Was it just me, or did the “debate” between Michael Pollan and John Mackey last night hardly seem like a debate?  My friends and I all agreed afterwards that it was more like a mutual admiration society between “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” author and the CEO of Whole Foods.

Even the Berkeley audience, which swelled to 2,000 people to fill the largest auditorium on campus, was uncharacteristically polite, hissing only once when Mackey suggested that most Americans were doing better economically than in previous years.

Check out this great article about the Tuv Ha’Aretz in Atlanta at Congregation Shearith Israel!  Seeing SI’s Rabbi’s amazing beard alone makes clicking the link worthwhile – it’s also just a really great article.

 While you’re clicking finger is hot, you can check out ALL 10 of the Tuv Ha’Aretz communities - read about their farmers, see what’s in season in Berkeley, (or St. Paul, or Israel…) download a registration form, and more. 

The neat thing about blogs is that people who leave comments often also do neat things themselves. Here are two bits about Purim worth sharing:

Carly from Peel a Pomegranate offers us a Mishloach Manot Swap:

In the spirit of the mitzvot of both giving gifts to the needy at Purim and also giving gifts to friends and acquaintances — I hereby dedicate the great Shalach Manot Swap of 5767. Read more

And Gluten-Free By the Bay offers us Gluten-free Hamentaschen

Ok, so you can’t eat them. But you sure can enjoy them!

And there’s more: click here to drool over more omni-seasonal knitted food. Thanks to Dory Kornfeld for the link.

The Past, Present, and Future of Food

This event, even after having been moved to a larger auditorium, is compltely sold out (tho folks are looking for tickets on Craigslist). If you live in San Francisco, you can watch the discussion broadcast in the North Gate Hall Library at UC Berkeley. If you live anywhere else, you can watch the webcast here.

I, personally, shall be holed up in Brooklyn with buddies and a bowl of homeade popcorn, and hoping that our internet connection doesn’t die on us, and pondering the bizareness of cross-country real-time, which will have me listening to the discussion at 10pm EST. Oh well.

But why is this conversation so exciting?

I think it’s partly because we don’t often get to see change actually happen, and we’re dealing with two contestants in the sustainable foods debate who are eminently well placed to make that change happen–quickly. And they already have.

Reuters reports:

February 21, 2007 — JERUSALEM – Jews must not wear fur skinned from live animals, Israel’s chief rabbi said in a religious ruling yesterday. “All Jews are obliged to prevent the horrible phenomenon of cruelty to animals and be a ‘light onto nations’ by refusing to use products that originate from acts which cause such suffering,” Rabbi Yona Metzger said.

Animal-rights campaigners in Israel and abroad say that animals are skinned alive at fur farms in China.

The ruling stopped short of banning the use of fur from animals skinned after they were slaughtered.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve spent something like40 hours in front of the computer working on this years Adamah Farm Plan. Choosing vegetable varieties, checking the spacing, rearranging the crop rotation, calculating how many seeds, seed trays, and other supplies will be needed, and inventorying the seeds as they come in. When you are planting almost 4 acres; almost 200 rows of 85 ft each, you need to be organized. I’ve been working 10, 11, and even 14 hour days organizing data and choosing varieties. Last week, I actually had an extended dream involving various members of the Cucurbitacea family (watermelons, cukes, zukes, winter Squashes and pumpkins). I can honestly say that I never put this much effort into anything that I did in college… maybe 2 that papers I wrote came close to the sheer number of hours and the intensity level of this work.

Every Purim, my family makes a lot of hamantashen. A few years ago, my mother started a homeschoolers’ baking group, and for the past couple of years, we have enlisted their help. We have two flavors that we make every year. One is poppyseed. The other is cherry. Each year, we also experiment with a variety of other fillings. For example, one year we did fig, another we did pumpkin. We’ve also done strawberry, strawberry-rhubarb, apple, and blueberry. My personal favorites are the poppyseed and apple. We are trying to think of a new flavor for this year. Does anyone have any ideas?

