Iwait until 9 a.m. to call Satmar Bikur Cholim to ask about coming to see their kitchen thinking nobody will be available before then. As it turns out I was way off the mark.
“Gut morgen how can I help you?” a cheery voice answers. After hearing my request she says “Oh my come in fast! You’ll miss all the action if you’re not here just after ten!”
So I hop into a car and speed off across Brooklyn toWilliamsburg gnashing my teeth at the morning traffic. I arrive at132 Ross Streetat 10:05. It’s a doorway on a side street you could easily miss with a few steps leading down into a kitchen the size of an apartment.
Shopping carts filled with bulging bags are lined up outside the door. Women are starting to congregate around them and a breathless but exuberant chassidic man comes puffing around the corner. “Here want to bring a cart?” he asks me so I gamely join another woman and start pushing a cart around the corner to busyBedford Avenue.
