Food and Shabbat Meals
For instance, the Sosnik family, which owned a local kosher food distribution business, routinely supplied them with food and wine. House members also went to a local grocery store on Clement Street to get donations of expired food, such as produce. Sometimes the House received random gifts and. In addition, though modest, the House of Love and Prayer was able to get funding from local Jewish organizations that felt obligated to help a group of Jews creating experiences for other Jews to engage in Jewish life.
Louise Berky, who, in many ways, acted as the House matron, presided over the kitchen every week. She organized the food, as well as those preparing the food. In fact, everyday life at the house was starkly gendered. The women always cooked, served, and cleaned. Partially because this was a few years before the nationwide Women’s Liberation movement had taken root, both men and women gravitated towards traditional gender roles. Each week for Shabbat the women made giant pots of soup, rice, and vegetables (or vegetable lasagna). Usually they cooked recipes out of the Zen Macrobiotics cookbook.
