Elbowing old ladies at Kiddush
Why are you giving me a contusion over kugel?
It’s 2017 and I’m watching an old woman scoop handfuls and handfuls of egg rolls into her purse. Her daughter was the shul president a few years back so I know she’s not really destitute. But she has a way about her. For example, she uses black makeup to fill in her hairline, but she brings her hairline about an inch above her eyebrows and the effect is really jarring. Sometimes I would see her wandering around Simons downtown in the middle of the day and I’d think to myself, “what an eclectic dame!” but watching her spoon asian noodle salad into a napkin and then rolling the saucy napkin into her purse makes me think she has some kind of mental illness.
It’s not just her. You’d think that none of these people have ever seen food before in their lives. This is really the who’s who of Montreal Jewry and they’ve descended on the tables like buzzards to pile their plates with party sandwiches, mini hot dogs, and slices of smoked meat. The oldest man I’ve ever seen (decorated by the Order of Canada for something or other) elbowed me to get to the kugel first, probably because I’m young and petite and could probably stand to go without just this once. I try to be understanding. The services here are interminably long on account of the Grammy Award-winning men’s choir, even for those who like listening will get up in the middle to walk around and drink coffee in the lobby. Maybe he just wasn’t raised right.
And there are never enough tables. Some are reserved already (I have no idea how) and the rest fill up quickly on the account of each clique dispatching a guardian to cover all the chairs with napkins and screech at the people looking for a place to sit. The people who don’t sit down at one of the tables immediately begin to eat standing up beside the kiddush tables so that nobody else can get in. They fill up their plates again and again because this is certainly their last meal, their only meal, the most delicious thing they’ve ever eaten and never will again. Once they’ve emptied the trays, the staff swarm out of the kitchen like a SWAT team and replace them with new ones piled high with food and furnish the dessert table so that the process can be repeated once again.
I think of these people all the time, but especially on Saturdays in Los Angeles where I watch the same situation repeat itself with a completely different set of people who are younger and spend less money on kiddush sponsorships. Instead of egg rolls, little sandwiches, and herby chicken salad we have kugel one, kugel two, and potentially mislabeled vegetarian cholent. The normal cholent was already picked over by the children who ate all the meat and smeared the rest into the carpet somewhere. Of course, it’s a blessing to have so many children running around because it’s our next generation of kiddush sponsorships. When the stars align and the younger breakway minyan has its own kiddush, the budget invariably goes straight to chicken poppers – a term I never heard before moving to LA – but it’s not quite enough to feed all the people. If I were involved in the planning I would advocate for a lower-ticket highly filling food, like potato salad, and something really exciting like a dorito.
Is it the fact that people wait so long to eat that makes them treat every kiddush like the Yom Kippur break fast? Me, if I didn’t have at least something in my stomach before going to shul, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on talking to all of my buddies in the back of the room. So I permit myself to have a piece of seedy, grainy, whole wheat bread and jam with my morning coffee. Or maybe a banana. Or maybe a few rounded tablespoons of metamucil. I’m pretty sure that isn’t halachically permissable at all. But if I wanted to focus, my heart would be in the right place, and I wouldn’t commit an act of violence on my way to eat one burned square of kugel.
Of course I should mention there are also people who come because they don’t have lunch at home. Usually they keep to themselves and sometimes they take the food home with them. Much like the lady with the painted hair and not unlike the lady I saw last week who walked out of the room with a floral centrepiece from a bris before the family even made their way down to the hall. And then one of the family members asked if that was normal here. I was like: Yes! But the point is that it’s good we do this for the people who might need it.
Besides the peoples’ behaviour, there are a few things I would change to make kiddush better. First I’d be a kajillionaire so I could sponsor it myself in a hall renovated in my honour. New carpet, new lights, new furniture, new wall panels that are also elegant mirrors. I’d send whoever makes the current cholents to prison and hire a yeshivish grandmother of 25 to come in and do it. I’m all for kugel, but we don’t need two. Then we’d have a careful arrangement of salads – tuna, egg, potato. Persian rice, because it’s LA. A single spinach-based green salad or a greek salad for freshness. But the egg rolls are the most important. Dozens and dozens of egg rolls with duck sauce. And then I’d install a military perimeter around the table and force everyone into single file lines directly to their seats. Nobody would be allowed seconds until the line is done and the staff have replenished the trays. As for the children pressing their food into the carpet, I have no real solution apart from wishing them well.