[Avodah] Hot Cheese for Shabbat Lunch

[Michael Makovi]

There's a family I used to eat with back in America, that one time,
for the day meal, the wife simply dug through the fridge and pulled
out whatever she found and that was our lunch.

Now, I honestly don't know whether she had prepared these davka for
the sake of Shabbat and stuck them in the fridge for a cold meal, or
whether she really did simply pull out whatever was there. All I can
say is what I saw.

But, I can just as honestly say it was extremely good - when you're
eating by a professional cook (which she is), I suppose cold
fridge-pullings are as good as everyone else's hot planned menus. So
for me, there was definitely no question of kavod Shabbat.

(And lest anyone kvetch about cold food, remember Rebbi serving
Antoninus cold food on Shabbat?)

But what about her? For her, the food was surely inferior to what she
could have prepared if she had planned a menu! So where's the kavod
Shabbat? I'm going to guess that for a professional cook, taking
Shabbat off from cooking IS kavod Shabbat!

Anyone agree or disagree? I have no sources for what I just said.

As an aside, I remember the time that I was at someone's house by
night, and when the wife checked the chicken, she discovered it had
gone rotten, and we had nothing to eat. So what did we do? Lots and
lots of side dishes (three or four types of kugel, two or three
salads, etc.), and in lieu of the chicken, we opened a few cans of
baked beans and precooked hot dog type Vienna sausage thingies, and
make a whatever you call that concoction. Very good.

And there's always bread. When you eat in a yeshiva without chumus
because of Sefaradi students who can't eat Israeli chumus or techina
because of bishul akum (Arabs), eating at someone's house with bread
and chumus is a very special treat.

Mikha'el Makovi