red peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, yellow squash, onions, and canned mushrooms – fried together until they resemble a pile of hemp.

Is there no end to the madness? Do what I did: Google “vegetable medley” and discover that most of them are sold to hotels and restaurants frozen in plastic bags and cardboard boxes, produced “garden fresh” in Chile by Donald Trump.

If you step up a rung on the society ladder, let’s say a Rothschild Bar Mitzvah, you will still find vegetable medley. In an attempt to impress, it will be even sicklier – spooned out by white-gloved waiters, but still a pathetic mélange of higher-classed “baby” vegetables: baby carrots, squash, asparagus, tomatoes, all seemingly plucked out of the ground prematurely by over-eager farmers, just as I impatiently did from my garden when I was a kid.

The only restaurants in my vicinity where I can procure a fresh vegetable medley are called “meat-and-three’s.” They are habituated by the working class and low-life’s. You walk down the line, and you see real carrots, squash, beans, and potatoes in different pans. You simply point, and each is presented in its own little bowl.

The ultimate wisdom proffered on vegetables was by my Yekke father-in-law. “In Deutschland,” he said, “we didn’t eat vegetables. We considered them meichel behemah (animal fodder).”

No wonder Ronald Reagan considered ketchup a vegetable.

A SPOT OF AMYLASE IN THAT HUMMUS?

Hummus is an elementary food: ground chickpeas, olive oil, garlic, pepper. It becomes a yellowish blob to be scooped up with pita. You either love it or detest its very sight.

I love hummus. Its popularity is no longer reserved for Israelis and sympathizers; it has proliferated among gentiles, too. I have even eaten it at an Irish pub.

One may purchase hummus at nearly every supermarket. The problem: Commercially-prepared hummus is so pumped with preservatives that the aficionado gags at the toxic dump it has become.

Those who really care seek out hummus that is prepared fresh daily. In my village of Greenville, it is available only at a small grocery owned by Palestinians. The proprietors treat me kindly, calling out “Raaaaaabbi!” and speaking Hebrew with me.

Recently, all that changed. I entered, and they shouted among themselves in Arabic. I looked down and realized the provocation. I had thoughtlessly chosen a tee-shirt emblazoned in Hebrew with “Hebron, Now and Forever!” This is the equivalent of a Palestinian wearing “Li-Shanah Ha-Ba’ah B’rushayim!” to Simchas Torah.

Nonetheless, I ordered my pound of hummus. Without a word, the proprietor announced that he was getting “special” hummus for me. He went to the back, and I stood on my tiptoes to peek into the kitchen, where the “special” hummus was being prepared. There was a lot of chatter in Arabic and tremendous laughter as the proprietor spat in my hummus and neatly replaced the lid. He presented it to me with great flourish.

Are Jews shrewd, or what? I told him, “On second thought, I’d like a half-pound instead of a pound.” With that, I took a fresh carton from the shelf, replaced it with the pound container, mixed it with the other tubs three or four times, so that no one could tell the “special” hummus from the others. I timidly paid my bill as they cursed at me in Arabic.

Sadly, my quandary had been resolved. I now purchase my hummus from the supermarket. I meticulously read the contents for various preservatives, knowing that I am pumping myself with carcinogens. I am extremely wary, though, if one of the additives is amylase. I think I’ll leave the basic enzyme of saliva for some other unsuspecting customer.

A KASHRUT LESSON FOR KOSHER DOGS

For 58 years, I have not owned a pet. Suddenly, I have become father to an immense fur-ball, to afford me companionship that will break the day’s monotony. I have named her “Minnie,” in memory of my aunt, who hated dogs.

Minnie is well-behaved, loving, even fairly smart. Despite her girth, Minnie is a picky eater. She hates dog food. Not long ago, the poor dog had an upset stomach. The veterinarian recommended the regimen we’d prescribe for ourselves: rice and chicken breast, both boiled. Mazal tov, the bland diet worked. Moreover, Minnie loved it so much that she refuses to eat anything else. Augmented by vitamins, she is flourishing.

What’s the rub? It’s Jewish, naturally. Simply put, kosher chicken breasts are expensive, $8 a pound, and they are so scarce that a trip to Atlanta, 140 miles away, is the only insurance that you will find them at all.

Then came my epiphany: Why does a dog require kosher chicken? Ah, and treife chicken breasts cost only $5. I ran out to buy our first package.

