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How Jews Who Keep Strictly Kosher Pack for Vacations

When you keep strictly kosher, you become a pro at packing half of your home in suitcases when you travel.
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March 23, 2023

I excitedly packed a suitcase with everything one would expect to take on a vacation to Hawaii: T-shirts, shorts, sandals, swimsuits, hats, sunscreen, a two-quart pot (with an accompanying lid), wooden cooking utensils, a cutting board, a few knives and my favorite frying pan. 

I packed another giant suitcase with nonperishable food, including bread and three dozen snacks. And then, it was time to pack the cooler with chicken that I had cooked and frozen at home, cheese (feta and string), meat, and two enormous logs of kosher salami. Finally, I packed the kids’ backpacks with several big sandwiches because I knew there’d be nothing for us to eat during the five-hour flight except peanuts, and my kids have never met a nut they’ve liked, whether edible or human. 

At this point, many readers might be scratching their heads. But I imagine that readers who keep strictly kosher are nodding their heads so vigorously that they’re bound to pull a neck muscle. Please contain your excitement. I see you and I’m about to unpack our shared experience (no pun intended).   

Since most Jewish schools are still open in December, their designated winter break is usually reserved for 10 days or so in January. And so, in late January, my family and I embarked on a weeklong vacation during our kids’ winter break (also known as “Yeshiva Week”). 

At least, it was supposed to be a vacation. In hindsight, it was a vacation for the kids and a change of scenery for me. 

It was my own fault. I arrived in the lush paradise of Hawaii and thought I could access a lot of sunning, swimming and tanning. Instead, I spent most of my time making sandwiches and washing dishes (yes, washing dishes) in the hotel room. I don’t like to leave food residue on my favorite frying pan for too long. 

When you keep strictly kosher, you become a pro at packing half of your home in suitcases when you travel because, unlike others, you don’t have the option of quickly grabbing a tuna sandwich at the airport cafe, a Carl’s Jr. kids’ meal halfway through a road trip or that free continental breakfast that some hotels offer as compensation for towels that are so overbleached and hard, they could double as loofahs. 

There’s a method to keeping strictly kosher and packing for a trip: It involves at least one meat pan (I bring a medium-sized pot) and one dairy pan for reheating or cooking food, as well as various meat and dairy utensils. I’ve even brought colanders on vacation. And unless their hotel room comes with a kitchen or they stay in an Airbnb, most people I know also pack an electric hot plate, portable stove or camp burner. Call it what you want, but the sight of that hot plate in your suitcase (or the trunk of your car) always chips away at the utopian concept of what a vacation is supposed to entail.

At first, I found the concept of being unable to dine out on a trip jarring and burdensome. Nearly a decade ago, when my husband and I honeymooned in Maui, I cooked every night and he washed dishes. But in keeping kosher, I had something on that trip that I had sought for a long time: Peace of mind over what I was consuming. And then, one night, while on a romantic sunset stroll in Maui, we passed by a luau dinner at a resort and I caught a glimpse of what looked like a whole pig before it was lowered into a pit (an imu) to be slow-cooked. As a Jew who chooses to keep kosher and derives great joy from it (usually), my frozen chicken back in the hotel refrigerator never looked so good.

Nine years later, my husband and I returned to Hawaii with a few kids in tow. As soon as we arrived, we entered a Walmart in Oahu and spent two hours shopping for food staples, including peanut butter, cereal, milk, frozen waffles and disposable utensils. 

Nine years later, my husband and I returned to Hawaii with a few kids in tow. As soon as we arrived, we entered a Walmart in Oahu and spent two hours shopping for food staples, including peanut butter, cereal, milk, frozen waffles and disposable utensils which, in Hawaii, are made of biodegradable materials (how nice), leaving you with a knife that always breaks in half (not so nice). In hindsight, we simply should have signed up for Instacart so that Walmart could have delivered all of those groceries right to our hotel lobby. 

We each had our own priorities while on vacation: My kids wanted to spy a sea turtle relaxing on the sand; my husband wanted to explore beautiful hiking trails; I wanted to salt my food. I knew I had packed salt in the suitcase, but I couldn’t find that small, Ziploc pack of white gold anywhere, and the thought of returning to that massive Walmart for some salt was unfathomable.

For one week, we ate eggs, pasta and anything else I could make in a pan, in addition to bagels and simple sandwiches. Ever the consummate Persian, I brought a dozen packets of cardamom tea with me from Los Angeles and enjoyed a daily breakfast of sweetened Persian tea with salty, kosher feta cheese and overpriced Persian cucumbers from Walmart. Each night, my best friend and her family, who were also vacationing in Oahu and staying at the same hotel, hosted us for dinner in their room. Like me, my friend had packed pots, pans and cooking utensils, but her pot was even bigger. One night, she even managed to make a giant pot of comforting matzah ball soup for everyone. Jewish women are amazing, especially those who still cook with love (and a heaping load of responsibility) while on vacation. 

On Friday night, over 20 of us, including members of the French-Jewish community in L.A. who were also staying near Waikiki Beach, gathered in the hotel room of our friends, Tamy and Yuri, for Shabbat dinner. I had spent the entire week with one eye on what other tourists were eating at outdoor bars and restaurants, but that Shabbat, I believe I ate better than anyone within a 100-mile radius of the Hawaiian Islands. It helped that Yuri is a chef; there were mouth-watering [kosher] appetizers, entrees and luscious Hawaiian pineapples. We were even treated to a weekly fireworks show (reserved for Friday nights) from the balcony, and the kids squealed with wonder. But the best part of that night was watching the men (and their sons) as they all stood on one side of the hotel living room and began singing Shabbat prayers in Sephardic tunes. 

I lit Shabbat candles with my friends and simply watched as the men made a makeshift synagogue and minyan at the hotel. At that moment, I connected with every Jew who ever brought G-d’s presence down to earth while traveling, whether in ancient Persia, Europe during the Middle Ages or modern-day America. And I felt so blessed that as a Jew today, my travels were so much safer and more convenient (and came with delectable pineapples right from the Dole plantation). We spent the next three hours eating, laughing and savoring the joy of Shabbat together. 

The night before we left, I finally found the salt I had brought from LA. I repacked it with my beloved frying pan, which was bundled in a kitchen towel like a baby in a swaddle. When we boarded our flight home, we found ourselves seated close to friends and their kids who live nearby back in LA and were also vacationing in Oahu. Like us, they’re Persian Jews who keep kosher. “I packed an entire suitcase with food,” my friend, Nooshene, told me. When I shared my traumatic experience of misplacing my prepacked salt, Nooshene said that she had even packed a bottle of ground turmeric for her vacation in Hawaii. I love Persians.

It took some time before I switched from a mentality of deficiency while on vacation to one of feeling joy and agency from my own choices. 

I don’t intend to “turn off” any Jews from keeping kosher, nor do I believe I’m a victim of kashrut restrictions. It took some time before I switched from a mentality of deficiency while on vacation to one of feeling joy and agency from my own choices. Simply put, I don’t turn the shut-off-the-kosher-switch while on a trip; I pack half the kitchen and consume more kosher salami than is probably healthy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. And thank goodness for Häagen-Dazs storefronts, which are kosher.

On the heels of our Hawaii trip, we visited Las Vegas for President’s Day weekend and stayed with close friends. Rather than packing a suitcase packed with food and cookware, I simply opened my kind friends’ refrigerators and helped myself to kosher food.  

It was wonderful. It was refreshing. But I’ll be honest: It didn’t feel like vacation without my favorite frying pan.


Tabby Refael is an award-winning, L.A.-based writer, speaker and civic action activist. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @TabbyRefael.

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