steuard | The Perils of Potlucks

I may have finally figured out a good use for this blog thing: a platform for my habit of sharing random funny or interesting stories. (The best part is that this way, you don't get to complain about them! Well, really, the best part for you is probably that you won't have to listen to me tell them twice.) Not that I plan to post regularly, mind you, but it gives me another outlet for such things.

At any rate, this particular story took place Monday night. I was at a potluck dinner hosted by the ARCS Foundation, a charitable organization that's been giving me a scholarship for the past several years. It was a pleasant evening: the people there were very interested in what I'm doing, and we had good conversations (some of which weren't even about string theory).

I had brought a dish of my own to the dinner even though they insisted I was just a guest: cooking has been a bit of a hobby of mine, and I welcome the chance to show off my specialties. In this case, I'd brought some pork tenderloin cooked according to one of my favorite homemade recipes. The amount turned out to be just about perfect: it lasted through the whole evening, but even as people were getting ready to leave they were stopping by the table to eat the last few pieces.

Naturally, I appreciated the implicit compliment in that, so when I saw one woman in particular taking a third piece, I said, "I'm glad you like it!" She replied, "Oh, yes, it's wonderful! What is it?" I explained, "It's pork tenderloin baked with garlic slivers in it and a bit of balsamic vinegar on top, and the sauce is a sort of molasses barbecue sauce that I came up with myself." At that, she got a rather odd look on her face, something between surprise and embarrassment. Still perfectly friendly, she said, "Oh! It's very good... ...I'm not supposed to eat it. I'm Jewish."

I knew I should have included a little sign that said: "Warning! Not kosher! Pork!" (I really did consider it, though I convinced myself that doing so would just be silly.) She didn't seem too upset (certainly not with me, and not particularly with herself, either), but I still can't shake the unsettling feeling that Yahweh is terribly cross with me. : )

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I believe that -- although I do profess a great ignorance in this area, and thus humbly beg for forgiveness in case I stuff my foot in my mouth -- at any rate, I'm fairly sure that most schools of Judaism just shrug and say "Eh" about such sorts of incidents.

During my youngest brother's freshman year at college, he lived on campus... about 8min from my parents' house. Every Sunday, he and his dorm-room-mate would visit Mom and Dad for REAL food :) After making this Sunday pilgrimage for most of a semester, one Sunday evening after dinner it happened that, while everyone was sitting around and idly noshing, some comments by the roommate made Mom suddenly aware that he (the roommate, not my brother or my dad, in case the pronouns are getting dicey here) was Jewish, raised in a kosher household.

At this point, Mom apparently got a somewhat stunned look and said, "Um -- but we've been feeding you pork chops and sausage and meat-with-cheese and probably lots of other non-kosher food for months now."

To which he replied, "Oh, my rabbi knew before I came to college in Fairbanks that there wouldn't hardly be any way to keep kosher, so he gave me permission not to."

Well, people with dietary restrictions should ask, you know ;)

That's what I figured, too. In fact, that's how I talked myself out of making some sort of "Not kosher!" label: most of the people I've known who seriously keep kosher probably wouldn't feel comfortable eating anything at a potluck like this. So it probably wasn't a big deal to her... but that still hasn't shaken my lingering fear of lightning bolts. : )

Congratulations, by the way!

I cant believe you are still milking that ARCS fellowship. You must have a way with old people.

The Perils of Potlucks

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