Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The Non Ending Supply of “Milky” Spatulas

[Explanation for non-Jews: Observant Jews who keep kosher have separate dishes for milk food, meat foods, and usually some general (NOT milky or meaty) utensils which are “pareve”.]
Kashrus (keeping kosher) with a teen with developmental disabilities in the house can be problematic at times.
First, let’s talk about what Ricki does RIGHT:
Ricki knows the milky/meaty sides of the kitchen and understands that you stay on one side at a time. She checks eggs for blood spots*, and sifts flour** like a pro.
So what are the problems? When anything new occurs. For us, recently, that was (is) our new kitchen. In the old one, the pareve silverware was on the (enclosed) porch; now these items are located in a drawer NEXT to the milky silverware. So, in the past two weeks, Ricki has made my pareve spatula “milky”twice. I have bought a third one, making sure (as I did with the second one…) that it looked entirely different from our milky one, and explained AGAIN the location of the “milky” spatula I am hoping that she finally got it. At least it is a spatula, and not a pot!

* blood spots are forbidden to eat
** to be sure it contains no bugs (which are NOT kosher!)

UPDATE TUESDAY MORNING 7 AM.:
...Make that three times. She did it again!

PSPS (Monday evening: So I bought another spatula today. I decided to put it somewhere out of reach for at least a few days, until Ricki gets used to the need to open her eyes and look a bit around for the milky one.....

7 comments:

G6 said...

If it makes you feel any better, this is NOT a Down's Syndrome issue.
My kids are CONSTANTLY doing this to my parve spatulas too, so much so, that there ARE NO MORE "different" looking spatulas on the planet for me to buy, lol.....
Sigh..................
;D

tesyaa said...

When I buy a new pareve spatula, my husband jokes that it's temporarily pareve. And it's not just spatulas...

rickismom said...

I still have enough "different" looking spatulahs to buy, because I give away the newly-made-milky one JUST so I can again buy yellow for the pareve one, and NOT have a milky one like it.....

Pink (AKA Lucia) said...

So once milk or meat has touched a pareve utensil it is no longer kosher, even if you wash it? I am just curious as I am not Jewish.

rickismom said...

Lucia, if a pareve utensil touches HOT milky(or meaty) food (or dishes), it becomes milky (or meaty), and is no longer pareve. If a milky utensil touches hot meaty food or dishes, (or visa-versa), then some of the things would become non-kosher (the laws are complex...). In this case, Ricki keeps using the "temporarily pareve" spatula to prepare eggs in a non-squeky-clean milky pot, so the spatula becomes milky....

Anonymous said...

In addition to getting one that looks different, can you write on it? I have a spatula that I was able to write the word "Dairy" on with a Sharpie. Or is there a hole that would allow you to hang it up someplace? You can tie something (a tag with a label, or a twist tie or something) that also makes it look different, in ways that make it "feel" different, and not just look different. Just a thought...

Pink (AKA Lucia) said...

Rickismom, thank you for the explanation. I think I understand. I find Jewish religion and culture interesting. I have a lot of great respect for Jewish people, even thought I am not Jewish and I am non-religious. And I enjoy reading your blog, especially about your daughter.

My fiance works as a volunteer at a theme park that is aimed at people with all kinds of disabilities (we're Deaf), and we see a lot of Downs Syndrome people come to the park and they have a lot of fun. We have a large intellectually-disabled population here in San Antonio and surrounding areas, I believe. I actually went to the theme park with my fiance and some friends and had a very good time. Here is the url to the website for the theme park in case you want to take a gander at it.

http://www.morganswonderland.com/