K-day

I think it took me a long time to post because I knew I this post had to come next…

It is time to post about K-day.

When last I left you, I was recounting how I had purged my house of non-kosher food, kitchenware and dishes. I had bought all kinds of new kitchenware. My kitchen was bare, and I was living in a state of limbo, using plastic utensils and occasionally running out to the balcony to use a colander or pot.

Don’t laugh, but I actually had two sets of plastic utensils. I happened to have a bunch of left-over blue plastic knives, forks and spoons from son’s bris. I used these as dairy. I had a huge (Costco) set of metallic plastic utensils we use for other casual entertaining- I put some of these in a plastic bag and used them for meat. Obviously this isn’t necessary when using plastic utensils- but it actually helped me (newbie) get into the thinking using different sets while I got ready to use the real ones. It seemed like the habit was already in place when broke out the new flatware.

At this point, I had already asked a local rabbi to come and help me kasher my kitchen, and to answer various questions. He had told me to call after Pesach- on the Wednesday after Pesach. I had tried calling him a few times starting on that Wednesday and for the rest of the week with no response.

I was calling my sister a lot with questions. I was starting to wonder if this would ever happen. Things were dragging. I was in a bad place, losing momentum, thinking about Manchego cheese and what life was going to be like without it in my home…

A week later, I was whining to my sister on the phone about how I wished it was just done and over, she said:

“O.K. This is IT.”

“What?” I asked.

“This is K-day”.

I said something equivalent to, “???????”

“You are going to kasher your own kitchen”, she told me. “You can do this.” She said.

I asked if I need a rabbi to bless it or something. Right? I mean, didn’t it need to be supervised, and pronounced kosher by some authority? Wasn’t there some final blessing that needed to be said?

She said that I did not, but that if I had any questions about it, I did have to contact a rabbi for answers. Then I told her that I was getting no respons so far and almost started a downward spiral of whining when she reiterated, “This is IT. K-day.”

When she told me this, I suddenly felt a strange peace. I would be busy for a couple of days, but it would be resolved. All of the wondering and wavering and running to the balcony to see if I still had a ladle would end. I would finally be eating off my new dishes and using my Le Crueset and moving forward. YES, I thought. This is it. This is K-day.

And she was on call for me for the next 48 hours.