Have you ever been labeled a "baleboste"? It's a popular Yiddish word for a woman who keeps a clean home and is a good cook. As we approach Passover (Pesach), what have you done which entitles you to receive this title?

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2001

Answers

I would be the ANTI Baleboste and I certainly wouldn't want to be a baleboste unless *I* wanted to. No offense but I tend to get a bit feminist about thist stuff.

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2001

The way I have always heard it pronounced, it sounds a lot like "Ballbuster". I am all for that. Luckily, I married a haimisher mensch who doesn't believe his wife finds her fulfillment in the kitchen.

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2001

Why would I want to be labeled anything? Except for "fabulous", that is.

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2001

Well, I got one out of three... I can cook.

-- Anonymous, March 22, 2001

I'd be a good cook if I was motivated, but my house would send a baleboste into either a cleaning fit or a coronary. It's not dirty, just...extremely cluttered.

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001

I would never be called a baleboste although I can clean a house and cook very well - I'm not consistent enough. I did make delicious chicken enchiladas last night though. Oh and I cleaned my pantry and organized it. Let's just hope it stays that way.

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001

What Renee said. Though now I'm reminded of Cynthia Heimel's column about how she was called a baleboste and how it worried her that she was becoming a lady.

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001

I either have a clean house or a neat house. never both. That's too much to ask. I am a good cook, I just choose not to during the week. That's my husband's job. Is there a Yiddish word for a *man* who cooks and cleans?

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001

Ugh, I'd hate to be labeled a baleboste. I'm a terrible cook and housekeeper - I have better things to do. My husband is good at these things but I think he's wasting his time, too.

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001

I'm the only person I know who read The Stepford Wives and wanted to be one. It's not just that they kept perfect houses, always looked gorgeous, cooked perfect meals -- it's that they LOVED DOING IT.

I would dearly love to have a perfectly organized, neat (and possibly even clean) house. But not if I have to do the work. It would be nice if I actually liked doing those things. If I smelled the furniture polish and got high off it. If I gloried in vacumming and had orgasms just by unloading the dishwasher. But I don't, and so I don't. (Polish, vacuum and unload, that is.)

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001

Dang it. I've been looking for a baleboste in all the wrong places.

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001

Um, the Stepford Wives were robots. They didn't really love housework, they were just programmed to act like they did.

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2001

Jennifer --

I realized that. I read the book. :-)

As I read the book, I wished I had their secret. Even after I closed the book, properly "chilled" by the revelation -- I still wished I had the secret of either enjoying cleaning, or not caring that things weren't clean.

I once worked with a woman who simply said, "You're as clean as you want to be." I think that's true, sorta, maybe. But I also think I want to have this perfect house, but at any given moment, I'd rather be reading a book.

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2001