Cynthia:
Welcome, everybody. Welcome back to Cosmic Soup. It’s been a while and we’re very excited today to feature Danny Corsun from the Culinary Judaics Academy. We met Danny at the AJAS Conference in February in Florida and I was so excited to see what he’s doing. He has an amazing educational program that is around food and Jewish food, and we also have our favorite chef, Scott Daniels, Vice President of Culinary Operations here at the Culinary Coach. So off we go. We’re gonna talk about kosher food, halal, delicious things and creating a more just and peace world through food. What’s not to love? Hello, Scott.

Scott:
Good afternoon.

Cynthia:
And hello, Danny.

Danny:
Hi there. Great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Cynthia:
Great. And, um, so what we’re gonna talk about, I love this subject because it’s so, uh, relevant to marketing, which is something else that we do in addition to culinary coaching is kosher dining. There’s so much there and we’re gonna really kind of unpack it today. But let’s, let’s just start with Danny. What’s your background? Uh, it’s number one, I know it, but I think our audience is gonna feel really interested in it. And then how did you arrive at creating Culinary Judaics Academy?

Danny:
So I am the poster child for you. Bring everything you’ve ever done in your life with you as you move forward. And it all informs what you’re presently doing and what you’re going to be doing. Uh, and it only makes you, and whatever that is at the time, better. Um, I spent 13 years in the entertainment industry, um, both in production and in writing and worked in New York City and then I worked in Hollywood. Um, and up until about 2000, I was devoted only doing that. It’s a brutal industry. Um, and, um, you know, my wife and I were having our first child and, um, I needed to get a gig at the time. And so I decided to start teaching. Um, and a friend of mine was a, a teacher at a fantastic school, elementary school in Santa Monica, California, and said, you know, “Maybe you could sub.”

Danny:
And so I started as a sub. I ended up, uh, being asked by the school to take on a special needs classroom, um, that needed a teacher for two weeks, and then they were getting another teacher. The, unfortunately, the prior educator had done a lot of not-so-great things in that classroom, and so they needed a stop gap. And so the class really wasn’t doing any curriculum, no education. It was a really toxic environment, and they thought they were gonna get sued. There’s no greater litigation in education than in special education. In any event, I brought, I got brought in and after two weeks, I kind of hit reboot and things were going well. Um, and they came to me and said, “The only thing that’s harder than getting a special needs educator in the beginning of the year is getting one in the middle of the year.”

Danny:
“We think you got a handle on this, can you take it for the rest of the year?” Understand, I had not one day of teaching special needs in my life. I was just raised by good people and, and I used those skills of parenting and what I’ve learned, uh, and what I had at that point in, you know, in the classroom. And so I took the job and about a couple of weeks in, I knew that I needed to teach these students, who were all high-functioning autistic, bipolar, Asperger’s at the time was a classification. I needed to teach them in a different way. So I decided— I have a very deep and rich love of food and of cooking. My family were all amazing cooks. My grandmother—an amazing baker and cook. My mother—a very good Jewish chef, uh, not chef, cook, made really good Jewish food.

Danny:
My brother actually went and made it his industry. He owned a restaurant in Manhattan and is one of the principal directors of the hospitality school at Denver University right now. Um, and so it’s kinda innate. And so I said, you know, I’m gonna use this and have it be my experiential vehicle to teach. And so for that population, I taught math, science, history, but I also wove in what’s called their individual education plan goals, their occupational therapy, their speech therapy, their psychological therapy, all woven into the fabric of a complex cooking class using cooking as the experiential vehicle to teach. And so it was a huge success. And then I needed to break down the barriers between my classroom and the rest of the school and because my classroom, it was a room you don’t go near, right? My kids were the ones you ridicule or don’t talk to.

Danny:
That wasn’t what I wanted for my students. So I invited five, what’s called neurotypical or general education students, into my classroom. They weren’t on vacation. They did a class academically the same way my kids did. And then we catered a snack for 50, brought it back to the classroom those kids came from and had a little party at the end of the day. Within two weeks of me doing that, my room went from the room you don’t go near to the cool cooking room every student in this school wanted into. My students were no longer the kids who were ridiculed or ostracized, but the cool kids that bring us food. And so I completely changed the paradigm. I-I obliterated the barriers between my classroom and the rest of the school. Friendships started to get made on the yard. And quite frankly, as an educator, mainstreaming or fully including my special needs students was now possible…

Danny:
…when before it was a pipe dream. My principal started to do cartwheels. She said, “You need to do it with the rest of the school.” I did; my two-week gig, lasted five years in that environment. And in 2000, and two, eh, roughly between 2000, 2005. And then I hit a wall teaching that population. So I retired from that one classroom and I started my company, which was called Culinary Kids Academy, doing exactly what I created in that classroom in schools all over Los Angeles. Fast forward to 2008, I went to a very large synagogue here in, uh, Los Angeles, uh, Valley Beth Shalom. And I said to the two, uh, rabbis there, wrote, Rabbi Schweiss and Rabbi Feinstein, both of whom are prolific, profound, amazing individuals. Rabbi Schweiss is no longer with us. I said, “I can do this. What I can do for you is what I do in a general studies environment, but I can replace the math, science, history with values-based, meaningful, dynamically engaging Jewish studies.”

