JewsByChoice.org

Glad you added this Debbie. I was going to do it but got side tracked.

I’m re-posting this “reply”, which when posted earlier as a second-order “reply” did not show to the group:

Toaster *ovens* for Pesach are common. It was just the idea of a regular bread toaster for Pesach that tickled me. Reminds me of a bakery in Oakland or Berkeley Calif that advertised just before Passover: ”Buy our challah for your feast of freedom”. Evidently they had noticed that Jews bought challah from them for their other holidays. Someone explained and they published another ad apologizing for the misunderstanding.

I am happy to have a self-cleaning oven that has a Shabbat-mode which disables lights and beeps and makes the thermostat act with a random time-delay so opening the oven doesn’t cause the heating element to come on. It even has ”chag” mode which is like the above but allows you to change the temperature up and down. It is a combo unit with a microwave above it. I had the choice of a microwave unit with convection or a quartz browning element—I didn’t want either because either would make the microwave unkasherable. So I bought the cheaper browning element model, have never used that feature and cover those buttons with tape.

We host seders and Shabbat meals during Pesach so we need a full-sized oven and a reasonable amount of Pesach cookware. I should add that we did not buy our oven when we were kashering our kitchen, but bought it a few years earlier when our previous oven and microwave unit (earlier version of the same model) broke. We already kept an ”almost kosher” home, so I shopped for a replacement with kashrut and Shabbat issues in mind.

Our one super-speciality Passover cookware item is a small food processor, basically just used to make a Sephardic charoset of dried fruit and nuts processed into a paste. My rabbi suggested that we could also use it to make our own marror. He makes his own from scratch every year, bringing back warm memories of how his grandmother did that.

OK, silly question to everyone, is there not a ‘short-cut’ way where I can kasher everything, thus making it pareve & kosher for pesach? Once everything is pareve then I can seperate everything for milchik & fleischik?

Should be easier using TNT, rebuild the kitchen and replace everything within it – just kidding, but it is an option at least.

Debbie – I think I might just follow your advice regarding using the Conservative approach to my kosher kitchen.

PS – Thanks Debbie for the link on Conservative Approach to a Kosher Kitchen for Pesach, it is helping me a lot. I think this is the closest I will get to a “short cut” lol!

Generally, if you can kasher an item like a pot or utensil, then when you do so it becomes pareve after kashering. But note that previous use may determine how or whether it can be kashered. For example, because my husband likes to make a “roux” by browning flour in oil for cheese sauces or meat gravies, our pots could not be kashered by the simpler boiling process. The pots could only be kashered by high heat as in a blow torch, which would have ruined the pots. I know this because one of them already had a warped bottom from having been left on a burner while its contents boiled away. Luckily, a friend knew a family who had lost everything in an apartment fire, so I was happy to be able to give them those pots and all my other treif, but decent non-kasherable kitchenware like plates. If something wasn’t kasherable, rather than bemoan the extra expense of replacement, I was happy that I would be giving that family one more item.

While we were replacing items, we treated ourselves to better quality than we had in the past. So we bought pots with heavy bottom cores covered in stainless steel that probably would stand up to blowtorching if we ever made a mistake.

The “Conservative” kosher kitchen by RA rules (which is not necessarily what many C Jews do in their homes) is still pretty strict, but just tends to allow some of the more lenient rulings mostly from some *Orthodox* authorities. So most Modern Orthodox people will accept that level of kashrut and eat in such a home even if they follow additional stringencies in their own homes. As for all Conservative rulings, there is also a range of allowable opinions. My CJ rabbi takes an Orthodox approach to Pyrex. But then he grew up in an MO home, so I think he has simply maintained a more traditional view of certain aspects of halacha. On the other hand, he used a lenient ruling about Teflon to allow me to kasher a cookware piece that was irreplaceable because it is not made anymore and had a bit of sentimental value since it had been a wedding gift. The outside is corningware that had been used in an oven perhaps a few times (but was usually used in the microwave). He said I could kasher the inside with boiling water, but made sure I understood that he still felt that the outside of the pot was treif and unkasherable. The ironic thing is that knowing how he felt about it, I have only used it once since kashering my kitchen because it makes me a bit uncomfortable to have a “semi-kosher” piece of cookware.

Anyway, I still feel that if you want to have some consistency in the kashrut of your kitchen, it would be best to have a rabbi or knowledgable person who keeps a kosher kitchen to set some uniform standards for you. But if you don’t feel that you need any particular level, then I suppose you could just take all the most lenient CJ rulings to make things the easiest.

A little off topic, but not too much… after reading all of this I got to thinking…..
ok….I don’t have a seprate set of “stuff” for parve. In reading all of this I’m thinking that perhaps I got this point wrong. If I am doing parve I made the decision to always use the meat set of “stuff”. Is that a problem? I have seprate dairy “stuff”….

@Karen

I’m not the best person to ask but I would guess that’s fine. I mean your essentially saying (if I got you) that your parve food is ONLY ever served on meat dishes and NEVER comes into contact with dairy. If thats the case I don’t see how its an issue. That being said I would ask your rabbi to be on the safe side.

Man, I don’t even think of this stuff anymore. It’s handy having a rabbi in the kitchen and always on call. When I first went kosher, I practiced a lot on paper plates and glass plates and buying kosher products and looking for kosher symbols. Eventually I moved into a new place and had a friend come in and help me kasher everything. I’d already gotten rid of everything that couldn’t be kashered.

My best friend was the book, “Kosher for the Clueless but Curious” because it is written with us in mind…people who are going from unkosher to kosher kitchens.

