Keeping Kosher

For the past several months, I've been working part-time at this bakery on the Upper East Side. It's been around for nearly a hundred years, and in fact many of the regulars that come in every week often tell us stories of how they themselves, or their parents, or grandparents have been coming to the bakery for as long as they can remember. I've never seen such fierce loyalty shown towards bread and pastry, and I often find myself caught halfway between respect for such loyalty, and thinking it's downright silly. And because the bakery has been under new ownership for a little over a year now, we hear both praise and complaints from these regulars everyday. 

It's so intriguing to watch how people deal with changes. Something as simple as a loaf of rye bread with a few less caraway seeds seems pretty minute to me (and I do enjoy a good rye), while to some it's drastic, almost life-changing. The bakery is situated in a fairly Jewish neighborhood. The previous owners were Jewish. The current owner is Jewish, though more secular I think than the guys he bought it from. A few people each week raise concerns, wondering which products are kosher, and which are parve (something I hadn't learned until I started work: food that is prepared without meat, dairy or their derivatives), and we always do our best to help make sure to give them the correct information. It is true, that things should probably be labeled more clearly. And now I will skip ahead.

Most Sundays, things at the bakery tend to slow down. Even when there are a few rushes of people here and there, generally Sunday is the most mellow day of the week. The only Sunday that was crazy busy was Super Bowl Sunday, and surprisingly it had nothing to do with the two giant sheets of cupcakes that were smothered in brown frosting and shoved together to make the shape of footballs with "XLIII" written on each one in bright red.

Yesterday however, was not Super Bowl Sunday. So things were relatively calm, and the sun was out, which seemed to put most customers in good spirits. All was fine, until this one guy comes in. He looked normal: middle-aged, wearing glasses and a casual suit. He had a beard, which I normally associate with my dad, who is generally a calm and quiet fellow. He waited patiently in line behind two people, and then told my boss's father (who always runs the place on Sundays) that we needed to label more clearly the things that were kosher from the things that were not. He said that he had tried to tell my boss to take care of this many times, and that it was getting annoying, and then he told us that if nothing was done about it, he was going to "fuck it up." At that point, he was asked to leave, and he reacted to that news rather poorly. He ran up to the counter and slammed his hands against it hard enough to create a slight echo. My boss's father whipped out his cell phone and called the police, and this man continued to yell, talking about how everything in the bakery should be kosher, cursing up a storm, and refusing to leave until it was made clear that the police could be sent over within minutes. 

When he finally did leave, it was in a huff. Moments later he came back, opened the door halfway and said that the next time we call the police with a "real emergency" they will have no incentive to show up, because of this apparent "false emergency." If he ever shows up again, we're supposed to phone the police immediately.

Some have a harder time dealing with change than others. After that rather terrifying instance, I journeyed home and watched Single White Female with one of my roommates. I'm not sure why, it just somehow felt right.