Danny:
They both said, “That sounds bizarre,” but sa…in-in the fabric of a cooking class. They said, “That sounds crazy, but let’s give it a shot.” Um, I started in their preschool, went to their religious school, then their day school, then their team program, then their adult programming. And then from that, it was a springboard for me to do culinary kids Judaics in, um, in synagogues all over Los Angeles. And then I started to branch out to other age groups and started to do hillels at college campuses and other adult programs around the, around the country. Most recently, as you know, everybody dealt with the pandemic—shut me down. Um, I pouted for a day and it was pivot or die and die is not an option. So I, I created Culinary Judaics Academy for all ages. And, um, I sent my, my, you know, basically think about, it’s the Netflix for Jewish learning through cooking.

Danny:
You know, you’ve all heard of Masterclass. That’s what it was. I-I leveraged my entertainment experience. I turned my backyard into a film studio. I have a rockstar staff of curriculum writers. I created the most robust, most meaningful, incredible platform and library of content that is now being utilized around the world. And this is how we got together. I have found that this pro-programming has so resonated with the senior communities around the country that I have been asked to have it be used as programming, uh, for, for seniors in all of these communities. And you and I have discussed now also having it be amazing training for those people in hospitality who are dealing with the daily issues of serving these individuals. So, very long answer to a short question, I apologize.

Cynthia:
Well, what I love, well, everything about what you’re doing, but the, something resonates with, with me is when you take everything you’ve ever done and you roll it up into something new and it, I completely identify with that because I too have a really varied background. A lot of it has to do with culinary. But I’m a brand marketer and I, I rolled it all up together for Culinary Coach, which is a great segue into breaking bread with Scott Daniels. Um, Scott is so good at breaking down barriers and creating connections through culinary and food and dining and, um, helping communities to just be stronger in, not just with dining, but really, organizationally. And um, Scott, do you mind?- It’s been a while-just telling the audience about your background and then, um, maybe you could hop into the kosher dining subject because you have a lot of experience in kosher dining. So…

Scott:
Absolutely, Cynthia. Thank you. Yes, I’ve been with the Culinary Coach for just over two years. Um, prior to that, I spent 23 years working for one of the larger contract food service dining companies, strictly in the senior dining space. So I’ve got a lot of senior dining experience, and about 20 of those years I’ve spent porting kosher dining in Jewish communities, not just kosher dining and Jewish communities, but, uh, I had a large portfolio of communities that were Jewish and served kosher dining. Kosher dining is complex, uh, in nature for those that are not Jewish. Sometimes it’s challenging to understand, but when you really kind of break down the nuts and bolts, it’s, it’s, it’s not that difficult. I wanna say a couple Danny and, and tell, you know, tell me if I’m wrong, but there’s just, uh, there’s many, many guidelines, but there’s a couple really key guidelines that, that drive the process.

Scott:
And it’s based around, you know, the, the Jewish religion philosophies and beliefs, a lot of which stemmed from, from eating healthy, you know, not getting sick from food. Today, the, the food health concern isn’t there. Cause we handle food, obviously much different than we did, you know, thousands and thousands of years ago. But it’s part of the, the Jewish culture. And what we find in, in Jewish communities is, is oftentimes a lot of the residents that live there are not Jewish or are Jewish and, and don’t follow the kosher dietary guidelines. And, and that poses some challenges for the communities. And, and I think the biggest challenge is just education and communication or, or lack thereof. Residents when they move in are, are never lied to. They’re always told that it’s gonna be kosher dining, and inherently they just don’t think that’s that big of a deal, but they don’t really know what kosher dining is.

Scott:
And I think communities can do a better job at, at clearly outlining and defining what that truly means when it comes down to sitting down to breakfast, lunch and dinner. And, and what, what are the do’s and don’ts? What, what are the, the items that you can’t, can’t consume at the same meal? Some of the, the different nuances. So it really, it touches on education and communication. And I think, and we’ll talk a little bit later about what are some potential options for Jewish kosher communities to look at as the future of dining in the senior space evolves, which is the, the number of Jewish individuals.

Cynthia:
Great. Thank you, Scott. Good introduction. So, um, a piece of this is certainly in our, what we run into with culinary engagements, is working with a dining team who are not Jewish and cer… and we all know what those struggles are in dining anyway, like high turnover rates. Um, it can tend to be…Danny, if you were gonna talk to a dining team, these are cooks and servers and everybody else, and you were gonna give them just nuts and bolts of the rules and the laws of kosher. Um, what’s the deeper meaning of it? So maybe I think that sometimes when people understand what’s really the root and the, the deeper meaning, it helps them to kinda wrap their head around the why, why are we doing this? And then also the experience of the residents they’re serving, why this is important to some of their residents. What should they know about their residents?