But wait. It’s not quite so easy. After all, serving treife in a kosher home has its unforeseen demands. Now we need a new pot, with a special lid. With what will we cut the chicken? A new knife. What about a new fork and tongs? On what will we slice the chicken? Our kosher cutting board? No, go buy a new one. We don’t want treife to spill over onto our counter, do we? Purchasing a new counter cover –custom fit – is in order. What about our sink? A new scrub brush, sponge, gloves, dishpan, and drainer. Just to play it safe, we buy a separate bottle of soap.

By the time we turn around, we have invested $200 to feed Minnie her damned chicken. She must consume 70 pounds of treife for us simply to break even. (My math may be off a little.)

Meanwhile, I am eating moldy cheese on stale bread. God looks down from heaven, not thundering in disapproval, but simply laughing at this schlemiel. In the meantime, Minnie is demanding rice pilaf. I tell her, “Not before you go to the mikvah!”

LATKE NEUROSIS

My introduction to Chanukah latkes at the tender age of three was, sadly, a less-than-joyous occasion. The Chanukah party, always hosted by Tante Leah, was a bacchanalia of yontifdik foods, a platter of her potato latkes at the center.

O how I loved those latkes. They were sodden, thick, greasy – the fantasy of a three-year-old who already weighed 33 kg. How much better could yontif be?

That was, until we made the trek home. Five minutes into the ride, my grandmother would announce, “Feh.”

“Feh, what?” my mother would ask.

At that, my grandmother would launch into her harangue. “Leah’s latkes. Feh. Spongy. Greasy. Oniony. Not like Bobbe Rochel’s. Bobbe Rochel’s were lacy and brown. Just like mine.”

This was likely the origin of the conflicts that I have borne for the last 57 years. How could I dishonor Bobbe Rochel and even my own cranky grandmother by pretending to prefer “lacy, brown” latkes, when my heart pined for “spongy, greasy” ones?

The ensuing years of my youth did not treat me much better. The first time I experienced Chanukah latkes in Talmud Torah, I knew instinctively that something was not right. They were forebodingly grey and dismal. You see, they were not of potato at all, but made from buckwheat. Buckwheat? I do not know from whence in Yehupetz Mrs. Ginsburg came, but I do know that she deserved to be suffocated in a mountain of kasha.

Tentatively, I have learned to deal with my neurosis. How do you like your latkes? Sugar? Applesauce? Cinnamon? Sour cream? I bathe mine in ketchup. As much as I can tell, I am the only member of an international cabal who likes to watch latkes bleed, not shimmer. I have met only consternation from friends and family. Too bad for them.

This, though, is my ultimate solution. A block away from my house stands a dingy goyische eatery . . . but . . . they serve wonderful “potato pancakes.” There is always a bottle of ketchup on the table. I douse them, and nobody cares. Then, my muscles bulge. I strike a valiant pose. I radiate nobility. And I say to myself, “Ah, this is how Judah Maccabee must have felt on the 25th of Kislev!”

RELIGIOUS LEADERS WHO ENDORSE CANDIDATES ARE PRACTICING PHONY RELIGION

I first singed my fingers on the volatile mixture of religion and politics about 20 years ago. Sue Myrick – a lovable, but slightly loopy, friend – was running for mayor of Charlotte. She asked to speak before my congregation, and I agreed, provided that a Q&A session would follow. We built her visit around a Sabbath dinner, assuming that it would create a relaxed, convivial atmosphere. We were, if nothing else, an overwhelmingly friendly audience.

Sue delivered some fairly cogent remarks, but the Q&A marked a disastrous turn. After fielding two creampuffs, someone asked the inevitable: “How would your religious fundamentalism be reflected in the way you conduct the comings-and-goings of the city?”Inexplicably, Sue choked up. She was obviously not angry, but hurt by the question. She began to weep, her face crossed by an expression that said, “I thought you were my friends,” and with that, her husband led her from the synagogue. Ironically, we were her friends, and despite her decompensating, which became the morning news, she won the race, and is now in her seventh term as a North Carolina Congresswoman.

That painful exchange became emblematic of what happens when religion and politics try to woo each other into going to bed, albeit one of its more bizarre examples.

The ultra-fundamentalist Dr. Bob Jones endorses the heretical Mormon, Romney, not for his relationship to God, but because he is “electable.” The equally fundamentalist Pat Robertson takes the podium with the moderate, Catholic Giuliani, because he is “electable,” despite his fealty to the Antichrist, the Pope. And, fundamentalist constituentswait breathlessly until Dobson’s endorsement is revealed.

