When it goes well, it can feel like a dance.
So, I’m a little obsessed with my own cooking.
Like me, like my food. Like my food, like me.
I don’t have a lot of ego attachment around my professional work: writing. Honestly, I can take editing to my work, with a shrug of the shoulders. I can handle suggestions on word choice, punctuation and turns of phrase. I’m not proud.
But, get me in the kitchen, where I'm a rank amateur, and watch out. I love to cook. Lately, and by that I mean in the last few years, I’ve taken some enjoyment in cooking for large numbers of people.
Not hundreds – I’m not that skilled, not that strong and not that fast – but dozens. For smaller groups, I work alone, and I enjoy the meditative quality of the task. But for big groups, it’s much more fun with help. In fact, I'm not sure I could handle it alone.
I enjoy thinking through menus, shopping for fresh local ingredients and managing a crew of volunteers. Thank goodness there's a group of people at my synagogue who enjoy working in the kitchen with me.
When it goes well, it can feel like a dance. When it doesn’t, it becomes fodder for unforgettable laughs. What could be better?
One time in my synagogue kitchen, I made an apple dessert that flopped. I served it anyway, and stuck a label on it that read, “Apple Disaster.” There weren’t any leftovers.
And then there was the time I burnt macaroni and cheese. That, unfortunately, wasn't funny.
Another time I forgot the brownies baking in the oven: We ate them anyway.
This enjoyment in catering – on a volunteer basis – is somewhat new, but it’s been building.
And it started innocently enough with summertime kiddushes.
Kiddush is the word that refers to the coffee hour after Saturday morning services. It’s a loose use of the Hebrew word, which refers to the prayer over the wine.
That's because when there’s a light meal after services on Saturday, it starts with kiddush – the sung prayer over wine, then moves to motzi, the prayer over bread – and it might end with something sweet, maybe even singing Hebrew songs at the table and the long grace after the meal.
Jane Kaufman with the fruits of her labor. At my synagogue, there was a survey a few years ago. Some 80 percent of the respondents agreed that kiddush was essential to community building.
Kiddush is undoubtedly an important component of fostering relationships at any synagogue, but it may be especially critical at places like mine, where people approach prayer in lots of different ways on Saturday mornings – often in different venues – and then come together over a meal.
It used to be that Melvin Prouser, Congregation B’nai Israel’s gabbai of blessed memory, provided challah and cookies, grape juice and Manischewitz wine – on a weekly basis. The gabbai is the ritual director, the rabbi's righthand man (or woman) at services.
At bar mitzvahs, there would be fancier fare, usually catered, but kiddush was synonymous with Mel's neatly set out offerings.
Then the very generous Milton Kurian decided to fund kiddushes in honor of his wife, Susan, who teaches adults how to chant Torah (selections from the Five Books of Moses) and Haftarah (readings from the Prophets).
When Sandy Maynard, who catered at my synagogue, Congregation B’nai Israel in Northampton, for many years, had days off, I occasionally filled in.
And that got me rolling. I took it as a challenge to find ways to do things differently – dispensing with bagels and cream cheese.
Now, I rely on certain recipes: a lazy guacamole or avocado salad, frittata, salmon baked with orange juice and tarragon, sesame noodles with ginger and lime, chocolate bread pudding and butterscotch brownies made the old-fashioned way, by boiling brown sugar and butter together.
Making it pure pleasure, the synagogue has employed a secret weapon: His name is Mark Shannahan, and he washes dishes. He even scrubs pots and pans, and he’s a joy to work with. It can't get any better than this. I make messes; he cleans them up without complaint, even the two pans I burned beyond recognition last week.
I live in a 580-square-foot apartment, the size of a two-bay garage. There’s no way I could squeeze everybody from my synagogue around my table for a single meal, but I’d like to.
Preparing food for the congregation feels like an act of hospitality, a joyful one, a treat. And on a good day, it tastes delicious.
Veteran journalist Jane Kaufman is the editor of "Our Stories: The Jews of Western Massachusetts," part of The Republican's Heritage series. The book is available at The Republican and in area bookstores, including Barnes & Noble, The Odyssey and at Broadside and Booklink.