Danny:
Yeah, I think it’s a great question because look, I mean, kosher, keeping kosher kashrut, is a, is most definitely a religious experience. There are specific rules and laws, and there are the why’s from a, a religion standpoint. However, you know, I think that, that I’m go, I, I I’m gonna quote, um, an American author, Jewish author by the name of Blue Greenberg, who explains that the purpose of kashrut is to make eating a special experience and to serve as a reminder of a Jew’s ethical conscience. So, you know, I mean, eating is both a selfish experience and it’s necessary for survival, but the activity of eating can be made into a really mindful experience. Forget about Jewish, forget about kosher, right? Like, eating has so many correlations to purposeful and intentional and, and wonderful events in your life, right? Like, it can conjure up incredible memories for you.

Danny:
I, I use this example, I, um, and which is why by the way, I do experiential learning, right? Like feeling, touching, tasting, smelling is a way to the brain that allows you to retain and cognitively process information better—far longer, which is why, again, this is resonating for these communities. My grandmother, they owned property in the Catskill Mountains. I went every weekend of my life there, and we got fresh corn from a farm, and I have a visceral memory of sitting on a stoop shucking corn. Every time I eat corn, I’m brought back to that wonderful, wonderful moment. So if you take that, uh, and, and you apply it Jewishly, you know, what are we doing when we are having to keep kosher or specifically, dietary rules? You are being reminded on a minute-by- minute basis every time you put something in your mouth who and what you are—what you represent: the ethics, morals, the, the, the values that, that make up who you are and who honestly your ancestry has been for thousands of years.

Danny:
Um, there’s also a real-life, real-world component to this. And this is part of what we’ve talked about too in the past, that I try to provide a contemporary lens through which to look at your Judaism, right? You’re not only Jewish because your mother’s mother’s mother was Jewish, and you’re not going through these ritualistic and traditional tasks and mandates because of that. You’re doing it because it can empower you on a minute-by-minute basis in your own life. You can use these things outside of the context of religion. So yes, it takes huge commitment to be kosher. It takes huge discipline to be kosher, not only from the person being kosher, but as Scott can attest, the people who are making the food, the people who are serving the food. It takes disciplined knowledge, it takes commitment. Think about how those words bleed into other areas of your life that determine whether you are successful, whether you’re happy. Um, I think we all know that, that discipline is a good thing, right? And commitment is a wonderful thing. And if you’re committed to your family, you’re committed to your job, your, you have discipline in both of those areas, I think we end up being our best selves. And I think kashrut can help somebody do that both religiously and just living your life.

Cynthia:
Yeah, I love that. And I think, um, I feel like are the original experiential diners. You know, that with your, with the Shabbat meal, I mean, what’s more beautiful than the Shabbat meal and Passover and the meaning and the foods and just, you know, being with friends and family, I, I just, all of it is so beautiful. And I think that looking at kosher through that lens and the meaning of it is, is a way different way to look at it than you just can’t, you know, eat shellfish or whatever.

Danny:
Right? It’s, it’s just about laws and just about going through the motions from a ritualistic standpoint. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just saying you’re probably not getting from it as you potentially could. Look, if, if, you know, you do what you do to the degree you do it, and that’s fantastic, it becomes up to you. I’ll never tell anybody how to be Jewish, you know, that’s not my role. My role is to provide a toolbox to show them how transformational and empowering this amazing religion can be and realize it to whatever degree you’re comfortable and wherever you’re at on your Jewish journey, right? That allows you to, um, and I think about how food, as it does in regular life, can play a role in that.

Cynthia:
Absolutely. I think it’s really foundational, especially as we get older, to your point with the corn, it just, it just brings you right back to memories. And Scott, you know, with the reality, and we talk about this a lot at the Culinary Coach, there is a, a reality that a certain percentage of all senior living communities struggle with dining. And there are very specific reasons for that. Usually financial could be the physical plant, could be leadership. We don’t know. I mean, there are just a lot of reasons for that. So it’s not just kosher dining that can struggle, it’s all dining and senior living that can struggle. And knowing what you know, and Scott, and, and seeing what you see, if you had to say, what do you find to be the typical challenges with kosher, with executing kosher dining well?

Scott:
Well, Cynthia, a great question. I, I think the primary challenge is that when you go into a kosher kitchen in the senior space, oftentimes, the leadership within the, the dining and hospitality arena as well as the employees, the cooks, the prep cooks, the servers, they have little to no dining experience with regard to kosher. So they have no kosher background. They don’t have an understanding of, of kosher, typically, they are fearful because, uh, let’s face it, we’re all fearful somewhat of the unknown. And kosher to them is unknown. So they, they kind of shy away from even trying to understand what kosher is. They look at it like it’s, a foreign language. Um, they don’t understand it, and it’s really not that difficult. It, it truly, with some basic training, um, both initially and ongoing. Cause I think ongoing training in any arena is key.

