Piggleguss

From Rabbi David Wolpe

Rabbi Shlomo Carelbach used to say that if he met a person who said “I’m a Catholic” he knew he was a Catholic. If he met a person who said “I’m a Protestant” he knew he was a Protestant. If he met a person who said “I’m a human being” he knew he was a Jew.

Jews have led some of the great universalist movements of the world. They did so under the illusion that if all people were just alike, the thorny problem of being different would disappear. It never did. It never should. Being a Jew is not a problem but a blessing and a destiny. There is no such thing as a person in general. Each individual grows up with a certain family, land, heritage, language and culture. To deny it is to cast off a piece of oneself. Jewish is not opposed to being human; rather it is an ancient and beautiful way to be human.

In every age there are those who dream of homogenizing the world. It is an ignoble dream. When we honor difference we honor the One who created this diverse, multicolored pageant of a world.

I'm buying this food dehydrator

2 of 9 people found the following review helpful: Not just for foodstuffs anymore!, August 12, 2009 By W. Thomas - See all my reviews

I initially purchased the Nesco American Harvest FD-1010 Gardenmaster Food Dehydrator for the purpose of drying home grown papyas. My papayas are renowned in my part of the Yukon due largely to the fact that they are neither native to this region nor appealing to the local palette. Having invested a considerable amount of money into a large hydroponics system with which to grow these rather large trees indoors, I was understandably disappointed when sales did not increase at my initially projected rates.

Left with approximately 1.3 metric tonnes of rapidly decaying Hawaiian papaya, I searched for a means to prolong the shelf life of my perishables until I could develop a market for them. My search began and ended with the fantastic Nesco American Harvest FD-1010 Gardenmaster Food Dehydrator. No longer would moisture threaten to destroy my empire.

Then the winter months came. Driven to the brink of madness by consuming 3 solid meals of dried papaya per day, I began to wander aimlessly around my cabin in search of something other than the sweet fruit to put into my dehydrator. My bowels loose from dangerous quantities of vitamin C, I began collecting mice, squirrels, birds, and the occasional stray cat to lovingly dehydrate.

The Nesco American Harvest FD-1010 Gardenmaster Food Dehydrator’s generous tray space provided ample room for my creations. I began to decorate my loneley cabin with petrified mammals, giving them names and sewing clothes for them. From casual wear, to Ballroom attire, my hardened pets had it all. Fortnightly we would stage a party, with themes changing seasonally. Oh how the dried finches loved the yule ball!

While the tray space is ample, it is not (as I can attest to) large enough to accommodate a full Yukon badger carcass. While I realize that amateur taxidermy is not the intended use of this device, it would be nice if the designers would offer larger trays for customers who may be using certain ‘off label’ applications. I more than once had to perform some amount of crude surgery (i.e. bisecting) on larger animals just to fit them in, and only after much experimentation did I learn that the factory specified drying times were far longer when raccoons with full stomachs are involved. I do wish that the manual would at least hint at this fact.

Nesco American Harvest FD-1010 Gardenmaster Food Dehydrator, you have saved me from a life of loneliness, poverty, and orange feces. Business is booming, and I hope to have an Etsy store open within the year, making my leathery creations available to the world!