an outlet for cooking

[cellio]

I made an interesting discovery today. There was a notice in the last congregational bulletin about the "caring connection", a group of folks who help out families in mourning or facing major medical challenges and the like. This particular notice was a call for volunteer cooks and/or bakers. When I visit a shiva house I always bring food, as is customary, and I try to provide at least one real meal for the family (as opposed to snacks for the visitors) during the week. But that happens when I know the family, so it's not general.

But I'm a decent cook, and I'm happy to help out, so I wrote and asked. It turns out that our syngagogue keeps a freezer full of prepared food for use on short notice. So even right after a death or whatever, before word has really gotten around, food can just appear in the house, ready for reheating. I had no idea! That's such a wonderful idea.

I like to cook. And if I'm making, say, a pot of chili, making some more is trivial. And my standard recipe for spinach lasagna makes two pans, but uses ingredients in single-container units (so subdivision is inconvenient), so when I make lasagna I always have to stick one in the freezer and try not to forget about it (because who wants to eat lasagna four times in a week?). So I can do something useful without even doing much extra work!

Oddly, I didn't receive any instructions on labelling. I hope that's because they know I'm smart enough to indicate kashrut status, label with ingredients, and provide re-heating instructions. But it might just be an omission. (I wonder if this is a new program.)

Comments

[kayre]

If they aren't labelling with a full ingredients list, may I urge you to suggest that they do so? It's important not just for dietary law reasons, but also because of allergies.

This is fresh in my mind right now; we had a near-tragedy yesterday at church, when someone unsuspectingly ate a dish containing peanuts (chicken in ginger sauce, it was NOT obvious that there was peanut butter in it) and had a severe allergic reaction.

[cellio]

Yes, I agree. I am going to check on this when I drop something off in a few days, and if I don't see labels in the freezer I'm going to pester them about it. Besides, I'd like to know that the labelling standards are such that, should I ever need the service, I could use it with confidence.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

There was a tragedy many years ago (20?) in a restaurant (I think in Georgia, but I could be wrong) in which a customer died after a severe reaction to peanuts. What was she eating? Chili. She never thought to ask, but often, peanut butter is used as a thickener as it was in this chili she had.

Whoops.