nanny- can she heat up food?

Scrabble123

Tue, Aug 12 2014, 8:01 pm

Warm up already cooked food? Yes.

However, I would not get her use to turning on a flame or anything of the sort (convection over, etc.) If you have a microwave, I guess that would be best. My friend who has a nanny has a rule that she must asked the neighbors to turn a flame on for her and have the neighbor sign a paper (like they do in bakeries to make sure challah was taken). Her cleaning lady is there daily for 12 hours, and is BH quite reliable, but she has had her fair share of mistakes happen: treif convection oven, had to throw out a brand new george forman b/c cleaning lady cooked on it after plugging it in herself.

BTW I think it would be best to ask a personal shaila since there are so many opinions on what is called "bishul yisroel"

MaBelleVie

Tue, Aug 12 2014, 8:33 pm

My nanny uses the microwave or toaster only for specific foods that she has been instructed on. Occasionally I or dh turn on the stove for her, again for a specified use. The rules we taught her are much stricter than the actual halacha. I would definitely recommend getting guidelines from your own rav...

Mrs Bissli

Thu, Aug 14 2014, 3:18 pm

You do really need to brief her and walk through everything in the kitchen.
Most non-Jewish people don't think instinctively about using different utencils for meaty vs milky.
I spent the first week going thorough what she can and cannot do, only let her use milky side
(with microwave) till we both felt comfortable.

You also have to give a very specific instruction, like microwave pasta in the yellow bowl, serve
with broccoli in the small Tupperware and chicken pieces in Tupperware with the red dot, don't give
yogurt or anything dairy for dessert but they can have either cut fruits or soy custard. Please use
meaty utencils from the drawer that has meaty sticker.

Initially I asked her to leave all the dishes and utencils in the sink, to make sure she is following
instructions. (Though this means extra cleaning up when I came home). Once she's learned the ropes
I've asked her to wash things separately, but only with lukewarm water.

self-actualization

Thu, Aug 14 2014, 3:45 pm

I now have a frum babysitter. But when I had non-Jewish babysitters I never let them warm up food. I just would put in the food on time bake in the AM and then let it stay in the oven until dinner time - let's say I would put chicken and sweet potato in for 2 hours, and then it would still be warm when it was time to eat. (Same thing with crock pot chicken & rice). Other things would be - make a pot of pasta with cheese and then leave it on the stove - would be room temp when time to eat. That was my comfort level. Even with my frum babysitter, the most she can do is make pizza bagels in the toaster oven. Believe me, it's easy to trip up.

Another thing I used to have was a camera in my kitchen. A couple of times I caught the non-Jewish babysitters doing quasi-wrong things. One heated up in my toaster fish sticks that had been cooked in a fleishig oven. When I confronted her, she just laughed and said - you have crazy rules. She was fired. (I fired her because she broke my "no cooking" policy, not because of the fish sticks per se). Before I had a chance to fire her, I saw on the camera that she was feeding my son turkey breast and chocolate pudding on the same spoon! That's basically why I would only use a frum babysitter or day care at this point in my life.

(That being said, not everyone has the luxury of using a frum babysitter. Make sure you set up strict guidelines with consequences. It also helps to have an English speaker, and preferably one who has worked with frum families in the past. I also love the camera idea, even if you don't revew it every day, because in case something looks amiss you can review the footage. Also, a visible camera is a great deterrent).