As for pareve…my husband grew up with just meat and dairy, he thought having pareve stuff was crazy and he quickly would inadvertently make my pareve stuff meat or dairy. The rice maker is always pareve and we use only pareve utensils with it. Also have a pareve pot for beans. The reason for this is that I can have rice and beans for lunch with a meat meal and then the same rice and beans for dinner with a dairy meal and not have to worry about whether or not the pots had been used for 24 hours, etc.

I wish I’d had Chabad come in. I hear they bring blowtorches! I would so love to see that. These guys at Go Kosher are great, too, if they’re in your area.

Whatever you do, make sure that someone knowledgeable helps you kasher your kitchen and that you have a rabbi you can call when “mishaps” happen.

@alizahausman Yeah Tamara had Chabad come and do the kitchen and yes they do bring blow torches! We still have the have the burn on the flour to prove it.

Maybe da wife will share the story with you guys at some point.

Those Chabad guys with the blow torches are dangerous! A minyan friend was recently mentioning how they still have the burn mark across their *cabinets at head level* (!!!) from a careless member of a Chabad kashering team who kashered their kitchen about 15 years ago. (Good thing a *person* wasn’t standing behind him when he swung around with that blow torch!)

Pareve stuff: We have always had a pareve rice cooker (even before our kitchen was completely kosher). I accidentally dumped a Near East brand *dairy* rice pilaf mix into it once, but luckily since it only boils, it was easily kashered back to pareve by boiling. We have a pareve mixer bowl, dough hook, and mixer beater and whip for making pareve baked goods: like the *from scratch* challah my husband bakes most Fridays! (Aren’t we lucky?) We have pareve pyrex measuring cups used in the microwave to heat liquids and Pyrex covered bowls (one with steamer insert) and open bowls for microwaving veggies that can then be eaten at alternate meals. (We also have other sets of Pyrex measuring cups that for dairy and for meat.) These pareve Pyrex items would not be needed if you consider Pyrex to be “glass”, but we use the Pyrex in the microwave and my rabbi is stricter about Pyrex used for cooking). Oh, and we also have a Pareve pot with a deep fryer basket insert for making pareve French fries or fried wonton or egg rolls.

I once asked my rabbi about putting a pareve food like fish cooked in a dairy pan on a meat plate, and he almost visibly flinched. Then I said that I read about it in Klein’s “Guide to Jewish Religious Practice” (a standard CJ reference), and he immediately backed off and said that if it’s in Klein then it’s OK. (Actually, since it was in a section about “mistakes”, it may be an issue of “B’dieved” [after the fact] which could mean that you aren’t supposed to do it on purpose, but the food and dishes are OK if you do it by accident.) The thing is that although my rabbi was raised in an Orthodox home and has remained more traditional, I think he does not want to insist on anything too far outside of normative CJ. He had also told me that he bought some glass dishes when his late wife was sick and people would drop off food that was “pareve” but they didn’t know whether it was cooked in dairy or meat cookware.

Sometimes I cook pareve vegetarian Chinese with my meat cookware and sometimes with my dairy cookware depending on what cookware pieces I want to use. One example is my bamboo steamer set that is “pareve” but I only use them sitting over one of my meat pots. But I have only a meat wok (but also stir-fry in my dairy frying pan). I have vegetarian friends who have a dairy wok which seems weird to me because Chinese food doesn’t generally use dairy since nearly all Chinese people are lactose intolerant as adults. (I’m so grateful that there’s Lactaid nowadays!)

I agree with Aliza that it’s good to have a transition period between keeping a non-kosher and kosher kitchen, or you’re too likely to make mistakes some of which might be costly if an item (like ceramic dishes) can’t be kashered. A good first step is to still use your old non-kosher items, but cook and eat kosher, possibly even designating different items as practice “pretend dairy” and “pretend meat”.

I actually mentioned the Chabad blow torch thing in an earlier reply to Debbie that is now disappeared. Avi, it’s the one where I commented in an odd place. Do you know where that is so I can re-add it to this thread?

Thanks

Yeah, I guess that you didn’t reply to the actual thread! Oh well it happen again that feature is now disabled!

Yes, but can you get that response and post it here?

I do not think so. Sorry.

“A good first step is to still use your old non-kosher items, but cook and eat kosher, possibly even designating different items as practice “pretend dairy” and “pretend meat”.” – Debbie

I like that idea, I have been doing that for more than a year now, that is the reason I believe that I will be able to make the transition from pretent kosher to fully kosher in a hopefully CJ way. It would be the next logical step, anyway I’ve been reading up a lot about the whole, kashering the kitchen for Pesach and beyond (wow that would make a good title for a movie or self-help book, y’think?)

I follow the Sephardic custom because all my ancertors are Sephardic, which means on some of the issues I am able to take the more linient route, like glassware. I will have to replace some of my pots and probably all my pyrex / corningware as well as all the plastic stuff, but hey, in South Africa we have such raging poverty, I am sure I will be able to help out a few people in the process. Tzedaka is very cool and very much needed here.

My next purchase is going to be a huge pot to be able to boil everything that needs to be boiled. LOL!

I looked on my Pareve shelf and saw that I also have two small pyrex bowls used mainly for checking eggs for blood spots and mixing pareve sauces. Plus two pyrex loaf pans for making things like banana bread.

Carla: I found it was great to think that every item I replaced meant another item that a needy family would be able to use. I also bought them a store gift card to add to the kitchenware because I really felt bad for them.

For kashering in boiling water, I highly recommend the rubber tipped long tongs sold by some at some of the websites I listed earlier. (I am lucky in that I can get them at the local all-kosher supermarket about 1.5 miles from my house.) The tongs are great for gently lowering and picking up items in your big pot and the tips keep items from slipping. Also be sure to wear some heavy duty rubber gloves when you kasher so that splashing boiling water does not scald you. I forgot to do so and scalded my hand last Pesach.