Alix gives a recap of Bravo’s Top Chef finale, part 1:

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Alice Waters needs an intern. 

It is with great amusement I have been reading this blog lately, and see that almost every post is about California, yet none of those posting actually live here. This is not at all meant to sound condescending, rather, just to place myself properly, as writing from somewhere other than that great place that I called home for almost 9 years, New York.

I write from the great gastronomical capital of Berkeley, California – or Oakland, rather, and I’m quite proud to live in Oaktown, its southern neighbor, thank you. I am just over two miles from the Berkeley Bowl, a former-bowling alley turned grocery store so legendary, I often take tourists there just to gawk at its 50 varieties of mushrooms and 30 varieties of potatoes. Am I exaggerating? Maybe. But you get my point.

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I spent this past weekend on the campus of the Claremont Colleges, a group of five schools located about an hour outside of Los Angeles, visiting and eating with my old friend Hal. Food was, literally, everywhere: salad bars, burger bars, omelet stations, deli meats, pizzas, lasagna, beans and rice, vegan options, vegetarian options, and of course, the dessert bar. As I wandered around the cafeteria on the campus of Pomona College I found myself stopping for a slice of pizza and eating it on my way over to the salad bar. On the way to the salad bar, maybe the French fries caught my eyes, or the garlic bread, inducing me to pull over to load up my tray a bit more.

I’m not exactly sure what to make of the experience. On the one hand, I’m slightly ashamed of the way in which I overate. Being presented with mountains of free, delicious, and varied food led me (at least for the first few meals) to put anything that looked good and was labeled vegetarian on my plate. As a Post-Modern-Orthodox Jew (we can talk about what that means later), I’m liberal enough with my observance of Kashrut that I’ll eat vegetarian food in the dining hall or restaurants, even though they serve non-kosher meat. As I forced myself to finish my meals rather than throw out my unfinished food, Hal laughed mirthfully and explained that it took a couple of weeks to get used to all the options and plan your meal accordingly. Read more »

This morning I was reading a book called Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Living a Life That Matters, a deceptively wise book about life, business and food by Bernard Glassman, founder of the Greyston Bakery and Zen monastery in Riverdale, NY. On p. 16 he writes:

We should eat in a way that expresses our appreciation of our food and all the effort that went into making it. We should savor the tastes and the texture of our food. In order to do this, it’s good to eat slowly—or at least slower than we usually do. And we need to pay attention to what we are eating, as well as to the people sharing our meal.…

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Answer: Little kids don’t eat broccoli.

Children. Munchkins. Rug rats. Fritos’ corporate sponsors. The San Fransisco Chronicle’s Gate’s Tara Duggan carries an insight into the lives of mommies and daddies who, while cooking for picky and sugar-loving babes, are looking for good ways to keep their progeny healthy.

Here’s a family meal of pasta with broccoli and cheese (for the children) and tomato sauce and olives (for the adults), recipes below the fold:

THE WORKING COOK
When life gives you children, mealtimes can be a challenge

Before I became a mother, I used to look down on parents whose kids would eat only hot dogs or noodles with butter. I must have assumed my own children would be born with refined palates and would joyfully dive into plates of endive salad and osso buco I would present to them, putting their peers to shame.

I’ve heard rumors of — and even seen in action — these sort of young children who gladly eat almost anything their parents serve. But mine are not like that.

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These words, from Pirkei Avot - Wisdom of the Fathers - and remind me of an article about school lunches published last week by Grist. ”Renegade Lunch Lady,” Ann Cooper, is working to change the face of school lunch in American public schools, starting with the 9,000 students eating at the 16 schools in the Berkeley Unified School System. 
 

They also reminded me of a related and less-heartening article I read a few years back in Mother Jones, called Unhappy Meals, which painted a very bleak picture of the average school lunch.

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About 25 people stood around a large rectangular table, and each shared a memory about challah. One person had never measured a cup of flour. Another had joined a challah-baking fertility circle and was now pregnant. I was teaching challah baking at LimmudNY for the second year, and the emotions surrounding the simple act of baking challah ran deep.

I bake challah every Friday, with very rare exceptions. One year, early in my Jewish observance, I forgot it was Pesach and baked challah as usual. That wouldn’t happen anymore, but baking challah has become an integral part of our family’s shabbat rituals. Perhaps it was the Wonder Bread consistency of store-bought challah that made me a challah baker. Perhaps it was a bit of the convert’s zeal. In the small town where I grew up, challah was not a part of my consciousness. I think I first learned about it from a menu describing challah french toast, and I wondered how to pronounce the “ch.”

