Hey, I went to two yoga classes this week! My muscles feel good and my head is pretty happy too.

I need a kosher butcher who delivers. A couple of weeks ago I opened up a package of non-kosher chicken breasts, and they just didn't look good to me. They weren't old or spoiled, but they didn't look . . . kosher. I couldn't cook them. I've always wondered when and how I might finally decide to buy only kosher meat, and now it seems I have. It just sort of crept up on me. My neighborhood grocery stores stock kosher meat, and I love them for it, but the selection is very limited.

This is one of those small mysteries of Jewish observance that make me wish I had some sort of Orthodox mentor. I feel silly calling up the rabbi to ask about provisioning meat; he�s a busy guy! I have a few of these little questions that I don�t want to bother people with. For example, I want to kasher my kitchen, but I don�t have access to a mikvah for immersing new kitchenware. What should I do?

Kashering my kitchen leads to other questions. For example, what should I do about food when I visit my family in Kansas? I�m growing increasingly concerned about this one because we�re supposed to visit after my sister has her baby this summer. It was bad enough when I stopped eating pork and shellfish. When I stopped eating meat products and dairy together, I heard a lot of �Well, then I just don�t know what I can cook!� Now that I want to embrace the finer points of kashrut, I can�t imagine what it will be like.

On a very practical and selfish level, I am a person who really enjoys food and I don�t want to eat salads on paper plates for the duration of our visit. On an emotional level, my concerns are about more than just the mechanics of acquiring food, preparing it, and eating it; sharing food is one of the ways that families bond. Someone makes something, everyone eats it and compliments the cook, the cook shares the recipe, and it becomes another memory in your shared history.

In my family, food is the primary way of connecting with people. We never did anything as a family except eating. No hobbies, no recreational activities�just eating. Looking back, I can see that my parents didn�t have any interests or hobbies. The result is that every interest I�ve ever pursued has taken me farther away from them, into a world they can�t share with me. I took up the violin, and they were uncomfortable with the symphony crowd. I went to college, which had never occurred to them as a possibility. I studied literature, and they had never read anything on any syllabus I ever received. I lived in large cities that intimated them. I converted to Judaism, and I became the first Jew they had ever met. I become more and more alien to them all the time, and now I�m preparing to continue even further on that trajectory.

Maybe this explains my sudden longing to find someone who will come with me instead of watching me go.

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