Everything's kosher at Italians' bakery

The catch? The Riitanos are Catholics. Parishioners of St. Vincent de Paul Church in Albany, they've owned Mount Pleasant Bakery in Schenectady since 1985, turning out delicious baked goods from bread to bagels in accordance with Jewish dietary laws, or "kashrut."

For Deb Riitano, taking over the bakery was a happy coincidence: In addition to working as a program coordinator for Catholic Charities of Albany and Rensselaer counties, she has been heavily involved in the Albany Diocese's ecumenical efforts for many years. Most notably, she co-directs the Interfaith Alliance and is a member of the Sidney Albert board at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, which sponsors interfaith dialogue.

Kneading a change

Ms. Riitano had already become involved in Jewish-Catholic dialogue after her children began attending nursery school at Albany's Jewish Community Center.

"You become friends with the parents of your children's friends," she explained. "Before I knew it, I was being asked to serve on all these boards!"

Judaism had always fascinated her, anyway: She believes Catholics can learn a lot about their own faith from studying its Jewish roots, and also calls herself a "student of the Holocaust" -- someone who tries to learn from one of history's most horrific chapters.

Life's twists

She laughed, adding: "Joe came home the next week, and we were the owners of the bakery!"

Ms. Riitano said her husband has what Jews call a "Yiddish cup" -- a head for business. He took over the business aspects of Mount Pleasant Bakery, including overseeing more than 50 employees and six delivery trucks, while his wife attended to learning about Jewish dietary regulations.

Leaven

When the Italian Catholics decided to keep the bakery kosher, Ms. Riitano said the Jewish community applauded their choice.

"It really was a wonderful thing," she recalled. "People were thanking us and they made donations to the yeshivas in New York in honor of us, they were so glad we were keeping it kosher."

Recipe

Ms. Riitano said it's a common misconception among non-Jews to believe "kosher" means "blessed by a rabbi."

"Christians say, `Did the rabbi come in and bless the food?'" she remarked. "It has nothing to do with blessing the food! The dietary laws say, `You shan't boil a kid in its mother's milk.' The rabbis took this very seriously to mean no mixing of meat and milk."

Since that means a meal must be either meat or dairy (both can't be eaten together), it's best to make baked goods "pareve" -- neither meat nor dairy -- so they can be eaten with any meal. Mount Pleasant's products are nearly all non-dairy.

Ingredients

She added: "Chicken is the mainstay of the Jewish home on Friday night, so you don't want a piece of pie [for dessert] that has butter in it!"

In addition to observing rules about ingredients, Ms. Riitano said the bakery helps out the Hasidic Jewish community by never having non-Jews turn off some of its ovens.

Allowing an observant Hasidic Jew to come in, turn off the ovens and turn them back on assures that the Hasidic community can buy bread from the bakery. If it weren't for that small step, said Ms. Riitano, they would have to get baked goods from as far away as New York City.

Rising popularity

"Who knows who did that?" she asked. "It becomes a very political thing with how kosher something is."

At Mount Pleasant, she said, customers don't have to worry about whether their purchases are really kosher, since they're inspected by local authorities. That attitude has proven successful. Ms. Riitano noted that the bakery does a great deal of wholesale business, selling baked goods to Jewish camps all over the Capital District every summer.

The Riitanos also have a bakery in Colonie and opened one in Albany in 1986. (The Albany store was recently leased to another person but still sells Mount Pleasant products.)

"In September, when Rosh Hashanah would come, I would have people lining up outside the door to buy challah," the baker boasted.

Wide tastes

The bakery's most popular products include rye bread, challah, rogelach and Russian coffee cake.

Since the Riitanos are Italian, Ms. Riitano joked, "we make Italian pastries kosher. What more could anyone want than a kosher cannoli?"

Compliment to chef

For example, when Cardinal Edward Cassidy of Australia recently visited the Albany Diocese (see stories in The Evangelist on March 22 and April 5), Ms. Riitano made sure an interfaith dinner the cardinal attended was kosher.

"A [Jewish] person came up to me," she remembered, "and said (a) she couldn't believe she was getting a kosher meal, (b) that there was a kosher reception afterward, and (c) that she saw a wash station set up, because Jews ritually wash their hands" before meals.

Aside from official functions, Ms. Riitano has become an unofficial consultant for Jews planning kosher meals at celebrations.

"I know everybody in the world," she said, "so when people have a bar mitzvah, they call up and say, `I need to talk to you about the cake.' It put us in the position of being in the middle of the community -- we're there for their celebrations and hard times."

Satisfaction

"It all just came together," she said. "What were the chances that non-Jews would buy out something like this endeavor?"

Even after a decade and a half as a bakery owner, she is still asked why she bothers keeping the business kosher.

"It's not because it brings in so much money, because it does not!" she said, laughing. "People are becoming less observant [about dietary laws]. But when we took over, I said, `There is one Jewish bakery in Schenectady, and this is it.'" She wanted to keep that bakery available, just as it was.

Dessert

As for the bakery, Ms. Riitano has plans there, too: "We want to make an `interfaith cookie' -- the best of everything," she said with a smile. "It certainly would have honey in it, for the sweetness of all the faiths."

(04-26-01) [[In-content Ad]]