This past weekend, about 75 people gathered at my congregation for a Tu Bisvhat seder sponsored by our community’s Tuv Ha’aretz CSA. I wrote previously about the emphasis on Fair Trade products at our seder this year, specifically via four cups of Fair Trade coffee and Fair Trade chocolate fondue for dipping all the various fruits and nuts. It was great to see such a diverse group of people - kids and seniors, synagogue members and local CSA supporters, as well as a much-appreciated “guest-appearance” by Hazon’s own Leah Koenig, all learning, singing, and, yes, dipping together. FYI, if you’d like to try a chocolate fondue seder, I highly recommend it. We used this chocolate, and this recipe (minus the added sugar), and I was able to prepare fondue for 75 people in less than 15 minutes! Just microwave 1 bag of chocolate chips + 1/2 cup half & half + 1 tbs. butter in a microwave safe bowl for 1 minute 30 seconds, wisk vigorously, and repeat for each serving - each bowl serves a table of 12, and stays dippable (if not hot) for over an hour, no fondue pots necessary!
After the jump, I’d like to share a few thoughts about the mysterious end to the Tu Bishvat seder, and the strange eating of No Fruit… Read more »
On Monday morning I, along with two of my Jewish farming colleagues, was lucky enough to attend a rural circumcision, my first. The father was a gentile, the mother Israeli, the hosts were not very observant, and neither were most of the guests. In fact, the three farmers in flannel were the most observant Jews there, with the exception of the Litchfield Chabad Rabbi and the Lubavitch Mohel (the circumciser).
The Bris seemed to be run almost entirely by the Mohel and the Rabbi, and it brought up some interesting questions. The mother was practically invisible (though, this might be understandable), and the father only slight less invisible. It was mostly a men’s event, which makes sense as we were welcoming this baby into the Jewish Boy’s Club. On the way over, one of my compatriots mentioned that the hosts had driven to Waterbury to get Kosher bagels for the Bris, which he thought was a bit much. Do they usually eat Kosher bagels? No, but this was for the Rabbi. At the Bris I heard questions such as, “If the coffee pot has only been used for coffee, is it kosher?” Read more »
When people ask me what I’ve gotten out of spending the past five months in a natural foods chef program at Berkeley’s Bauman College, I tend to get really excited about beets and Brussel sprouts. That question has been coming up a lot lately, as I prepare to graduate in about three weeks.
When we first began, I liked neither of the above-mentioned vegetables, and probably wouldn’t have believed that I would like them five months later. I am of Russian stock, after all. I grew up with some form of borscht on our table all the time, first made by my Russian grandmother, and then my mother, both winter and summer versions. The summer one, especially, looked radioactive to me. Even though it was so colorful, with its dollop of sour cream making such a beautiful contrast, and a sprinkle of lively dill, I could never bring myself to eat it. And this followed me into adulthood.
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vs.
Coming February 27!
Two powerful foodies, engaged in an extremely polite epistolary smackdown, author Michael Pollan and Holy Foods founder and $1-a-year CEO, John Mackey, will face off at Berkeley.
Jcarrot West Coast Correspondent, Alix Wall, will blog there.
Rabbi Shmuel Simenowitz’s Sweet Whisper Farms has been described as “Vermont’s only shomer Shabbat, organic, horse-powered maple farm.” If you think that sounds one-of-a-kind, the farm also offers the Eitz Chayim Adopt-A-Tree program. Through Eitz Chayim, one can:
- Adopt one of Sweet Whisper Farms’ maple syrup trees
- Receive a “tree package,” which includes an adoption certificate, aerial photo map of the tree’s location, Sweet Whisper Farms’ newsletter, and a gift box of syrup and organic pancake mix at the end of the season
- Support Torah-based environmental education
- Help a Native American tribe ahieve energy independence
- Help reforest tribal lands (a portion of Eitz Chayim profits are regranted to Native American energy independence projects)
Read more »
“To be Cuban and Jewish is to be twice survivors,” says a Havana-based historian, commenting on the small Jewish community in Castro’s Cuba.
I have lived among and traveled to isolated outposts of the diaspora, and am familiar with the journalist’s metrics: a Jewish community gets counted when there is at least one synagogue, a minyan, and a kosher butcher. Real estate, prayer, and food. A community is considered moribund when these disappear.
Dwindling in numbers since the 1959 revolution, the Jews of Cuba were nursed back to observance after the fall of the Soviet Union by an international community which sent kosher food at Passover.
