People like Rabbi Yehuda Kravitz have permission, and are even encouraged, to rifle through others' kitchens. Kravitz is the rabbinic administrator for Kosher Miami, which certifies local restaurants, caterers and other companies that produce kosher food. He teaches people how to make their sink, oven, microwave, pots, pans, utensils and dishes comply with kosher law.

Although it may seem like a daunting task to kosher a kitchen and keep it that way, it's easy. "If you go into any large supermarket or chain store, on 80 percent of the products, there's a kosher certification already," says Kravitz, an eight-year veteran of the Orthodox Union.

As far as koshering the house, the most important parts are the dishwasher, stove, oven and sink.

For an oven, it used to be you needed a blow torch. Now you can set it on self-clean for three or four hours and have a kosher oven, he says.

You don't even have to call Kravitz to learn what it takes to kosher your home.

"How to Keep Kosher" (Harper-Collins, $24.95), by Lise Stern, released this month, explains what it takes to make any kitchen a kosher kitchen. The book also includes kosher recipes; a list of kosher cookbooks and how to find kosher restaurants. The holidays as well as their kosher traditions are explored. The book also delves into how people keep kosher. For example, some keep kosher by ingredients only, others by orthodox supervision, others at home but not in restaurants.

So, how do you make your kitchen kosher? Here are some highlights:

Enameled porcelain sinks are treated as earthware, a substance that absorbs flavors permanently, and so these sinks are not kosherable. But stainless steel sinks can be made kosher with boiling water.

Refrigerators are made kosher after you scrub all shelves, bins and drawers with soap and water. Some people also designate specific parts of their refrigerator for meat, dairy or pareve.

Cabinets and drawers are made kosher by cleaning them and replacing the paper liners.

Dishwashers are trickier. Many orthodox families designate their dishwasher for meat cooking and eating items only, or for dairy. Those who can afford it have two dishwashers.

Another option, if you use the same machine for both, wait 24 hours before running a meat or dairy cycle. But then you must run the machine in between. In addition, you must have separate racks for meat and dairy. Other religious experts allow one dishwasher as long as meat and dairy dishes are washed separately.

Sponges and dishtowels can also be designated meat or dairy so you don't accidentally wipe a meat pot with a milk-stained towel.

There's also information on how to make your home kosher for Passover. For example, that toaster oven or electric waffle iron cannot be made kosher for the holiday, so put it away during that time.

Rabbi Kravitz says it's easy to keep kosher once you learn the rules. "You have to want to do it and then keep to it."

Compensation for Kosher food deaths

A German baby-formula manufacturer will pay at least $22 million in compensation to Israeli families whose infants died or suffered brain damage after they were fed a milk substitute that lacked a crucial vitamin, Channel Two TV in Israel reported. Two babies died late last year after being fed the soy-based formula produced by Humana Milchunion for the Israeli firm Remedia. Fifteen other infants were harmed.

When doctors noticed the trend of sick babies, the government immediately pulled the food off shelves even though they didn't know what was wrong with it.

To add to the complications, the Health Ministry began taking action on a Friday evening, shortly after the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. The kosher formula is popular in the ultra-Orthodox community, but contacting residents was impossible since observant Jews keep their radios and televisions off and do not pick up telephones. So the ZAKA emergency rescue service, best known for its volunteers who collect human remains following suicide bombings, sent its vans with megaphones into Orthodox neighborhoods, telling residents to stop using the Remedia formula and to have their children checked.

L'Chaim

The Golan Heights Winery is releasing two more kosher selections: Yarden Katzrin 2000 and Yarden Katzrin Chardonnay 2002 in the United States.

Kosher food allergies

According to the online news service Kosher Today, Israeli scientists may have found the key to sesame seed allergies by neutralizing a protein that causes them. Scientists from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology here used high-frequency sound waves to pulverize sesame seed molecules. After identifying the allergenic part of the protein, scientists targeted it with extremely high frequencies over very short periods. In 95 percent of cases, the allergic qualities were completely neutralized. Sesame allergies are common in Israel and consumption of sesame seeds in its various forms is high. Researchers hope the same process could work on other foods that cause allergic reactions.

Rosh Hashanah

This holiday begins the night of Sept. 15. Among Eastern European Jews, gefilte fish is the traditional appetizer served on the Sabbath, the New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and Passover.

Fish is pareve, so this dish can be part of any kosher meal, whether meat or dairy. Because the bones are removed when you make gefilte fish, they don't have to picked out at the table, so eating this doesn't infringe on the Sabbath prohibitions against work.

According to the Jewish Heritage Online Magazine, gefilte means "stuffed" in Yiddish. Originally, a fish forcemeat made from chopped freshwater fish was used to stuff pike or carp skin much like a sausage. Nowadays, gefilte fish generally means the forcemeat alone, made into balls and poached in fish stock.

There are mentions of Jewish housewives chopping and stuffing fish in Germany in the early Middle Ages; the fish they used was pike. Carp, on the other hand, was the fish of choice in Poland, Lithuania and the Ukraine.

In Poland, the forcemeat was markedly sweet; in Lithuania, peppery. Today, Jews of Russian and Lithuanian descent prefer their gefilte fish unsweetened; those of Polish descent still like it sweet.

Few people make their own gefilte fish. Instead, they make a sauce or garnish to go with the prepared product, as does Sylvia Berger of Tamarac, who offers her recipe for Glorified Rokeach Gefilte Fish.