New Drama Over the Farm Bill
Remember the 2007 Farm Bill? That incredibly important document that stirred up a storm of controversy (and a glimmer of hope for sustainable ag reform) last summer and fall, and then sort of disappeared for a while? Well, at long last, the House-Senate committee agreed on a final version of the Farm Bill yesterday, which will go to the House and Senate next week and, if it gets the green light there, to President Bush’s desk next week.
Hooray! Or maybe not.
Unsurprisingly, drama abounds - with Bush likely to veto the bill and sustainable agriculture supporters torn over whether to support the flawed bill as is, or back the veto. Tom Philpott over at Grist wrote a very solid overview of the situation. Print it out for your Shabbat (or weekend) table, and decide how you feel.
Related Posts
Apple vs. Snackcake - a funny and informative video on the Farm Bill.
Farm Bill Hits the Floor
Michael Pollan on the Farm Bill
No Comments »Bicycle Fetish Day
Question of the day: What do you eat to prepare yourself for Bicycle Fetish Day?!
The City Reliquary presents: A Street fair for your bicycle! Show off your ride and revel in the beauty of all types, styles, and genres of specialized, customized, and personalized bicycles.
CONTESTS throughout the day: Best in Show, Best Vintage, Best Hand-made, Best Chopper, Best Small Wheel (includes foldable bikes), Wheelies, BMX tricks, Track bike tricks, Heaviest Bike, Ugliest Bike, and more. Games, Rides, Bike Beautification Station, Merch tables and more! Plus: Live performances, cheap beer, and burgers and hot dogs (both carnivorous and herbivorous).
4th Annual Bicycle Fetish Day - Brooklyn
Saturday, May 10, 2008 12:00noon - 6:00 PM
More info here.
Joan Nathan’s The Foods of Israel Today (Win a Copy)
If America is the proverbial “melting pot,” then Israel is a close second - at least when it comes to Jewish food and Mediterranean cuisines. In her book The Foods of Israel Today
Today, in celebration of Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day), we’re raffling off a copy of The Foods of Israel Today
More and a recipe below the jump.
When Horseradish Attacks
Thanks to Alyssa Finn for this guest post. Alyssa is getting her Masters degree in Clinical Nutrition at NYU and is a Hazon volunteer on the New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride Exec.
Yesterday, I came home after a long bike ride in the New York sunshine. On my plate for the evening was a pile of reading in preparation for my chemistry exam the next day. I stared at the pile of books and papers. I looked longingly at my kitchen, the primary source of my procrastination.
Then I remembered: horseradish!
The Fabulous Fava
Can anyone hear fava beans and not think of Anthony Hopkins?
“I ate his liver with fava beans and a nice chianti.” (The movie is Silence of the Lambs, in case you missed it, and the infamous line was said by Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.)
But references to cannibalism aside, our Tuv Ha’Aretz has started here in Berkeley, and we’ve got more fava beans than we know what to do with. Which, when you get down to it, really isn’t that many at all. Read more »
Join A CSA - If You Still Can
Community Agri., Farming, Grocery, Organic, Personal Story, Seasonality, Sustainability, Tuv Ha'Aretz, Vegetables
I am beyond mortified. I think I missed out on my chance to join a CSA this year.
For three years, I ran Hazon’s Jewish CSA program, Tuv Ha’Aretz. During that time, CSA-related thoughts (vegetables yes, but also spreadsheets and volunteer coordination, and organizing Shabbat potlucks, and donating leftover produce to soup kitchens, etc.) dominated vast swaths of my brain, crowding out other important information like friends’ birthdays and the need to wash my bath tub.
I would complain regularly - even daily at certain times of the year - about people who could not get their act together in time to register for a CSA. Outwardly I was compassionate, of course, but inside I had no sympathy for those people who would send me frantic emails the night before vegetable pick ups started asking, “Is it too late to sign up?” What did they think this was, Fresh Direct?
After all that experience, you’d think I’d be a pro at signing *myself* up for a CSA. The first gal to send in her check, right?
Ehh..well…no. Read more »
Happy Early Mother’s Day (Chocolate Cake)
Several months ago, The Jew & The Carrot featured the recipe for my mom’s amazing chocolate cake - the one that my brother and I begged for every birthday - mostly for the thrill of eating sweet, homemade frosting directly off the beaters.
Then yesterday, a reader sent me the following email:
“Long ago you posted a recipe for your mom’s chocolate cake. Finally I got around to making it for Shabbat dinner this past week. Since I’m really into my new camera and having lots of fun taking food pics, I thought I’d share the image. I used real roses and borage [to decorate it] too. Everyone loved the cake-the recipe is a keeper.” - Emily
With Mother’s Day coming up on Sunday, I figured now is the perfect time to share this delicious cake once again. Happy Mother’s Day Mom! Recipes and another photo below the jump.