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Anyone at JTS or YU willing to man the “eat local” barricades?

Salon has a story about the local dining movement popping up on college campuses.

Georgetown’s Eat Local Challenge — and the temporary disappearance of Taco Tuesday — was the brainchild of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Bon Appétit Management Co. With a national staff of 10,000 and annual revenues of $400 million, BAMCO runs 300 cafes in colleges like Georgetown Law, at the corporate campuses of Oracle and Yahoo, and at other posh locations including the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the Getty Villa in Malibu, Calif. Yes, that’s cafes, not cafeterias, as BAMCO’s director of communications, Maisie Ganzler, is quick to stress. “Cafeteria” conjures up images of can openers, frozen veggies and great quantities of mystery meat. But BAMCO believes even lowly college mess halls can be brought into the culinary vanguard.

BAMCO is not alone. In the past year, the “local” ethos has overtaken even organics as the gourmet cause célèbre — And eat-local challenges have begun sprouting up all over the place…

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I went to California last week for vacation with a friend and had some interesting food experiences which were quite thought-provoking. In California, there is a chain of coffee shops called Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and in most of them their coffees and baked goods are kosher, in addition to being delicious. My friend and I made it a top priority to support this special establishment daily during our trip (and on a day we missed, we were religious to double-up the following day). Unfortunately, there aren’t any stores on the east coast (yet!), so we felt we had to optimize on making these visits while on the west coast.

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Today, I appreciate the travails of Californian farmers, not just because the heater in my office is a little underperforming today, but because of this round-up on the frost’s effect out West.

The San Fransisco Gate Chronicle offers up how California’s record cold may freeze some items right off restaurant menus, but by and large chefs know how to cope with the seasonality of crops under shortage this winter. Here it suggests some professional fixes home cooks can imitate:

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In a recent op-ed, Rob Eshman, Editor-in-Chief of the Jewish Journal, read Michael Pollan and calls on Los Angeles synagogues to join Tuv Ha’Aretz:

Meanwhile, a cutting-edge Jewish organization in New York, Hazon, just announced it would expand its program linking synagogues with local, sustainable farms to five congregations across North America and one in Israel in 2007. Through Hazon’s Tuv Ha’aretz program, synagogue members buy shares in a local farm and receive a box of organic produce each week.

“In some locations,” JTA reports, “subscribers must work several days a year on the farm, ensuring that they have not only a direct connection with the farmer who grows their food but the place where the food grows.”

None of the congregations Hazon has signed on is in Los Angeles. I hope a large, local flagship synagogue (or two, or three) joins soon. [emphasis added]

Moderation, gratitude and awareness. The more we can institutionalize those, the stronger we’ll make our connection to kashrut, and to a better world.

[Jewish Journal]

I just returned from 5 days at the Pioneer Valley Co-Housing Community for a performer’s retreat with some great folks. I spent much of my time recording pieces from the upcoming ‘Eat Like A Rainbow’ CD (which I’m producing for my friends at the New York Coalition For Healthy School Lunches). I participated in two of the community dinners while there, and really enjoyed the pre-meal circling up, the dining company, and of course, the food! Here’s a blurb from their website describing how it works:

“Meals are prepared and served by the community every Monday and Wednesday evening. Half to three-quarters of our members dine at regular meals, and there are frequent guests, as well. Meals are generally vegetarian, and vegetarian and diary-free options are always available. Organic foods are preferred, but are not always found to be economical or available. Whenever possible, meals are planned around the produce from our organic garden. Meal costs are $3.00 per adult and $1.50 per child.”

I also appreciated the attention paid to recycling, energy efficiency, and the general sense of community around the place. I finished most of the recording, and left behind this one more place where folks just living their lives are helping create alternative systems to replace the old dying ones.

The least favorite part of my childhood Tu Bishvat seder was when they passed around the carob. I had never tasted so vile a substance, and the experience was only worsened by its supposed similarity in taste to chocolate. I’m sorry, but carob is to chocolate as Kenny G is to Coltrane. Since the third grade, I’ve been on a “no-carob” diet.

But that’s not the reason that our Tuv Ha’retz community, which is hosting our synagogue’s Tu Bishvat seder, decided to celebrate chocolate (a “p’ri etz hadar” - “product of a goodly tree” - if ever there was one) at this year’s celebration. Read more »