All this gets to be pretty messy stuff. It should be jarring, even hypocritical, for men of faith to jump into the pocket of a particular candidate, putting pragmatism ahead of their beliefs, to which they purportedly pledge their highest allegiance. Jesus certainly did not ally with the Romans because they consistently won the “elections.” Nor did Christian martyrs save their lives by surrendering their beliefs to appease the infidels.

Religious leaders, those who subscribe to the teachings of the Prophets, should not support candidates, nor even become too chummy with them. They should be their adversaries, vigilant over what a candidate espouses, whenever they agree and especially when they disagree. Religion’s purpose is to raise relentless gadflies whose mission is to afflict the comfortable, not make smarmy campaign appearances.

David had his Nathan. Jeroboam had his Amos. Isaiah took on all of Judea’s bourgeois. And tell me about Jesus and the Pharisees.

Religious leaders are phony so long as they espouse fealty to one man alone, rather than the autonomy to agree, challenge, or even condemn any candidate who strays from virtue. I’d rather hear a minister caustically denounce a candidate than play kissy with him.

Has Romney or Guiliani strayed from virtue? That’s a story for another time. But the idea of a religious leader “belonging” to a candidate or vice versa, smells of religion selling out and politicians becoming even more opportunistic than they have always been.

So, religious leaders, stay true to your principles. Let the first among them be autonomy, to never fear to speak the truth, even if it means not currying political favor or being invited to officiate at Presidential prayer breakfasts.

FORCE-FED PITCHA

Have you ever tasted pitcha? Have you liked it? Ick. Have I already offended our handful of pitcha-lovers? Sorry. But show me someone who likes pitcha, and I’ll show you a person who thinks that squid ink is a delicacy. Even Google has only two entries under “pitcha,” because finding it on the Internet is like trying to find a dirty word on your spell-check.

So, what is pitcha? If we must: Split open calves’ hooves and boil them until shards of meat and grizzle can be scraped from the bones. Boil the hooves and onions/garlic, forever. Pour into a pan, and refrigerate it until slightly gelled. Stir in onions/garlic/grizzle/meat and sliced hardboiled eggs. Let it set. Voila. A quivery, granular quagmire that even Emeril would refuse. If you were really lucky, the hooves still had a tidy fringe of hair surrounding them.

In our family, pitcha was not called pitcha. We called it “fus-noga,” the bastard child of the German and Russian words for “foot.” My cousins and I dubbed it “fitch-a-noogie” which is onomatopoeia for the rumbling of ones stomach upon ingestion.

Lest you think that pitcha was the cheap eats of gypsies, tramps, and thieves, it was served on the most festive occasions. Once, I attended a reception, and a wedge of what I assumed was potato kugel appeared on my plate. I attacked it only to find that it was pitcha. I heaved it onto my pants, leaving an indelible stain.

My Aunt Leah would frequently baby-sit for me. One day she served me a bowl of iridescent pitcha. I squirmed and wailed. She tied me with a towel to the back of the chair, and force-fed me the pitcha to its slimy end. I told this to my therapist just last week. He winced. “That,” he said, “begins to explain your recurring nightmares of being trampled by cows.”

If I have offended, please know that for all I care, you may do the backstroke in a pool of the stuff. As for me, I’d rather take my chances stoking the fires of hell . . . where they would probably tie me to a chair and feed me pitcha, just out of spite.

DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL

So much angst to being a Jew. Woe particularly unto those of us who have lived with it since tender youth. At the age of 16, I traveled from my parents’ home in idyllic San Francisco to attend Yeshiva University in foreboding New York City, 4,800 km away.

I had been warned about New York – thefts, muggings, gang attacks, dangerous neighborhoods, illegal weapons, pickpockets, even gratuitous murder. What a thrill for a yeshiva-bochur to live alone in New York!

I wasn’t really all alone. I had plenty of classmates and a campus surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. We were quickly trained that if you cared for your life, you would not walk down Audubon Street.

But, the angst of life in New York was outweighed by it being paradise for fressers. We judged the quality of any town solely by its abundance of kosher restaurants and pizza parlors. They were everywhere.

