Tuesday, October 23, 2007

It would be easier to schecht a cow myself

Of course, if I had to schecht the cow myself I wouldn't, which leads to all sorts of other ethical questions, but the point is, I need some stew beef. Gosh darn it.

Religious obligations are peculiar things. I was once in a class about teaching English language learners, where the teacher was talking about a class where she had a lot of Muslim students, I imagine Afghanis given the area. A lot of kids were out for some holiday--one of the Eids, I think--where you sacrifice a goat. The next day, a kid comes into class and, during journal write, starts talking to one of his friends. "Dude, you out of school yesterday?"

"No, my folks made me come."

"Well, did they kill a goat?"

"Naah."

"Dude! Why not?"

"Do you realize," the other boy says, "that you can't buy a live goat with food stamps in this country?"

"Dude." (With deep understanding. Both kids go back to work. Teacher has to go out in hall and suffocate hysterical laughter.)

Anyway, me, I just can't buy kosher stew beef for ready money. Trader Joe's does not carry it. And also, when I made my long journey to Oakland Kosher this weekend, they didn't have it either. Chicken sausages--check. Wissotsky tea--check. Kosher cup-o-noodles, check. But no stew beef. (If you were in the store, I was the woman in the blue jeans muttering about stew beef.)

New plan--go into San Francisco on Sunday. Have lunch with parents. Go down Clement to Israel's. Buy like ten pounds of stew beef in individually wrapped pound containers. Lug back to El Cerrito. Make stew. Wish briefly that we had transporter technology like in Star Trek, so I could go and grocery shop in Crown Heights. Mutter a lot.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You would not find meat shopping in Crown Heights to be a pleasant experience, transporter or not. I don't even find meat shopping in my oh-so-convenient Kosher Experience in my local East Coast Shop-Rite to be a pleasant experience.

Eliyahu said...

just use the kosher steak from trader joes? (not that it is inexpensive)