What do Rock Cornish hens and golden doves have in common? For Fishel Gross of O’Fishel Kosher Caterers in Baltimore, Maryland, one bird inspired the other

Photos: Esky Cook

With pallets of thousands of Cornish hens to give away, a Baltimore caterer with huge ovens and an even bigger heart is making sure thousands of families have a Sunday supper that’s not Shabbos leftovers

What do Rock Cornish hens and golden doves have in common? For Fishel Gross of O’Fishel Kosher Caterers in Baltimore, Maryland, one bird inspired the other. Galvanized by an important life lesson he learned during Eli Stefansky’s popular “8 Minute Daf” shiur on Berachos 53 (Fishel is a sometime-sponsor), the big-hearted caterer decided to pay his personal golden dove forward by giving homemakers and others a break from the hectic toll of COVID-19.

The story in the Gemara is about Rabbah bar Bar Chana, the fourth-century Babylonian scholar who was once traveling with a caravan. He ate at a rest stop, but only remembered that he had not recited Birkas Hamazon after the convoy had already pulled out. Rabbah wanted to return to the location of his meal to recite the prayer, as is proscribed in halachah, but he thought to himself: If I tell them to go back because I forgot the brachah, they’ll tell me, “Don’t you believe Hashem can hear you everywhere?” He thought it would be better to tell them that he left behind a very valuable golden dove. He wasn’t kidding — the mitzvah of a proper Bircas Hamazon was a true golden dove for him. And so, convincing the group of the necessity of going back, they returned to the rest stop — and sure enough, as a reward for his scrupulous attitude toward mitzvos, as he was about to rejoin the caravan, Rabbah bar Bar Chana found an actual golden dove lying on the ground.

The golden dove, Fishel understood, is the way Hashem makes good things happen when we go out of our comfort zone — our “golden dove” can become a real golden dove. That said, Fishel looked around and got to work.

Masked Faces, Open Trunks

And so, Fishel created a series of impromptu “Give-the-Balabusta-A-Break Sunday” food distributions outside his catering hall at Baltimore’s Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation.

“Word gets out fast,” Fishel shares. “It was advertised late Sunday morning, and there was an incessant flow of traffic. We don’t ask a lot — wear a mask, come at your designated time, display the correct printed signage, and keep your window down or trunk popped.”

At one Sunday distribution that I visited, the program was dedicated in honor of those who’d gone out of their comfort zone to pick up meals for others during COVID-19. “These are people who might not be able to sponsor a whole event or pay for a product component, but they take 25 minutes out of their hectic schedules to do a chesed for someone else who lives alone.”

Shomrim was monitoring the long lines of vehicles snaking their way into the driveway. Traffic into the lot was backed up for blocks. Pickup priority was given to those who had not yet received free food from any of Baltimore’s COVID-19 food programs, including singles and shut-in couples.

Today’s homebound packages for singles and couples included a Cornish hen, kugel, cake, and other supper goodies. A later pickup was open to the entire Baltimore community, regardless of race or religion. The family box included three David Elliott Cornish hens, couscous, a vegetable, tahini sauce, and a Pariser’s Bakery chocolate strip.

“We were planning on purchasing 1,500 pounds of chicken breasts for chicken lo mein,” Fishel says, “but instead, I ended up with Cornish hens. I was speaking to Dovid Yehuda Fink of David Elliott Poultry Farm — they were my supplier all the way back when I was the unofficial cook for some bochurim 45 years ago in the Scranton yeshivah. There was a shortage of that product, so instead they dropped off 4,000 complimentary hens.” That week, over 1,300 families benefitted.