Planting Onions, and Other News from the Sadeh
(Photo by Shir Feinstein-Feit)
It seems a long time since I wrote about seeding onions…and indeed, the past two months on the farm have been a bit of a blur. But we planted the onions over chol ha-moed pesach, with much fanfare and mixed emotions (I’ll explain), and so I felt it would be good to give you all an update. (If you missed the last post, I am the Farm Manager at Adamah, a Jewish farming fellowship program in Connecticut. The sadeh is our 3.5 acre field where we grow our vegetables.)
The sadeh looks beautiful. Right now there are beds of onions (cippolini, red, scallions, leeks, walla walla…), with their thin, oniony stalks the size of blades of grass standing pertly up from the soil; beds of beets, red and golden; and several beds of brassicas, the family of hearty green-purple vegetables that includes broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards and kohlrabi. Only a small percentage of the field has been planted, and the evenly spaced rows of green and red and purple are beautiful against a background of tilled brown earth. The field looks serene, and betrays nothing of the work it took to get it looking that way.
Shwarmonic Convergence
The incredibly talented visual artist, Mat Tonti, created a beautiful rendition of the controversial goat schecting at last year’s Hazon Food Conference for PresenTense Magazine. It captures the event, the mood, and the whole experience perfectly. Kudos, Mat - and thanks :)
View the full image here.
For more about the schecting, click here.
Save the date: This year’s Food Conference is happening December 25-28 in Monterey, California. Registration opening SOON - check Hazon’s website for more details.
J-PETA? A Kosher Couple Goes Undercover
The Jew & The Carrot blogger, Tzimmes Maker, told me that a guy she knew in college wanted to start an organization called J-PETA: Jewish People for the Eating of Tasty Animals. Well, Hannah and Phillip Schein would definitely identify as “J-PETA” members, but not in quite the same way as the carnivorous college kid.
Last week, The Forward profiled the Scheins, a kosher-keeping couple that was responsible for taking undercover videos of Agriprocessors‘ slaughter houses on behalf of the PETA. Ever wondered how PETA and other animal-rights organizations get their hands on all that incriminating footage? Check out the article below the jump:
Genetically Modified Hype in Israel
Thanks to Michael Green of the eco-Israeli blog, Green Prophet for this guest post and his take on the debate over genetically modified foods in Israel.
A headline in the Israeli press last week went a little like this: “Scientists, activists debate if genetically modified foods are panacea or plague.”
Sounds great, but where exactly is the ‘debate’? The article in question reads more like a press release for the GM lobby: ”Distribution of new, genetically engineered crops can help solve world hunger, but the question is where they are used,” said Hebrew University professor Ayal Kimhi. Absent from the 551-word article is the voice of GM-sceptics.
In fact, according to the trusted scientists, it is those who dare to question the merits of a risky and untested technology who are standing in the way of ‘progress’:
Beer-kay Avot?
Last year, I posted about the connection between beer, civilization and the Jewish people’s journey from Egypt to Sinai during the period of the omer.
This year, just as the counting of the omer began, I came across this article, which is a survey of contemporary authors concerning which beers they would pair with their novels! Some authors picked beers that matched the characteristics of their writing (”dark, with biting overtones,” etc.). Others chose more figuratively. For example, Michael Chabon responded, “The proper pairing with The Yiddish Policemen’s Union would of course be a nice cold bottle of Bruner Adler lager, brewed right in the Federal District of Sitka by Shoymer Brewing, Inc.”
Rip Up Your Lawn? One Man Says “Yes I Can”
Family & Kids, NYTimes, Participate!, Personal Story, Seasonality, Sustainability, Vegetables, gardening
Last month, right before Passover, David Elcott ripped up his lawn. This White Plains-based author/lecturer was out to prove - to himself as much as others - that you do not need years of experience to grow your own food. All you need is a desire to eat great food and a piece of fertile ground - like your lawn (or nearby community garden for city dwellers). Partnering with the COEJL blog, To Till & To Tend, we’re excited to bring you David’s first hand accounts, frustrations, and victories from the “front lines” of his lawn farm.
Operation Lawn Farm: Part 1
I was going crazy today. Tech problems with my printer took hours. Nothing accomplished. A lousy conference call committee meeting. Exhausted. At five in the evening, I took the world into grip and, like Superman, ripped off my work clothes, put on my dirty sweats and headed out to the farm.
The Eating Spectrum
This comic from Toothpaste for Dinner straddles the amazing/disturbing divide. Meanivore? Freegan? Cashivore? Where do you fall on the eating spectrum?
