The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

When people ask what religion I am - an occurrence whose frequency seems to sextuple in December - I usually answer with a stock phrase: "Well, my grandparents are Jewish," I say. "And my parents sometimes are."

When my husband and I were asked to go on vacation to Colorado as a guest of our good friends the Swillers, how could we say no?

Last week was filled with good memories and a lot of REALITY. After landing in Denver with the guys, we still had a three hour drive to Aspen ahead of us. Swiller was the designated driver of the upgraded rental car, an Escalade. I guess Swilly figured that, since I (the JAPrincess of the bunch) was on board, it would be important to have a vehicle that gave me and the guys some room.

Nearly every morning but for Shabbos (Saturday, the Sabbath) and religious holidays, Rabbi Avrum Kaufmann walks from his home in St. Louis Park to the Byerly’s store half a mile away, where he serves as mashgiach: supervisor of the kosher deli’s adherence to kashrut laws.

In the seconds between shoving my third and fourth White Castle-sized pork sandwich down my throat, I yelled across the lavishly appointed basement toward my host. He and his wife had invited fifty Twin Cities WASPs, and me, to watch Mike Tyson’s pay-per-view, main-event boxing match in Las Vegas against heavyweight Frans Botha on their wide-screen television.

I was more interested in the undercard fight for the junior cruiserweight championship belt between the Brooklyn-born Ethiopian Jew Zab Judah and Wilfredo Negron.