A friend and I heard that the sine qua non of kosher restaurants was Gluckstern’s. In fact, we were told that it was so terrific that there were two Gluckstern’s, one Downtown and one Uptown. Just as our longing for matzo ball soup had peaked, though, we heard murmurings that “Gluckstern’s wasn’t really kosher.” Our hearts sank. What should a frummeh yeshiva-bochur do?

We decided to take the issue to one of the rabbinical authorities at the Yeshiva. “Gluckstern’s?” he intoned. “Which Gluckstern’s? Uptown or Downtown? You know that there are two of them.”

“We know, we know.”

“Well, some say that both of them are kosher, and some say that both of them are treife. Some eat only at the Uptown one. Others eat only at the Downtown one.”

“Who’s the mashgi’ach?” we ask.

“I can’t tell you that,” the rabbi said. “I don’t want to embarrass anybody.”

“So where do you eat?”

“It’s better that I don’t tell you,” he says dismissively. “I wouldn’t want to get you confused.”

Forty years have passed, and now Second Avenue, my favorite kosher deli, has re-opened under new management. I am salivating.

Kosher? How kosher? Who’s the mashgi’ach? Would you eat there?

Nu, what do you think? Do you think I’m going to ask?

"WHENCE COME REST AND JOY?"

Not too long ago, I had to have my pills taken away. Linda took them from me because of my increasing addiction to Lortab, after I had injured my shoulder. Now, my Oxycontin, prescribed for a broken elbow, will soon be taken from me. Dependent again.

At first, they were my medications. Then they became my friends. No hallucinations, no goofiness. But, one or two before bedtime to take the edge off, ease the aches and pains of a middle-aged man, make my sleep a little deeper and more restful.

Then, never thinking about the portent of addiction, I swore that “tonight would be the last,” only to gravitate again toward the bottle. “I’m sure that by tomorrow, I won’t need it again.” When Linda hid them, I simply played hide-and-seek. What about when they run out? “Not a problem,” I deluded myself. “I’ll just stop.” Only when the now-horrifying thought of asking my doc-kids to prescribe more crept into my head, did I my conscience clutch. But, it was not addiction, I reassured myself. No. Just conscience toward my kids and their profession. Then, more panic, more dread. Stopping became a necessity, not a virtue. The pills ran out.

Since I “wasn’t addicted,” I took no counsel. I would muster the strength and simply stop. I went to bed that night at my kids home. Within an hour, the sweats soaked four tee-shirts, chills, shaking, crying, contemplating the most horrific thoughts. I woke Scott. But, I “wasn’t addicted,” so he assumed that I was dehydrated. He drove me to the ER. No, I was not dehydrated, they said. A moment later, Scott winced. “You haven’t been taking narcotics?” he asked. “I dunno, maybe I have.”

“You are going through withdrawal.” Shivering, I could no longer escape the truth. Foolishly, I drove myself home to Greenville. All to the best, Linda was away at a conference. I thought the worst was over, so I laid down, slept fitfully for a couple of minutes, awoke, and went into contortions, tossing, screaming, directing garbled prayers and epithets toward God, Kabbalistic rabbis, anyone, vowing piety, pleading for forgiveness, cursing, then begging for life. Only when I cried out for Momma was my torment exorcized. Cradle me again. Wipe my eyes. Tell me you understand. Promise me that I am safe.

How, in search of calming ones pains, might one slip so easily into darkest torment? Momma, let me be at peace. Let it not hurt anymore. Return to me the innocent sleep and dreams of childhood. “Whence comes rest? Whence comes joy?” the refrain of an old Sabbath hymn. Addiction is not in the chemicals, but in the emptiness of the soul.

Months later, I find myself struggling with Oxycontin, despite my broken elbow being long healed. An addictive personality, you say? Perhaps. Perhaps in the short-run, it simply helps me feel more restful, softer, at ease. And the short-run is sometime all you can see when the long-run seems so evasive.

Why is simply counting my blessings, of which I have so many, less than enough? Ingrate! Whiner! Pathetic! Victim! Wallowing in unjustified self-pity! You don’t even know what real pain is! From what does the emptiness in ones soul come to hunger for the momentary, futile attempt to put the heart at rest? Will Torah, or the Rebbe, the Dalai Lama, et al, allay the torment of the soul that Oxycontin cannot?

Here I am, about to have another round of my pills taken from me. This time, I know something more about handling their post-partum effects. I’m “not addicted,” remember? But, I still do not know what un-wholeness within ones self makes the brown bottle so irresistible, and perhaps – even given therapy and Torah – I never will.

