Thanks, Nou - 'sifted' may be the word I'm looking for (and it involves a sieve with very small holes, like a rough fabric more than an actual sieve - the opposite of my brain, really).

"Winnowed," separating the wheat from the chaff? Or just "sifted" through a sieve for impurities?

Sifted is what she means, I think, if she means what I think she does.

and the vegetables also had - grr, I don't have enough of that vocabulary thing - been, um, tithed?

"Tithed" works. I think there's a different word I've heard used for when it's fields rather than money, but I can't remember it.

Thanks, Hil.

The hivemind is the best dictionary ever - all I have to do is think of the wrong word, and I immediately get the right one, spelled correctly and with grammatical explanations.

Sifting flour is the world's biggest pain in my mind. I was a cooking counselor at a Jewish summer camp one summer, mostly helping 5- and 6-year-olds make cookies. We only had this little tiny sifter, and were making about 100 cookies a day (or 5 or 6 cakes, the days we made cakes.) At first, we had the kids sift it, but that took way too long, so I ended up sifting flour during just about every break period. (Teaching kids to check eggs was fun, though. They didn't seem to get that they could move the bowl, so instead of moving the bowl around to look at it from all sides, they'd hold it in the air and twist their necks around to try to look at it. So cute.)

Sifting flour is the world's biggest pain in my mind.

I totally agree. I try to have a large amount done at a time, so that I always have sifted flour ready-to-use when I need it, and I put both my hands and the sifter inside a plastic baggie (again, see: vocabulary, lack of) so that it'll cause as little mess as possible, and it's still one of the most annoying things to do. I have friends who avoid using flour unless somebody else (the husband, mostly) volunteers to do the sifting, they hate doing it so much. But doing it every break period is especially cruel.

instead of moving the bowl around to look at it from all sides, they'd hold it in the air and twist their necks around to try to look at it. So cute.

So cute. It's like, often when kids who sit near a table get the wrong thing (a kid gets something that was meant to go to another kid), they get up and change their places instead of just trade. Moving themselves is the first option, or something like that.

Yeah. Of course, we got into some problems when kids would ask why eggs would have spots. There were kids from lots of different backgrounds, and they were just five years old, and I could never come up with a good answer to that question. I think the answer we finally decided on was "Only some eggs can become chickens, and we're only allowed to use the ones that can't. If it has a spot, that means it could become a chicken." Which would then lead to, "Well, why can only some eggs become chickens?" If these were my (hypothetical) kids, I'd have no problem answering those kinds of things, but I was never too sure how to answer other people's kids.

If these were my (hypothetical) kids, I'd have no problem answering those kinds of things, but I was never too sure how to answer other people's kids.

You're me in that regard. Because parents may have so many different reactions, every answer may upset some - I don't think there is a right one answer to give.

Because parents may have so many different reactions, every answer may upset some - I don't think there is a right one answer to give.

There was one counselor who'd answer that sort of stuff, when the questions just wouldn't end, with, "Because that's the way HaShem made it." But her group was religious kids. Some of the bunks had non-Jewish kids, so that answer wouldn't go over too well with them.

There was one counselor who'd answer that sort of stuff with, "Because that's the way HaShem made it." But her group was religious kids.

I have a big problem with that sort of answer-that-doesn't-answer-anything.

I have a big problem with that sort of answer-that-doesn't-answer-anything.

Yeah. That one was usually reserved for when the kid had been asking questions in response to every answer for ten minutes on end.