Scott:
You can’t train, train a team member once and assume that they’re gonna be great at what they do. But I think oftentimes they just don’t understand it. I, I can tell you, and I’ve seen this firsthand, that the cooks in a kosher community and the servers oftentimes don’t even want to try the food, quote-unquote, taste it because it’s kosher. It’s no different, you know, produce, fish, it’s all kosher, you know, dairy products and, and, and the meat products. I, I think the biggest, the biggest nuance is the meat products. It’s, you know, it’s how the animals are slaughtered. It’s the type of animal, obviously, they don’t eat any pork, but it’s the, the four-quarter of the animal. It’s, it’s brined in salt solution to remove the blood. It’s still the same cow, it’s still beef, it’s still a hamburger, but they’re fearful because of the, the name kosher before, before it.

Scott:
And, and I’ve talked to rabbis and mesciyats and, and, and said, “Why is it that they’re not, you know, communities don’t try to hire, you know, Jewish cooks with a kosher background?” And, and the answer I typically hear is that there’s not a lot of them, and a lot of Jewish communities don’t want to hire Jewish managers in the dining department because they really want them to be able to work on the Jewish holidays, so it’s kind of a catch-22. I think if they met somewhere in the middle and, and provided number one, you know, great education upfront when they hire employees, uh, again, transparency. Tell them what they’re, you know, when they’re hiring them, you know, let them know what they’re getting into because you wanna hire individuals with, with passion and desire. If somebody comes in and says, “I have no interest in, in cooking kosher food,” then you don’t wanna hire them as a cook.

Scott:
And, and I think, some transparency on the, on front page is, is critical. And, and then partnering with, you know, it could be somebody in the community, it could be somebody at the local synagogue or somebody like Danny, uh, to partner with them to bring them in and provide that education and knowledge of what kosher dining really is. At the end of the day, and I use this as an example, in kosher dining, you can’t have a bacon cheeseburger. You can’t mix meat and cheese, you can’t mix pork bacon with, with anything. You can’t serve it, you know, but you can still understand what it is that you can still have a burger. You can still have a, a burger with a non-cheese product on it. Um, and it’s, it’s not hard. It’s just different.

Cynthia:
Yeah, I think, um, that’s a really good, uh, segue back to Danny, because I know Danny’s also a pescatarian. And, um, in the spirit of the cooking shows where they give a chef, here’s a, you have ten ingredients or five whatever, make something fantastic out of it. I feel like that’s the exercise for kosher dining. And so in many ways, because there’s so many things that you can make and be within the, the law. Um, Danny, what are I, I, and you’re by the way, plug for, uh, Culinary Judaics Academy. We’re excited because I think we are going to start incorporating some of, uh, Danny’s training in our training system, which is gonna be fantastic to see how that goes. But I’ve seen some of the recipes and the dishes that you’re making in the video series. Why don’t you speak to that? Like how do you, how have you developed the recipes that you decide to feature and then also speaking about being a pescatarian within the kosher laws, how do you do that?

Danny:
Sure. So I’m, first and foremost, I wanna address something Scott said, which is, I, I think what you have to do is remove the mystique and the negative stigma that somebody who doesn’t know anything about it. Um, uh, I hadn’t heard you say that before, that they don’t even wanna try the food cause of the word kosher, which is interesting because if they understood at the very root, the, the whole reason for keeping kosher from a biblical standpoint is to, as a reminder of the ethical responsibility that the human being has for the kind treatment of animals, that’s number one. It, it needs to be slaughtered in a very particular way that creates the least pain possible, uh, for the animal. That’s number one. Number two, the word kosher, C- … K-A-SC–H-E-R, which, you know, has been in the vernacular, be turned into kosher, actually means proper, acceptable or fit.

Danny:
Okay? So the English language has even integrated that into our world, which is like, “Hey, it’s not kosher to do that.” You know, it’s like, it’s not fit, it’s not proper, not acceptable. So if you understand that all you’re saying is that you’re wanting the food to be proper, acceptable, ethical, then all of a sudden, I think it removes any negative stigma around, the title. That’s number one. Number two, I agree with you a thousand percent in terms of like food is food, like whether it’s kosher or not, you can make bad food and you can make great food, right? And so it’s about execution, it’s about, again, commitment, integrity, integrity. I just taught a lesson this morning on how to be a mech, right? Like, well, how to be a good person. So how does food play a role in that?

