![\"Kosher_ou_1\"](\"http:\/\/dontgelyet.typepad.com\/.shared\/image.html?\/photos\/uncategorized\/kosher_ou_1.jpg\" "\\"Kosher_ou_1\\"")
<\/a> We were in Orlando all weekend at an advocacy training. It was my husband's journey and I went along for the ride. He had asked for kosher meals<\/a> – it had worked fine on our last trip — but these were some of the worst food I have ever eaten. To the point where I was actively angry – angry! that this had become part of my life. They were in boxes, sealed with cellophane so the kashrut could be guaranteed. The first night the hotel sent them up with a wonderful bellman named Nelson and a tiny microwave where he heated them for us. The meal was called Buffalo Chicken Wings with Rice and Corn. It was a mush of rice, corn and way way waaaaay overcooked chicken wings. And tomato sauce. Plus it was spicy which I hate. Somehow this became very important to me – not sure why.<\/p>\nIn the morning we were able to eat hard boiled eggs on plastic plates w\/plastic silverware. Not so bad. Lunch brought spaghetti with weird meat-balls and tomato-flavored library paste. I took some salad from the conference buffet – which included \u2013 but was unavailable to me — rye bread (not kosher), cold cuts (not kosher) and cheese (not kosher.) We had Sushi for dinner which is ok and was good.<\/p>\n
I think that the real problem isn\u2019t the food it\u2019s the exclusionary nature of this portion of the observant life. I\u2019m going to have to learn how to manage it and keep writing about it until it feels better because right now it feels lonely in some odd way. Then I go to an event or to services at our synagogue and realize why I\u2019m doing this. My husband calls it \u201cthe yoke of heaven\u201d and reminds me that I\u2019ve chosen it and will find a way to live within it. I know that\u2019s true and that whether I eat crummy spaghetti is really not the issue. Reading the New York Times travel section and knowing I really can\u2019t eat in most of the restaurants there is more the issue. OR wander into a Guatemalan hole-in-the-wall on 16th St. or a Greek place downtown or a Vietnamese place in Paris or even a steak house in Chicago!<\/p>\n HOLD ON!! I know as I read this how spoiled I sound. I\u2019ve spent my life in amazing adventures in travel AND food and it\u2019s not like I\u2019ve never had these experiences. I am just really struggling with surrender I think. In some circles they call it \u201cturning it over\u201d to God. Our rabbi says \u201cThere is a God and it\u2019s not me.\u201d If I accept that then I have to accept the observant principles that inform the faith and the peace it offers. Most of the time I can. But boy it\u2019s a bumpy journey. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WARNING: WHINING (completely without merit, I might add): We were in Orlando all weekend at an advocacy training. It was my husband's journey and I went along for the ride. He had asked for kosher meals – it had worked fine on our last trip — but these were some of the worst food I … Continue reading IS THIS KOSHER?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,98,78],"tags":[222,1422,220,219,1416,1415,774,2235,3419],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-religion","category-travel","tag-faith","tag-food","tag-jewish","tag-judaism","tag-kashrut","tag-kosher","tag-orthodox-judaism","tag-restaurants","tag-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-s2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Lise_stern_1\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/dontgeltoosoon\/images\/lise_stern_1.jpg?resize=100%2C100\" "\\"Lise_stern_1\\"")
<\/a> ![\"Spice_and_spirit\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/dontgeltoosoon\/images\/spice_and_spirit.jpg?resize=100%2C118\" "\\"Spice_and_spirit\\"")
<\/a> I often quote our friend MONK <\/a>– "Here's the thing." I have spent a lot of time working on learning the rules of kashrut and often spend Friday evenings reviewing the rules (the books here [How to Keep Kosher<\/a> and the Spice and Spirit Cookbook<\/a>] are the best I've found) but it's just hard both to figure out and to execute on the road. I only buy food for our home with a hechscher (that U with a circle around it at the top of this post) and I know now to cook. As I've said before, the home stuff is fine – comfortable and real.<\/p>\n