Disgruntled former masgiach to theatre district kosher favorite, Le Marais, has a rockstar past, the NYPost reports:
April 16, 2007 — He was European rockin’ royalty until he saw the light of the rebbe. Now Isaac Bitton’s former bosses at Le Marais, a French kosher steakhouse in Manhattan, may use his fast-living past against him in their $10 million lawsuit denouncing allegations they failed to maintain a kosher kitchen.
In his youth, Bitton was famous as Jacky Bitton, the drummer for Les Variations, a hard-rock band that topped France’s music charts and played on bills with 1970s supergroups Aerosmith, Kiss and Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
More recently, Bitton was a mashgiach, or kosher supervisor, at Le Marais. After he quit the job last month, he posted a blog accusing the restaurant’s chef of allowing bugs in the salad and permitting non-kosher margarine and shellfish in the kitchen.
[NYPost]
This September will mark the beginning of shmitta, the period every seven years where soil in the land of Israel must be left uncultivated, which until 2007 has raised an important question among the ranks of observant Israeli farmers: “Oy, whattam I gonna eat?”
The answer apparently has been provided by Israeli high (low?) tech:
(JTA) An Israeli company has found a way of circumventing a religious injunction to let agricultural land lie fallow: fake soil.
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Two of the Tuv Ha’Aretz communities are hosting Meet the Farmer events this week. Meet the farmer supplying Tuv Ha’Aretz, ask your burning questions about sustainable, organic agriculture, shmooze with other members of your local Tuv Ha’Aretz community, and find out how to join the CSA. Check out these events if you live in or are visiting:
- Berkeley, CA - or -
- West Orange, NJ (or anywhere in the MetroWest area)
For more info about the Berkeley event at Chochmat HaLev on Tuesday, April 17, contact Adam Edell adumkov@aol.com, and for info about the New Jersey event at JCC MetroWest on Wednesday, April 18, contact Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu (rsirbu@jccmetrowest.org).
The intricacies of the Conservative movement’s proposed tzedek or “justice” hechser get a look from PA’s Jewish Exponent:
Lyon [a rabbi on the committee] stressed that the commission members are still figuring out what criteria will be used, and how deeply certifiers will have to dig to investigate conditions. It’s also not clear whether the hechsher will just stick to labor issues, or if it will also take a page from the eco-kosher idea — developed by leaders of the Jewish Renewal movement, including Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Philadelphia Rabbi Arthur Waskow — and also examine a slaughterhouse’s effect on the environment.
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The first Jewish CSA, Tuv Ha’Aretz, gets a shoutout in PA’s Jewish Exponent:
Part of the process is “to examine our thoughts about food and examine what’s been taught in Judaism” on the subject, she said. [organizer Robin Rifkin, a nutritionist] The group plans to schedule discussions on conservation; what it means to say blessings before and after meals; and why organic and local foods are so crucial these days. The Jewish heritage of farming and Jewish agricultural holidays will be examined as well.
In addition, the role of charity and food will be explored. Jewish law is very specific about how much land and foodstuffs go to the poor, she noted. Kol Ami will be donating any extra or unused shares to the Mitzvah Food Pantry, a program run by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.
Still, Kol Ami will face some real challenges. Learning to eat “seasonally” can be daunting for families, especially when they have never used exotic ingredients like dandelion greens and Swiss chard in cooking before. To help participants prepare meals with these new ingredients, Kol Ami will also be holding cooking classes.
Actually, it’s in the pinenuts. Yessir! I’ve made challah with pinenuts twice now, and enjoyed it both times, and so I’m ready to declare a public launch. I was vaguely inspired by a pinenut torte I had once at a fancy Italian restaurant, but mostly I just love pinenuts, and also love mixing Things That Are Sweet with Things That Are Not, for character-deepening effect. In challah, it adds this buttery nutty soft crunch that is terribly pleasant.
I have done two variations: Read more »
One thing I used to hate about the Bay Area is how its population is so smug in its assuredness that we live in the best place in the world.
I don’t hate that about it anymore, I’ve just accepted that it’s true. Things happen all the time that make me so grateful that I live here (and more than that, that I am able to afford to), but recently there were two – and both of them pertain to this blog.
While I can’t claim a San Francisco residency, I am proud that recently, my neighboring city supervisors voted to ban plastic shopping bags from major grocery chains in the next six months. Of course this made us a laughing stock in other parts of the country, as if the city supervisors don’t have anything more pressing to do than this. But I think it sets an excellent example of raising awareness.
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The coolest home science experiment ever — no, really EVER — is the home cheesemaking kit. I am just dumbstruck at how nifty this is: A gallon of warm milk, citric acid, a rennet tablet (OU hecshered vegetarian rennet, actually) and poof! Cheese. Stringy gooey mozzarella. Or milky, creamy ricotta.
And it’s so ludicrously easy: perfect for kids since nothing gets warmer than tepid bathwater. They get to stretch and pull the mozzarella to make bocconcini or string cheese. It’s so much fun to play with your food. Milk magic in your kitchen.
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(Thanks to Jcarrot reader, Sara Shalva, for this post)
Last week I was staying with friends in a beautiful apartment off Kikar Hamedina in Northern Tel Aviv. Down the street a bit were two cafes, with the same name, across the street from each other. Unlike the US with Starbucks on every corner, this was a bit of an anomaly to me. I asked my Israeli friends, who explained, “one is kosher, one isn’t.” Opting for the kosher and kosher l’pesach café because, it was the season, I kept marinating on this silly aspect of life in Israel. Segregation. The religious and non-religious water fountains/ eateries. Separate but equal.
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This year, Counting the Omer is posting a new reason to be vegetarian every one of the 49 days of the omer. So far, they’ve got animal cruelty, vegetarians smell better, slaughterhouse workers work in deplorable conditions, it’s easier to keep kosher, and a number of others (we’re on day 8).
I admire the new twist on the old tradition (in similar fashion, a good friend of mine used the Omer one year to do one more pushup every day). But these lists of “10 reasons to be green” or “365 things you can do to save the planet”…are they really helpful? Are they really telling us something new? Is lack of information really the problem, and are ‘the people who don’t know’ really the ones who will read these lists? I’m not entirely convinced - though regardless, the site is worth checking out, even if just to remind yourself of stuff you already know.
This Saturday, join a grassroots event to stop the onward march of global climate change. Find the action in your area here.
“Two thousand seven is the year that global warming will become a marching issue; 2008 is the year it will become a voting issue,” said one organizer.
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