Business

treat like gefilte fish, which might
take someone three hours to make,
plus three or four hours to do a
tsimmes (traditional side dish).
Women just don't have time for that
anymore, and, of course, many don't
know how.
"Our a la carte orders are the most
popular, especially desserts, which
require special Passover equipment
to make. These orders cover 90 per-
cent of the business and range from
$30 to $100 per order."
With Congregation Shaarey Zedek
(about 1,800 families) as its base,
Quality Kosher Catering this year
will sell about 100 roasted turkeys
(at $54.95), 6,000 matzah balls,
4,000 orders of gefilte fish, 3,000
orders of potato kugel, 3,000 orders
of tzimmes (70 to one family alone),
and loads of desserts, led by seven-

On the day of the first seder
(March 31 this year), Kohn operates a
food pickup system that would rival
an automotive plant assembly line.
Pickup stations, color-coded to the
type of meal or side dish, are spread
out in a Shaarey Zedek social hall,
with chefs at each station to assist.
Using their color-coded sheet, cus-
tomers move around the stations, get-
ting separate bags of items. Rented
supermarket shopping carts and
youngsters help take the orders to
cars.
"Before we switched to this system,
there was chaos and long lines when
we opened at 10 a.m.," said Kohn, a
pioneer computer user going back to
his pre-catering days as a high school
science teacher. "Now, all of the
orders are computerized. The old sys-
tem didn't work once we achieved

Increasingly, families are looking to outside food help to buy some time or Passover.

BILL CARROLL

Special to The Jewish News

T

he bedraggled husband
comes home from work
and asks: "What's for din-
ner, honey?" The equally
bedraggled wife, who just arrived
home from her job, answers: "You
have three choices ... eat out, carry
out or thaw out."
In modern Passover seders, the
choice, more and more, appears to be
carry out." While the great majority
of Jewish women in the Detroit area
still make their seders "from scratch,"
there is a growing demand for
catered" seders.
At many homes, when the
youngest child asks: "Why is this
night different than all other nights?"
the answer could be: It isn't. Were
carrying out tonight, too."
The reasons are relatively easy to
understand: More women are work-
ing today and don't have time to pre-
pare the seders, or even kasher the
home for Passover.
"I used to work so hard getting
ready for Passover that I would fall
asleep during the seders," lamented

C C

((

Lee Herskovic of West
Bloomfield, a veteran of
the big do-it-yourself
seders of Passovers past.
She simply ran out of
koyach (energy) and now
carries out most of the
meal and enjoys the
evening more.
Coming to the rescue
are the kosher caterers,
led by Paul G. Kohn's
Quality Kosher Catering
— the undisputed king
of seder carryout. This
year, he will handle
One of Sperber 's Passovee: Serts.
about 1,000 customers,
whose full dinner orders
layer cake and mocha tortes.
will range from $13.95 for grilled
To insure the freshness of the fish,
chicken to $18.95 for prime rib,
Kohn
sends his own truck to whole-
reflecting a steady 8-10 percent
salers near the Mackinac Bridge to
increase in Passover business each year
bring back fish that has been out of
since he started his catering operation
the water only a few hours, rather
in 1981.
than several days.
"In catering language, we call it the
Because of lack of space in the syn-
home replacement meal," explained
agogue
kitchen, stacks of desserts are
Kohn, "and the Passover part of the
prepared,
loaded into trucks and sent
catering business is growing more and
to
a
nearby
refrigeration company for
more each year.
storage until pre-Passover delivery
"For some people, this is the only
time.
time of the year they eat an ethnic

200 orders per
Passover. Many orders
now are being faxed to
us, usually from the
husband or wife's
E office, and a few people
even are using e-mail."
Two dozen part-time
employees are added to
the staff in the weeks
before the holiday, to
help kasher the kitchen
and prepare the food.
We try to be as
methodical as possible,
but there are still some
problems, such as peo-
ple who order past the
deadline because the host broke a leg
or got sick," Kohn reflected. "One
time, on pickup day, a woman called
us from, a phone on a commercial
plane with a last-minute panic order.
But we were ready because we always
prepare extra food. Then it makes us
feel good when people call later to
thank us for the delicious dinners."
Seder orders also are piling in this
year at Sperber Kosher Catering,
according to owner Alan Linker, now
in his third year of providing holiday

a:

3/26
1999

Detroit Jewish News

77