Kosher Adventures

Today was a long day, and not just because I have been sick for the past two weeks. The other day, I was invited to a seder (for tonight, the first night of Pesach) at the home of an Orthodox Jewish friend of mine. I was asked to bring the charoset, kosher wine, and some kind of kosher for Passover entree. No big deal, I thought to myself. This is Los Angeles, and I can wait until the last minute to collect these goods. Kosher food is everywhere in LA, right?

Not really.

Normally I would jump at the chance to make my own charoset and cook up some food for the seder. But I don't keep kosher, which means nothing I might cook could possibly be kosher for Passover. So I took a drive up Wilshire, but Whole Foods was sold out of the kosher for Passover potato latkes, and nobody knew what charoset was. They kept pointing me toward the matzo. I did, however, find a bottle of kosher for Passover wine.

I finally found one kosher glatt market on Santa Monica Boulevard, but the place was madness and mayhem, with lots of pushing and shoving and very little left on the shelves. They had neither charoset nor prepared kosher for Passover entrees.

So I traveled over to the Pico-Robertson area, where all the kosher restaurants and markets of LA can be found. But it was 4pm and they were all closed. "Why would you look for charoset now?" asked one very large and sweaty Iranian Jewish man who kept pushing back his yarmulke.

Great question. I never did find what I was looking for.