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Challah French Toast coutesy; Barefoot Contessa

Software

6 extra-large eggs
1 1/2 cups half-and-half or milk
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon good honey
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 large loaf challah
Unsalted butter
Vegetable oil

Hardware ; Oven, a couple of sheet pans, and a couple of mixing bowls.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.

In a large shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs, half-and-half, orange zest, vanilla, honey, and salt. Slice the challah in 3/4-inch thick slices. Soak as many slices in the egg mixture as possible for 5 minutes, turning once.

Heat 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon oil in a very large saute pan over medium heat. Add the soaked bread and cook for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, until nicely browned. Place the cooked French toast on a sheet pan and keep it warm in the oven. Fry the remaining soaked bread slices, adding butter and oil as needed, until it's all cooked. Serve hot with maple syrup, raspberry preserves, and/or confectioners' sugar.

Alton Brown does his version too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOc0M_Y5q08 , fast forward about 7 minutes, unless you want to hear about toasters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_4cGkzSf7o <--- part two...

FRESH HERBS: Kosher by default. If they're grown in Israel, however, they need to be tithed properly in order to be kosher.

DRIED HERBS: Plants are kosher. However, if they're dried, they may have been dried in an oven rather than naturally, so the oven would have to be kosher. If there are preservatives, those have to be kosher. The jars, tins, or boxes in which the herbs are sold also have to be kosher. Any adhesives used in the packaging need to be kosher as well, in case they might have come into contact with the herbs.

SPICES: Almost always oven-dried instead of dried naturally. Anything said for herbs applies to spices as well.

Actually, you might already be buying things that are that level of kosher (meaning actually kosher, since anything that isn't 100% kosher is 100% not-kosher). If you're using McCormick, Durkee, or Spice Islands spices, they're all certified as reliably kosher.

Kellogg's cereals with the K or KD mark on them are reliably kosher, too, even though they don't have a specific hechsher (that is, most of the time a plain K or KD doesn't signify actual kashrut status, but only the fact that the manufacturer thinks the product is kosher). But Kellogg's is actually a reliable hechsher. You'll see a few Kellogg's products that don't have it, but most of their products do have it.

Can anyone tell me what is and isn't kosher?

I don't see any product images that are large enough for me to find a hechsher (a kashrut certification mark) on the bottles, and there is no FAQ on the site, so there's no way for me to know whether Penzey's spices are kosher. I suspect if you call the company and ask, they'll say "Kosher? Well, they're organic/all natural/vegetarian/vegan/high quality." Which means that, no, they're not kosher. Because if they were kosher, their employees on the customer service phone lines would be taught to answer "Yes; would you like to speak to my supervisor about the exact specifications?"

Thanks.

Sometimes I wonder if even the things that are marked with kosher verification can be trusted.

My grandpa worked in a canning company in the mid-west whose products were considered kosher, despite the employees cutting corners. Even the rabbi himself was a little lazy and blessed the plant from an airplane in the sky because he was late for something or another.