Danny:
Well, our food has integrity, right? If you’re not, Scott would agree with this. If you’re not using ingredients with integrity, then guess what? The end result is not going to come out. And so, like when restaurants make food, there’s a difference between, you know, some, at the end of the day, you know, the expression, you get what you pay for fits , you know, there’s a difference between walking into a Taco Bell and walking into a really high-end Mexican restaurant. And so under-, look, you go, you understand that you go in with eyes wide open when you go into Taco Bell. But the point is, is that, you know, if you have the ability to source really good ingredients, high-quality ingredients, and be, um, kind of open to making that food, like when you asked me what went into the intentionality of the recipes we’ve chosen for our series, it was, I wanted to remove all barriers to entry for, for folks to be able, I wanted to remove dietary restrictions.

Danny:
And that included, you know, we make, everything is vegetarian, right? So I didn’t wanna have somebody who couldn’t eat beef or chicken or, or even fish, you know, to have to say, well, I can’t do this program. No, it, it can be utilized by anybody. I wanted it also to be economically, uh, approachable, okay? So that it didn’t break the bank. That’s another factor. Obviously, Scott, we can go, we can do an entire show on, on budgets and how much food costs are, and it’s only risen since COVID, right? Um, because of accessibility, um, uh, to, to certain ingredients. So, um, I mean, Trader Joe’s, they discontinued my favorite burrito ‘cause it was too expensive to source the ingredients to make it. They had something called a Super Burrito, which was like a vegetarian burrito, and it was amazing, but they don’t make it anymore because of the reality of post-COVID, right? Um, and so, yeah, so it, so, uh, so from a financial standpoint, from a food standpoint, from an execution standpoint, because it’s supposed to be experiential, it could be hands-on.

Danny:
You want residents, you want seniors to have hands-on, you could do that. You simply want your hospitality to do a demo. You can do that and have the curriculum part of the lesson be taught by clergy, a program professional or even a lay professional from the community. My mom’s in a community, we’ve talked about this too. She’s 92 years old. I walked in and saw an art history class taught by a resident who was an accomplished artist. And so, like, why not utilize these fantastic resources that you have in-house? So if somebody’s comfortable in the Jewish space and wants to utilize my written curriculum as a jumping-off point to the class, while the hospitality folks kind of come through and do the food end, fantastic. I’ve had, uh, places around the country do what not. They didn’t wanna do a demo, but they, their hospitality folks made the food.

Danny:
We did a Passover class, right, in Rochester, Jewish senior community in Rochester, fantastic Jewish senior living. And they had their dining staff make charoset, uh, which is, uh, on the Seder plate, uh, as a symbolic food. Although my recipe, you’re gonna eat it as a first course cause it’s that good, right? It doesn’t just have a place on the Seder plate in my Seder. You know, we eat it as a full-on first course. They made it for every one of their, their community that took part. And even those who didn’t take part. I’ve had programming professionals say to me, “Can we actually have dining services put it on the menu?” So they do the class, then walk into the dining room and they actually can have it as part of their lunch or dinner. And then I said, yes, and right. There’s no “no” involved there.

Danny:
They can print out what we ask—thinking questions—as part of the curriculum that are thought-provoking. I’m like, print out the thinking questions, put ’em on the table, have it be an amazing icebreaker conversation piece for people who are sitting around the table to be able to engage in really meaningful conversation as they eat this really symbolic, amazing food. I will tell you one thing—that this is part of my education with this program: It’s not a Jewish cooking class, right? I, I mentioned charoset, but we’re using food in general as the experiential vehicle to teach these Jewish studies. So if I’m teaching Passover, and I’m making charoset clearly very specific to the lesson, but we do a Jewish value called loving kindness, gemilut hasadim, we’re making a sun dried tomato risotto. Clearly not a Jewish recipe, but amazingly delicious. And if you’ve ever made risotto, you know, you gotta put a lot of love and a lot of kindness and a lot of patience into make it correctly.

Danny:
That’s my in to teach germilut hasadim in that environment. So it’s a, by any means necessary, it’s hugely engaging, very dynamic. And it’s, it’s a little off the beaten path, but it’s massively successful. As far as me being a, uh, pescatarian. I just don’t eat non-kosher fish, right? I don’t necessarily go, um, to a, uh, kosher fish market. That’s me, right? You might have somebody who requires that, but the fish I get at that the fish monger or at that, at that market are all kosher, right? Which means it has scales and has fins and, um, and it is a kosher fish tuna. Um, you know, I mean there are many, many, many kosher fish, salmon, and I’m gonna name, you know, halibut. Most of these are on the hit list of what most, although my mom recently had barramundi, which I was shocked that her, um, that her community, that dining services served that, cause it’s a great, great white fish. Um, plenty, plenty of really great fish to eat. That is, that is kosher, that you don’t have to eat shellfish and other, other bottom feeders.