“Whence come rest and joy?”

Please, Momma, please . . .

THE KOSHER OENOPHILE'S COMING OF AGE

Talk to an orthodox – or even right-leaning conservative – coreligionist, and s/he will tell you that wine, too, must be kosher. And you think, even ask, “Where’s the cheeseburger? Where’s the pork?” Fact is that if you want to be “strictly strictly,” must pass through the hands only of orthodox Jews, from juicing the grapes to double-sealing the bottles (or heating the wine to 165-190°, I know, picky-picky). This all has to do with wine’s potential for idolatrous libation or promoting unnecessary conviviality between Jews and their gentile neighbors. We are all well aware of the conviviality sparked by a shared bottle of Manischewitz.

I know what those of an upscale kosher palate would say: “That’s all yesterday’s news.” You would be right, Every Upper West Side Metrodox and Jewish gastro-journalist celebrates that one can now procure kosher dry wine with a cork (!) in the bottle.

It is true. It is true. Chateau de Fesles Bonnezeaux, Chateau Fonbadet Pauillac, Chateau Giscours Margaux, Chateau Leoville Poyferre Saint Julien ($134.99), Chateau Patris Filius (Isn’t that two-thirds of the Holy Trinity?). All kosher. All to be swirled and swizzled at equally trendy-dox kosher establishments. Not only do they come bearing corks and un-sugar-encrusted bottlenecks, but tales of international awards, too. It is a prism through which we may view the coming of age of American Jewry.

Being part of that schizoid bridge-generation, I do, however, owe a love song to those goopy, syrupy wines that were so long synonymous with kosher. Those were the wines that had an indelible influence on our earliest infancy, when the mohel administered pre-circumcision anesthesia, gauze soaked not in Bonny Doon, but in Schapiro’s Extra-Heavy Malaga. Primal nursing instinct and Chateau Schapiro soothed our castration trauma then, and we have owed it a debt of gratitude ever since.

Fond memories of childhood include eating brisket and kishke at Siegel’s, under the Lake Street El tracks in Chicago, and Mr. Siegel furtively bringing over shot glasses of Mogen David to the men of the party, a lagniappe to his “preferred” customers. I also remember the evening when I joined my folks at Siegel’s, and Mr. Siegel included me among the “preferred.” Garrison Keillor could not have written a more nostalgic coming-of-age story.

“Are you sure it was Mogen David?” you ask me. Nah. Essentially, all old-time kosher wines were interchangeable: Manischewitz, Kedem, Lipschutz, Mogen David, Schapiro’s
Each had a little edge of its own identity, to be sure. Manischewitz was first with the fruity, soda-poppy varieties – peach, strawberry, mango – quite a buzz, and cheap, too. The old Mogen David label had that loopy little picture of the Seder table, prompting the winos of bygone days to ask for “Morgan Davis, you know, the one with the guys playing poker on the label.”

The warmest spot in my heart, though, is left for Schapiro’s. There was an honest, proud wine, no apologies, no secrets. You want sweet or extra-sweet? They boldly led with their “so thick you can almost cut it with a knife” tag-line. Norman Schapiro to this day boasts that Schapiro’s is “aged for over six months” as though it were a century-old Balsamico di Modena. The taproot Shapiro’s is the musty, musky subterranean labyrinth, the cellars of Schapiro’s, a full square block right underneath the schmootz of the Lower East Side. Yes, the operation has moved Upstate, but on a Sunday, you can still meet one of the Schapiro’s at the ancestral entrance on Essex Street, enjoy a free tasting tour, and walk and inhale, the catacombs for yourself. Amazing, is it not, that even as the Lower East Side gentrifies, the vestal grotto keeps bearing its luscious fruit?

Now, our Jewish palates are more finely attuned. Our noses are better sensitized to inhale the bouquet. We know, and own, the right crystal for each Bordeaux and Merlot. We debate how “chilled” chilled should be, with Talmudic acuity. We Jews have arrived, and remarkably, our yarmulkes are still clipped to our heads. We are deservedly proud, as we have lived to witness “synthesis” become reality.

Sorry, though. I also pine for the other days. We were not so smug, nor so self-satisfied, nor so damned sure of ourselves. But, one thing was for sure: When someone raised a thimbleful of Mogen David at Siegel’s and bellowed “L’chayim!” we all knew what to answer . . . and we meant it.