Click here for the free audio preview of an unfinished recording of my new song, ‘Eat Like A Rainbow’ (click the player below) from the upcoming album of the same name, that I’m producing for the NY Coalition For Healthy School Foods.

Its also the working title of my new kids’ concert, and I’ve been taking the opportunity to perform the songs all over the place in schools, libraries, and other venues.

The song promotes eating colorful foods, and living a colorful life. The show contains 10 different songs featuring healthy choices. For 3 more of the songs online, or to find out more about this program, check out my website, and I’ll post more of them here soon!

Over at Jewess there’s an interview with Karen Smith, specialist in Jewish eating disorders, asking the question: are Jewish women more prone to eating disorders than other populations?

There are the expected answers: Jews tend to be affluent and anorexia tracks affluence; there’s no actual data on Jews per se, but educated groups are more likely to seek treatment.

And then there’s the whackadoo: did you know that anorexia is feminism’s fault? “I would say that it [anorexia] is a reaction to the feminist movement, which history would support.”

I’m a homeschooling teenager in Boston. I’ve been using the freedom of homeschooling to explore a special social studies topic this year – the history of food. I’m reading a lot of books and articles and recently visited the Radcliffe Library, to see their cookbook collection. I’ve also been doing a lot of cooking and eating.
One of my current projects is studying the history of the tuna melt. I got the idea after reading an article in the newspaper where the journalist traced the history of tiramisu, which in the 1700s was called tipsy cake, and before that, rum bread. This article was trying to prove the point that not all “modern” foods, such as tiramisu, are so modern. I’m trying to do the something similar with the tuna melt.
I would like my posts on the Jew and the Carrot to chronicle my tuna melt project and my other food-related projects. I plan to post interesting facts and stories that I find while researching, and also sometimes post about my own experience researching this topic as a teenager. I’d love to hear your comments and suggestions as I go along.

Smoky white fish, tangy sauerkraut, succulent tempeh and sweet root veges laced with cream…

Here is winter supper from my forth coming book “The Flexitarian Table” (Houghton Mifflin June 2007).

Whether you’re a Meat head, Veg head, or a serious Omni-Locavore like my friend Sarah Rose or my cat Bambu you’ll find something tasty here. Yes dear reader it’s time to wake up and smell the sauerkraut, whip out your immersion blender, and get cracking! Cooking is an adventure not some sort of chore! On your way from the green market to your table you will get back to your shtetl roots and even take an excursion to Southeast Asia. You’ll be braising sauteeing, toasting, pan frying, simmering, pureeing and seasoning your way to a sumptious yet deceptively simple supremely satisfying supper.

I’ll leave the dessert up to you…

One of the most curious notions concerning the festival of Purim is the concept of Adloyada – a drunkenly-slurred reference to the following quote from the Babylonian Talmud, (Megillah 7b):

“Rava said: It is one’s duty to make oneself fragrant [with wine] on Purim until one cannot tell the difference (ad d’lo yada) between, ‘cursed be Haman’ and ‘blessed be Mordecai.’”

Many Jews take this talmudic dictum literally, and you’ll never see as much sincerity surrounding drunken revelry as in many a shul on Erev Purim. As the cantor of a suburban shul where Purim is focused as much on our kids’ sense of merriment as our own, I can’t very well break down the doors of perception using Manishewitz as my own personal peyote during the congregational megillah reading. No, I have to find some other way to get at the subversive heart of adloyada – a way to spin my world upside down for one brief moment each year, to gain new insights into our world through the temporary reordering of our religious and cultural norms. But how?

Thanks to Aliza Wasserman for the heads up about this amazing food writer’s symposium, with one of the best logos I’ve seen in a while. 

“The conference offers writers an open forum where they can exchange thoughts on skills, trends, writing styles and themes prevalent in today’s world of food writing.”

There are also several scholarships available.