Cynthia:
Yeah. For our listeners, definitely check out the Culinary Judaics Academy. And, and Scott, so, you know, we’ve been talking here for a while, and I always think we, we like to help, help communities with ideas. You know, what are some things they could literally do today to evolve their dining or, you know, thinking more strategically, maybe it’s not today, but what, what could they do and accomplish a year from now if they started today moving the ship or turning the ship? Um, you know, so given that a community has to be kosher due to the bylaws, let’s brainstorm. Like what can, what can a community do to really make their dining interesting and fantastic within the kosher laws? And, and then I, let’s—you bounce it back to Danny when you’re ready and ask him what he would do if he were the dining director in a community.

Scott:
Sounds great, Cynthia. So we get this question asked quite often by our, um, Jewish kosher communities and, and one question that we’re, we’re often asked first, and it’s, it’s kind of asked in a very kind of hush, hush, quiet, what if, but don’t tell, you know, “Hey, should we move away from kosher dining in our Jewish community?” And, and that’s not a decision that I can make. Obviously, I’m not Jewish, but I don’t think that needs to be the, the only answer I, I think, obviously the kosher dietary guidelines is very important to many in the, in the Jewish religion. Not all, just like every other religion, every religion, the, the individuals look at different levels that, that meet their needs. One thing you can do is if your community’s large enough, a senior community’s large enough, um, you can consider having, adding an additional dining venue that might not be kosher.

Scott:
So not doing away with your kosher dining, but, but adding a separate dining venue, obviously you’d have to add a separate kitchen and, and storage of food as well, because you can’t blend the two at all. So that’s one option. Another option is, is to, to look at more plant-based and, and fish as menu items because they can, they can, you know, they’re, they’re pareve now, Danny, I’ll let you talk a little bit more about that when we switch over. You can serve, the fish and plants on either the meat or the dairy meal. You know, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. So, you know, if you look at restaurants in general, non-Jewish, non-kosher restaurants, you know, you’re seeing a lot more plant-forward, plant-based menu items. The days of a vegetarian getting a bowl of steamed vegetables that are overcooked is, are days of the past.

Scott:
I mean, if you’re creating and you’re executing great plant-based entrees or appetizers, the customer doesn’t even need to realize that they’re plant-based. It’s just a great, it’s a great dish. And, and I think the seafood, as Danny mentioned, there’s a, a, an abundant amount of fish that Jewish individuals, kosher Jewish individuals can eat. You know, they can’t eat shellfish, they can’t eat crabs and, and shrimp and lobsters and, but any, any of the fin fish that have scales that aren’t bottom feeders and, and there’s a plethora of, of that available. My wife is a pescatarian just because she, she loves animals and, and I can eat seafood just about every day of the week. And it’s, you know, you’re not feeling restricted. And I think that’s oftentimes what happens in, in, in communities that are Jewish with kosher dietary, is that those individuals that don’t follow, either they’re not Jewish or they’re Jewish and don’t follow the, the kosher dietary guidelines, I think they feel like they’re limited sometimes to be offered because…

Scott:
…there’s not enough to choose from. But if you add more plant-based, plant-forward and seafood to the menu, you know, kosher fish, to me, that, that elevates the volume that’s offered on a menu going backwards. And I shoulda started with this. First is education. You need to, to, just, as we talked about earlier, if you, if you educate not only the cooks and the, and the kitchen staff, but also educate the residents because a lot of the residents even, it’s funny, I’ve, I’ve talked to Jewish residents and, and communities that didn’t grow up kosher, were kind of very liberal. They don’t even understand kosher. So I think education for all the residents, Jewish and non-Jewish is, is critical. Cynthia, when you and I were at a community, Jewish community, what earlier this year, you know, we had Jewish re-, every Jewish resident we talked to had a different thought on what kosher was to them. None of them was wrong, but it’s a little bit different. And you’ll find that in any religion, you know, I grew up Catholic and you know, meat on Fridays, some Catholics ate meat on Fridays and some didn’t. And, and you’re not, we’re not judging on either way. But you have to understand, I think understanding is knowledge and knowledge drives satisfaction with, within the offer. Danny, what, what are you your thoughts on, on things, that a Jewish kosher community can do to elevate the dining?

Danny:
Again, as you really put so, so well, they’re different, different levels, right? Like it all depends on the facility. It all depends on the hospitality company. Are you a strictly kosher environment? Right? If you are a strictly kosher environment, then clearly everything that you’re serving needs to be what’s called heckscher, right? It has to have, uh, the stamp of approval by an organization and a rabbi essentially that is saying, yes, this was made in a factory, this was made ethically, this was, so much has to do with everything from, from, uh, from meats, to fish, to chicken, to a bottle salad dressing—t does not matter. If you are in an environment like that, then yes, I, I would say that you’re kinda, you know, you’re mandated to, to, to serve just kosher food. Um, and however, if you are in an environment that allows for the dishes, don’t necessarily have to be kosher, the utensils don’t have to be kosher, but it’s just talking about the ingredients themselves

Danny:
…ok, then absolutely, your world is, it’s not kosher, but your oyster. So you can, I fully support the plant-based idea that Scott put forward. Like there’s, there are restaurants that I’ve been to that I would defy you to know whether or not you’re eating meat or not, um, whether you’re eating even the cheese or not. Um, you know, it’s just about the level of care and the, and the money obviously that’s going in, but there, there are just so many options right now that you can provide people, the, the quote-unquote, meatiness, the umami flavor that really puts, um, that fatty oomph that is amazing flavor into food that has you walking away going, wow, that was delicious. And, you know, did I care that it wasn’t meat? No, you know, I, I didn’t, um, you’re having a, a really elevated dining experience. Um, and I think that’s what you’re going for.

