Be Careful Of What You Wish For…..

All I ever wanted was a Good Jewish Boy as a boyfriend.  There were a couple of guys in the past, one I even met at a JCC camp, but none were ever Jewish.  I was your typical Jewish girl: short, brown eyes, brown hair with blond highlights, good job helping the community, close with her family, etc.  All I wanted was a typical Jewish guy to compliment me.  He probably wouldn’t be that tall, around my age, not any more religious than I was but wanted a Jewish home, loved to eat or would let me teach him how, close with his family, his mother would love me and I would love her.  The idea that he would be religious, or even, gasp, Kosher, never even crossed my mind.  We would have a life similar to my parents and grandparents: strong, supportive marriage, reformed Jewish household, two kids, etc.         

Ha! 

Instead, I found me a good Jewish guy who was a foot taller, Seven Years Younger, went to synagogue every week (sometimes twice a week!), and was, wait for it, Kosher.   We met 361 days ago, on Shabbat no less (Friday night Sabbath).  

It was a 30th birthday party for a mutual friend.  He was there because he is a social being who enjoyed going out, even after Friday night services.  I was there because my best friend and I made a New Year’s pact to go to any social event where there would be Jewish men.  Kosher Guy (KG from now on) showed up a few drinks into the evening.  I noticed him right away, his dark hair, dark eyes, constant smile.  We introduced ourselves over buttery nipples ordered on behalf of the birthday boy.  From that point on in the evening he did things that other guys never did: talked with other girls but paid attention to me, made me get up and dance when I didn’t want to, didn’t get freaked out by the chaos that was my life (more on that later), and drank girly drinks.  I loved that he drank girly drinks.  At some point during the first bar I got it into my head that he was 33.   I was about to turn 32 so that was perfect.   

 Four or so hours later, back at a friend’s house as the evening was winding down and we had spent the night laughing, talking, holding hands, exchanging cell numbers, someone joked that the youngest and the oldest people in the room got together.  I looked around, expecting to see another new twosome that I had missed while falling for KG.  That’s when someone pointed out that I was almost 32, and KG was 24.  Ummmm, excuse me?  I thought he was 33.  

That was the first of a few things I had to get used to about my Good Jewish Guy.  

It is important to note, sooner rather than later, that Food is my hobby.  At that point I helped run a food/restaurant based message board, put together tasting dinners for 100, regularly fixated on my next meal and thought nothing of having someone spend $100 each on a meal.  (I would have happily spent that amount on myself but as someone who worked in special education, that wasn’t really a possibility.)  I was the person you come to when you needed to know what great restaurant you should go to, what the latest food trend was and whether or not you should try it.  I love food.  I have always loved food, all kinds of food, and with the exception of a few years in my late teens and early 20’s when I felt it necessary to be a vegetarian, loved almost anything put in front of me. Birthdays were celebrated with lobsters dipped in butter and happy hours were spent at the raw bar.  Pork was a major food group and proscuitto with good cheese was even better. 

 I didn’t learn of KG’s kosherness until the 4th time I met him. He had invited me over to his house to watch W’s second to last State of the Union and play a SOTU drinking game a friend of his invented in college. Somehow, jumping into the role of hostess felt right so I helped get things set up as his other friends arrived.    

I noticed his sink had three different color sponges and a note up on the back splash reminding those who needed to know that blue=dairy, red=meat and green=parve.  ”So you’re kosher, huh?” I asked.  ”Yep,” was all he replied.

 As I got to know, and fall for Kosher guy, I learned that he would eat in regular restaurants, but only fish or vegetarian dishes, would eat anything in those categories I cooked at my house without worrying about plates or silverware, but everything, from cheese to meat to olive oil to ice cream to canned beans to wine had to be kosher at his house.  And of course, there would be no eating cheese and meat at the same meal.  Or no ice cream after a meat dinner. 

    I soon learned I was relatively lucky, all things considered.  He had grown up in a vegetarian kosher household where they rarely ate anything that wasn’t kosher.  At least he ate meat, would order in pizza (if we ate off paper plates), and would dine in any restaurant as long as he didn’t have to eat meat (including chicken).  We could still go out for dinner, he could still eat at my or my friend’s house. I soon found myself checking every label at the grocery store for that gilded U inside an O, or K, or Hebrew letter for K.   

 A year later we have lasted longer than anyone bet we would.  I am learning to rethink recipes (no more butter rubbed on the Shabbat chicken) and mashed potatoes with olive oil and roasted garlic instead of melted butter, soy whipped cream when needed.  He has learned more about vegetables, eating locally and then organically, and the difference between average sushi and great toro. 

 So I have decided to put this out there for the world to read.      As everyone else who is starting out writing a blog, I hope Someone reads this, finds it useful, can relate.  If that’s you, let me know.     

 In the mean time, I warn you ahead of time that my spelling sucks, my punctuation isn’t that great, and I have a tendency to write in long sentences. I hope to write about how we further combine my food lovin ways with his kosher beliefs and fall further in love, with some of my life drama thrown in.