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I have been thinking a lot about keeping kosher; what it means to me and what it means to others. How it fits into modern life and how it fit in a while back. About its evolution into the systems we have in place today, and how some may reject those systems and find them stifling. Rather than find patience and beauty, one can, in fact, find it overbearing and restrictive. 

I have been thinking about kitchens as well, so before we venture into the scary world of kosher, let’s talk about the kitchen. 

My cousin Ilan is a talented realtor in New York City working on big projects, setting up individuals and corporations with their perfect spaces. A few years ago, when sharing the plans for our kitchen in London, with its two ovens, two hobs, two microwaves and three sinks, Ilan was astounded not by my multiple appliances but rather that I would give up so much real estate for a kitchen. In NYC, kitchens are getting smaller. People don’t cook; they order in or eat out. Open up an arbitrary drawer in someone’s midtown Manhattan kitchen and, instead of a set of silver cutlery, you will find random packs of plasticware, complete with a single serving of salt and pepper and a flimsy paper napkin. Instead of cooking utensils you are more likely to find countless pairs of chopsticks and, in the pantry, single servings of ketchup and mayo.

Ilan is, like all the men in my mother’s family; incredibly handsome and lucky enough to have inherited my grandfather’s green eyes. He is always well dressed, with strong opinions and an amazing laugh that carries you with him from one great story to the next. Ilan, with his expert eye, looked at the plans for my massive London kitchen and his realtor mind couldn’t reconcile giving up so much precious real estate for cooking, when the same space could have easily housed a family of five.

So what’s wrong with me? Why give up so much real estate to cooking? Because for me, the kitchen is, in fact, a sacred space. As holy to me as any synagogue. 

When the Temple was destroyed for a second time in the year 70 CE, the rabbis reimagined Judaism as a portable religion. The concept of a small altar came to replace the big one that now lay in ruins. Judaism re-emerged; not quite phoenix-like, but it did rise from the ashes.

The rabbis replaced the large altar of the Temple with smaller ones. These were to be found as the bima in shul, and as our dinner tables at home. Our Temple had transitioned into our synagogues AND our homes. Our practices altered to suit these new smaller spaces and smaller ceremonies, and the tradition continued, handed down through the next generations.

I have a vision of my mother that is always there, a clear memory of her cooking for a dinner party — I think it may have been a Hanukkah party. We were living in our penthouse apartment in a hilly suburb of Caracas, Venezuela, in the late 1970s. On the kitchen table, she had set out hardboiled eggs, carrots cut into tiny yet random looking pieces and black olives; some whole, others pitted and cut in half. There were loads of toothpicks as well; some whole, some broken into halves and others into quarters. With infinite patience, my mother stood the egg on its end, added carrots shaped like feet to the base, black olive halves as wings and a whole olive with a carrot beak as the head. Slowly, we fashioned dozens of egg penguins for the dinner party.

Though the real lesson was happening in the background.

Meat had been salting during the day, liver had been kashered and chicken had been plucked, all in preparation for the meal. The reason that the penguins that stood out and not the kashering was because the penguins were unusual; the rest of it was just the way my mother’s kitchen functioned.

We left Caracas when I was six, spending a year in New York before moving on to Rio de Janeiro. The Jewish population in Caracas was massive compared to that of Rio, and thus the availability of kosher food – and people who kept kosher – was significantly less. And yet my mother kept a kosher home no matter what. For a short time, we raised chickens; unsuccessfully, as it turned out! But once a week, my mother would visit the butcher who came up from São Paulo weekly to look after the community’s needs, and back home my mother would come with a decapitated chicken who was yet to be divested of its feathers or really anything else. Kashrut and simple cooking were what ruled our kitchen, as well as lots and lots of fish! Almost no kosher dairy was to be had.

And yet there was always delicious food coming out of the kitchen, especially in time for Shabbat.

My recent London kitchen was perhaps my favourite kitchen in all of the 27 different homes I have lived in thus far! That’s not saying the next one won’t be great, but it was one kitchen that I designed from scratch and made to suit my every kitchen need. The truth is, though, that a kosher kitchen isn’t really about multiple appliances or painting half your kitchen blue and the other half red.