Danny:
Um, you know, in terms of elevating the kosher experience, um, I would say yes, training is a hundred percent the case. I went to a birthday celebration at my mom’s community recently, and I had to essentially give a tutorial to the woman who was serving us about why the risotto that came with the salmon wasn’t kosher, right? Um, and, and it uses chicken stock or chicken broth and most places-restaurants, high-end or low, use chicken broth to cook their rice. Um, and that’s just the way it is. Most, most don’t use a vegetable stock or water. Um, and so she didn’t understand, she didn’t get it right, um, because they think it’s rice, you know, there’s another server and another time I would say about sweet potato soup they had, I was like, can you find out whether it’s vegetarian? She’s like, it’s a vegetable.

Danny:
I’m like, no. Right? Like, that’s not really the case. And so there’s levels of, of that, both from a vegetarian standpoint, but most definitely from a kashrut standpoint, right? That, that there are ingredients that you have to know that are kosher going in. I would say depending on how many people you’re catering to, also plays a role. We, we talked about this yesterday, where if you have a, if you’re from a large metropolitan community, you probably have resources in that community that can provide you with the ingredients you need. Or at the very least, if you have super, super kosher folks and you can’t produce that in your environment, you can likely get that outside produced for you. There are places here in Los Angeles that cater and do that as, as a business, uh, in addition to catering in general. They provide these packaging, you know, uh, food and, and, and meals.

Danny:
At the very least, you could do that. You could absolutely, my mom’s place has a separate dining area, and most do, as Scott said, you want your kosher to be just in that environment, absolutely, you could do that. I personally, I want everybody together, right? Like, and, and you can’t really do that, you know, if you’re, if you’re separating out because there’s no reason why someone who’s Jewish or kosher, should be ostracized, not necessarily ostracized, but removed from the general environment. Uh, you wanna create an environment of inclusivity. And once you kinda start removing people and saying, you eat there, you eat there, you eat there. I, I told you a story, I did that in college, and I’m like, the heck with this. I’m not walking three miles from my, my dinner and eating with four people every single night. I, I wanna be with everybody. So I, my kosher was I didn’t eat meat, right? And I ate dairy out, so I was at a dining hall, so I ate there. So that’s essentially what my mom does in the same, the same, same, uh, same community, right? So she eats, she doesn’t eat meat, she eats fish, she eats dairy. And you have people who, to them that’s kosher, as Scott said, there are just degrees, right? Um, and you just need to cater to those degrees.

Cynthia:
Yeah, there are so many variations. And, um, so it’s a spectrum of kosher-ness.

Scott:
Cynthia, if I can jump in real quick, too. One, thing that, I do with education, and I forgot to say this earlier, is most people that are fearful, quote-unquote, fearful of kosher food, if you go to a grocery store, go to your pantry, in your kitchen, most of your packaged foods, your canned foods, things that you buy non-kosher, you know, you’re going to the grocery store as a, as a non-Jewish person, if you take a look at that packaging, the vast majority of items you buy in grocery stores other than meats and, and things of that nature are kosher. So the fear of, oh, I can’t, you know, I don’t wanna eat kosher, go look at yours, your pantry at home. Most of the items in that pantry are kosher. So don’t be afraid of, uh, the unknown. Just get to know it.

Cynthia:
Yeah, I think that that’s a really good point, Scott, and something else that we do on the fine dining side to help communities upscale their service level. We realize that sometimes people who are serving the residents have not themselves been in a fine dining restaurant, so we recommend taking them out to, a fine restaurant and talking through everything that’s happening and why It would be really cool to do the same for kosher. If it’s available and you’re in an urban area where there might be a really nice kosher restaurant, take the dining team to a kosher restaurant so they can taste, you know, fabulous kosher food and, and then that will help them, too, to realize that it’s really not, the kosher is just a, it’s a, a type of food. It and it’s delicious.

Danny:
Any restaurant that I’ve ever worked at, and I’m talking about as, as a waiter starting at 16 years old, before the evening started, or the afternoon lunch started, the chef would put out all the dishes and you tasted them, and then you went through what was in them and how it was cooked and what the specials were, and you were educated as to the process. It wasn’t just gimme your order, right? Because honestly, that creates, you’re the salesman, right? You’re the salesman. You can’t be a salesman if you don’t know your product. And, you know, you’re, you’re catering to and serving a population that requires the information. And if you can’t provide it, then you’re not gonna be able, to deal with all of these factors we’ve been talking about. So I think Scott’s point about training is valuable, and honestly, it also, at the end of the day, it removes mystique, right?

