Our Chanukah miracle

Miracle isn't a word to be bandied about. People speak of miracles that are really not more than chance, or Hashem's guiding hand and truly short of a miracle. But our family seems to have experienced a true miracle.

My cousin's husband has been very ill for the past several years. It started with a car accident in which he hit his head. An MRI found that he had a brain tumor. It was inoperable. And growing. It caused seizures. He lost the desire to cook - a favorite pastime. His days became nights. He slept. A lot. My cousin was left to raise their three children virtually alone because her husband could not contribute to the family well-being. He could not be "trusted"(for lack of a better term) to stay coherent enough for her to leave the children in his care. Luckily, her parents were - and are - incredibly supportive and have helped them immensely with child care, chauffeuring, and just taking the kids so my cousin could have some time for herself or time to focus solely on her husbands needs.

It has been approximately four years since I have seen my cousin's husband. What a shock it was to see him walk into my mother's house for our family gift exchange!!

He said that one day he kissed his wife (something he has not done since this all happened) and he felt something go. Lift, release. Any combination of words.

He stopped taking his anti-seizure meds and also stopped having seizures. It's been nearly 14 weeks and he is feeling himself again. No more seizures, no more meds. He's cooking, playing with his kids, eating and enjoying life again. He has his life back.

He does, of course, have to return to the doctor, have another MRI and see what the state of things are, but for now, we're counting it as a miracle.

Kosher?

In my journey towards a more kosher lifestyle, and learning about the Halachas (laws) of a Torah-oriented lifestyle,  one of the "rules" is to keep kosher.  This means so much more than separating your milk and meat foods. It's a whole new set of rules, regulations, and dishes!

My husband was kind enough to purchase the second set of dishes, though we had originally planned on using my grandmother's old dishes.

We went to Ikea for cutlery and now we have a meat cutlery drawer, a dairy cutlery drawer - and yes, there's cutlery in it.  I also have a crock full of meat cooking utensils and a set of dairy cooking utensils.  Of course, nothing's been completely "kosherized" yet, but we've been separating dishes, food and cooking utensils.

Of course, simply having meat dishes and milk dishes isn't all it's about.  There's the important part - the food!

Part One - mixing milk and meat.

I'm not going to go into the nitty gritty - I've tried to read some of the laws and it can be very, very confusing.  But the main essential "rule" is to not mix milk and meat - that means no cheeseburgers, no chicken Kiev (which is a double whammy - not only does it mix milk and meat, it also contains ham, which as we all know is pork, and therefore another 'disallowed' foodstuff.

Part Two - Buying Kosher food.

One of the first questions someone asked me when we decided to go kosher was "but isn't Kosher more expensive?"  In short - yes. And no.  How's that?  Many, many products these days are certified Kosher.  Mostly through the Kashruth Council of Canada.  Below is their logo

It can easily be found on the bottom of any label - even No Name products at No Frills. 

There's also the Orthodox Union to name just two.

Meat is a bit more expensive, because the cost of koshering the meat is factored into the retail price.  But otherwise, there's a lot of foods that are certified kosher. Recently, I found out that Golden Oreos are certified kosher!! Which made my white chocolate cheesecake completely kosher!! Hazzah!! 

Now, toss in a dairy allergy to keeping kosher - sounds easy right? Well, in a way, yes.  Soy milk can easily be substituted for most dairy additions, which means so long as there's absolutely no dairy in the cheese, I can have a cheeseburger (not my favourite meal, but hey, still means I can have it). 

However, there are some recipes I haven't figured out how to kosher - or make without dairy.  For example - will soy milk make mushroom soup taste as good?  Because I have a lot of recipes that call for mushroom soup, but have yet to find concentrated soy mushroom soup.  I guess that's my new challenge...