Yet another reminder that food is a powerful marker for identity, nourishing selves — perhaps even souls — as much as bodies.
One man, one vision - to save the corned beef sandwich and egg cream from culinary extinction by preserving their natural habitat - the Jewish Deli. Save the Deli founder, David Sax writes,
“As a culinary institution, these temples of authentic Jewish flavor have been steadily disappearing to the point where less than a hundred may remain scattered across the globe.”
Sax has created a blog Savethedeli.com as a place where “deli lovers can congregate, trade stories, search for delis, and find out how to support their local delicatessen.” He is also touring the United States in search of the last vestiges of the authentic Jewish Deli, and will posting updates and musings on the blog along the way. If you have any leads or favorite Delis, blog on at Savethedeli.com or email David.
I woke up today and looked outside my window at the Isabella Freedman Jewish retreat center covered by a blanket of soff white snow. I grabbed my cross country skis and began gliding across the frozen lakes and enjoying the serenity of winter at Isabella Freedman, where the population was exactly 3 people over this Shabbat. Read more »
It’s getting hot and it’s our own damn fault, says a UNEP special panel on climate change.
In a Tu B’Shevat email, Nigel Savage asks, what does this mean for the Jews?
It’s against this backdrop that we need now to think about the future of the Jewish environmental movement. Events are accelerating dramatically. There are two different issues that need to be addressed. The first is a broad one: what is and should be the purpose of the Jewish environmental movement? The second is a more prosaic one: how should the existing Jewish environmental organizations work together more effectively in coming years?…
For the Jewish community to make a difference on environmental issues, we need brutal honesty to begin with. Jews are now roughly 0.2% of the world’s population; less than the margin of error on the Indian census. If all the Jews in the world recycle their newspapers it will make… pretty much no difference whatsoever.
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The San Fransisco Chronicle is quickly becoming my favorite newspaper for food and sustainability news. In a 101-style, here’s the scoop on the myriad of animal-friendly certifications, seals and medallions. For more on this, check out Arlin Wasserman’s workshop materials on almost ALL the symbols at the Latkes to Lattes workshops resource page.
Here’s a brief comparison of the main labels:
Animal Compassionate — So far only pork guidelines are complete. Tail-docking. sow confinement prohibited. Natural daylight required.
USDA Organic — Federal organic rules allow de-beaking, tail-docking, sow-crating and dual production systems; they require outdoor access and natural daylight.
Animal Welfare Approved — De-beaking chickens, docking pigs’ tails, confining pregnant sows in crates and dual-production systems (one humane, another not) prohibited; outdoor access and natural daylight required.
Certified Humane — De-beaking, tail-docking, sow-crating and dual-production systems permitted; outdoor access and natural daylight not required.
Free Farmed Certified — De-beaking, tail-docking, sow-crating and dual-production systems allowed; natural daylight, outdoor access and natural daylight not required.
In a recent article entitled “Kosher Food Becoming Chosen Food of the Unchosen People”, kosher food is now being marketed by kosher food companies (this article focused on Manischewitz in particular) to the mass public, the 98% of the world’s population which is not Jewish. The reasoning behind this is that given the current drive in our society towards eating purer, cleaner food, many consumers are looking for kosher foods and something positive, even though they don’t keep kosher.”
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Back in December, I posted about my lunch with The Food Maven, Arthur Schwartz, promising that I’d post the full article once it was published in Zeek’s February, 2007 issue. Well, it’s February, and I’m one to make good on my promises.
Schwartz is fascinating man who has “eaten his way” across all five boroughs and, according to the New York Times Magazine is, “a walking Google of food and restaurant knowledge.”
Click here to read the full interview, and experience The Food Maven’s take on everything from celebrity chefs, to mixing a good cocktail, to the state of Jewish cuisine in New York City.
If there’s one thing the NYTimes loves to do, it’s chronicle the fascinating lives of the young, smart and privileged: Ivy League students. The Times has documented naked parties at Brown University, and porn and chicken clubs at Yale, among many others).
Yesterday’s story, “In a Yale Dining Hall, Independent Study at the Microwave,” follows that trend. The article reports:
“AS students streamed into a towering Gothic dining hall at Yale University last week, appraising the plats du jour on a cafeteria buffet, one of their classmates was concocting his own sauce from peanut butter and a dark liquid.
“You have to be careful with the sesame oil,” cautioned the student, Zach Marks, a self-described dining hall gastronome. “Too much of this and the texture gets watery.”
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