A kosher kitchen is really about a kosher cook who takes ownership of the kitchen and does what it takes to make it their own space – as my mother taught me in her various kitchens from around the world. Though my London kitchen was kitchen perfection in every sense of the word, there is one thing I would suggest to anyone currently designing a kitchen. If you have the space – as we fortunately did – put a sofa in the kitchen. Make the centre of your home not just a hub, but a comfortable one at that!

Which brings me to the idea of what kosher is today and why we shouldn’t be surprised or frustrated with the added measures. But we should be cognisant of why it feels like we are becoming more stringent. Recently, the OU together with OK and Star K – three very large American kosher certification organizations – have stated that, starting from 1st January 2026, all beer will need to be certified kosher. Now this is a real departure from tradition. For the last thousand years or longer, one could reliably drink any plain beer anywhere with no worries. People knew that, like water, beer did not need certification; as it contained just 4 ingredients. What is going on? Is this just another case of the “chumra (stringency) of the month club” gone rogue?

Let me see if I understand what is happening here. Nabisco mass-produced its first cookie (the animal cracker, if you would like to know) in 1902. Oreos came ten years later. Until then, cookies were made at home or in a bakery, and one knew exactly what went into them. Shops sold basic ingredients, flour, butter, some kind of fat, fruits, vegetables, legumes and proteins. These were the building blocks for every meal. A homekeeper’s full-time job was turning these staples into something edible for their families three times a day. There were few places to eat out. The first fast-food restaurant – White Castle – opened in 1921 in the USA. Yes, people ate from street vendors and taverns and inns and restaurants and delis but, by and large, it was easy to ascertain what was in the food and who the cook was. Supervision of these places would have been easier. Even things like soda, something that we would imagine is delivered by a national distributor, was made in a shop. Soda shops would mix carbonated water with a sweet syrup, and that syrup had limited ingredients. Things – in a word – were simpler.

Now consider your own fridge door in 2025. How many items in it are packaged? How many of our modern day dishes do we start from scratch? How easy is it to pick something up to eat almost anywhere? This availability and ease of ready-made food is possible because of the amount of science and the countless ingredients and processes that go into making it. This is not me in any way disparaging processed food (despite knowing its ill effects, I still love the stuff!); this is me asking us to notice that, as our world gets more and more complicated, our supervisory requirements get more complex as well.

So yes, from now on, beer will need to be certified kosher. The OU has let us know that it already has over 1000 beers on its certified lists. What I am concerned about is that, in our increasing reliance on kosher certification, we do not lose out on the other aspect of the kosher kitchen: education. A kitchen is as important in Jewish education as a synagogue. Both are sacred spaces and, as such, should be revered and celebrated.

I don’t actually care for beer, I don’t like the taste, but I can see how people, especially those who like to frequent a pub or a bar and watch a game on a big screen, may have a strong reaction to this new kashrut stipulation. But, as has been the case with ice cream for as long as I can remember (there I was, trying to understand why, out of all Baskin Robbins’ 31 flavours, the two I wanted to taste – Rocky Road and Bubblegum – were not kosher), I have little sympathy, though I should probably be empathetic, to the plight of the kosher-adhering beer lovers out there.

This is a case of: don’t throw out the matza ball with the chicken soup, keep them both!

Two Apple Desserts Just in Time for Autumn!

First my mother’s Royal Apple Cake, adapted from the yellow Spice and Spirit cookbook. For as long as I can remember this is the cake my mother made for shabbat week in week out. the page is the cookbook is torn and stained and held together by yellowed tape and yet – the recipe is still as good as ever. Here is my slight adaptation.

All-American Apple Pie, for me has always been the embodiment of America in dessert form. The first time I asked my mom to make apple pie, she presented me with her Royal Apple Cake – her version of pie! Here is my version of Mrs Field’s Apple pie – and it is in fact a pie!