Danny:
And it also, look, it creates relationships. As Jews, we’re dealing with people who don’t understand us all the time. And it could be innocuous and it could be hateful, right? And as soon as you remove the mystique and have people understand that, that you’re not so different and uh, you know, the, the stuff they’ve been, the rhetoric and the, the stuff they’ve been listening to is not the case, then all of a sudden, you have a deeper appreciation. And even at, on a level of just dealing with people in your own environment, if somebody says something that’s not accurate, you could then say, no, that’s not true. Right? That’s not true about the Jews or this Jewish person or Jewish food. Cause I now know, right? And you’re operating from a place of knowledge and it’s just gonna make everything better. This is how we’re gonna be able to coexist in a world where we’re loving each other.

Cynthia:
Exactly. Food is such a great foundation. We all do. We all eat it every day. And so it’s such a good way to create understanding and, and a more peaceful and just world. So…

Danny:
Yay.

Cynthia:
Um, well, I think that we, our time is up, you two. Uh, thank you so much for having this conversation. I think we literally could talk for weeks and weeks on these subjects. Uh, we at the Culinary Coach and I, I know Danny, you’re the same—we could talk about food all day long.

Danny:
I’m about to go make some challah for, for Shabbat tonight. So you got me all geared up for what my menu’s gonna be.

Cynthia:
Challah is my, uh, guilty pleasure. I’ll just be honest. I do eat it with butter though. That, that is okay. Right?

Danny:
Um, it, as long as you’re, again, we were talking about, and you, Scott used the word pareve before, and I’ll just clarify what that means. It can be eaten with both meat and milk, therefore, it’s not either meat or dairy. It’s kinda middle-of-the-road. There’s nothing in it that, that prevents you from eating it with one or the other. Um, so as long as you’re not eating it with a steak…

Cynthia:
Yeah.

Danny:
And you’re, then, you are kosher.

Cynthia:
Delicious salmon.

Danny:
However, um, I’m gonna have mine with butter tonight. So, but, I’m eating fish, so it’s all good.

Scott:
There’s nothing like real butter.

Cynthia:
It has to be organic too, like organic grass-fed butter. Of course. Scott, any parting thoughts? Any, anything that you wanna share?

Scott:
No, I, I just think, you know, working with Danny, you know, I’ve got a, a pretty strong knowledge on kosher dining, but working with Danny, obviously, I, I’ve learned quite a bit of the, the different nuances. And I think, you know, again, comes back to education. As long as we can continue to educate each other, the communities, the, the teams that are, that are executing and preparing meals for, for the senior residents, uh, the better, the better it’ll be. And, you know, understanding tears fear down. I mean, we’re all fearful of the unknown and if we make things known rather than the unknown, you know, the fears disappear. So I think that’s a great way.

Cynthia:
All right, well thanks, you guys. Um, enjoy the challah tonight. I’m jealous.

Danny:
So I’m making everything but the bagel topping. And then on the second one, I’m doing a, like a stuffed blueberry challah.

Scott:
You’re doing a 12-braid, right?

Danny:
Yeah, of course. Um, yeah, right. That’s, that’s actually, that’s, that’s, that takes some, some effort. Um, no, the blueberries are really like pop inside and almost makes a jam inside the challah. It’s very purty challah. And so, um, it’s not your run-of-the-mill. So it’s, it’s a good one. It’s a family favorite.

Scott:
Take a picture of that. Send it to me if you would.

Cynthia:
Sure, yeah. Send us photos of your, uh, meal tonight. We’ll post them with our podcast.

Danny: Love it, I’m In.

Cynthia:
Okay. Thank you, everybody.

Scott:
Take care. Thanks all.

Cynthia:
Well thank you everybody for joining us, uh, with Cosmic Soup. Um, I loved our show today and, um, I’m certainly jealous about Danny’s challah, and since we are recording this on a Friday, I think that Danny could do the sign-off. Danny, I’m handing it to you.

Danny:
Um, so yes, Shabbat is literally the biggest gift that the, the Jews beside the Torah, what the Jews get on a weekly basis. Everyone asks what the most important Jewish holiday of the year is. It’s actually Shabbat. It happens every single week. And it’s, it’s the gift of being able to just chill, right? Spend time with your family, um, spend time away from work, um, re-energize, rejuvenate, get your spiritual, mental, physical selves fed so that you can go into that next week and be as successful as you possibly can. So I wish everybody a Shabbat shalom, a rejuvenating, fun, restful Shabbat and I appreciate you allowing me to be here.

Cynthia:
Thank you.