Food it seems, is quite the hot topic these days.  Some people are learning more about sustainable agriculture, some are learning to bake or roast vegetables for the first time.  Some are exploring their connection to their cultural roots through food, while others are learning about the 2007 Food Bill or really excited about food’s medicinal properties of certain herbs, or interested in finding out more about Jewish tradition’s connection to agriculture and what the laws of kashrut mean (or don’t mean) for them. 

The Jew and the Carrot seeks to broaden and deepen the conversation on all of these fronts.  We also get really excited to hear that other publications are starting to take interest in food and eating.  To that end, Jewish feminist publication, Lilith Magazine, has recently started a blog of their own and asked me to write a weekly column for them on - no surprise - Food is a Jewish Feminist Issue. 

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There’s Nerve.com, JDate, eHarmony, Match.com Saw You at Sinai, and now….Farmers Only? 

Farmers Only founder, Jerry Miller, is an advertiser based in suburban Cleveland.  He drives a Lexus and goes golfing on the weekends.  And, more recently, he created a website to match up farmers living in isolated rural communities and looking for love.  The idea started, he said, when a recently divorced farmer friend of his lamented over her chances of ever finding another suitor.  Tractor wheels turning, Miller, created Farmers Only, which now boasts over 50,000 members from all 50 states, and numerous rural love connections since it was founded two years ago.

I imagine it won’t be too long before we see JewishFarmersOnly.com - connecting former Adamah fellows and kibbutzniks worldwide! (Or am I the only person who thinks that would be a great idea…) 

Check out the online interview and profile of Jerry Miller and Farmers Only, here.   

Maybe it’s the wood-burning oven. Maybe it’s the giant mass of white dough on the back counter endlessly being cut and hand-rolled. Whatever it is, there’s something romantic about St. Viateur Bagel. Late night visits make it all the more so, especially when you snack on the piping hot bagels all the way home. In Montreal, bagels are not just breakfast: they’re dessert, lunch, dinner, or post-dinner treats. And in Montreal, bagels are not just food–they define this city.

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One of the hottest questions circling around the sustainable food world (besides, “Is it possible to eat meat sustainably?“) is , “What happens when the organic and local food movements meet big business?” Can large corporations like Walmart in America and Tesco in the UK go green without radically undermining the integrity of foods’ localness?

The answer, according to an article today in The Guardian, doesn’t seem promising.

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This summer working on the farm at Adamah I’m learning that making things is extremely enjoyable. We are satisfied because it is our hands that have weeded the onions, our milking and washing the jars, and prepping the feed, that brings our milk to our table. No wonder God said “it was good” after every day of creation. God was making things! And having a damn good time.

I offer this as preamble to my latest most exciting project. And while it’s not strictly on the Adamah curriculum, this summer is the first time I’ve found myself to take it on in earnest: bread the ancient way, catching the living yeast in the air….SOURDOUGH!
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As a CSA coordinator and food blogger, I have the privilege of hearing the rumblings of what’s sprouting in the world of sustainable agriculture and eating.  And the question on everyone’s mind these days seems to be: Is it possible to consume meat and poultry in a way that is responsible for the earth and our bodies?  And, is there a way to do it that supports farmers, without completely breaking the bank?

AND (for kosher-keeping consumers), is it possible to find ethical meat that is also kosher?

As a result of the rising interest in meat from “happy cows,” a crop of organic family farmers across the country have started offerring sustainably raised and ethically slaughtered meat as part of their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) communities or through special meat coops.  This morning, NPR featured a story about these sustainable meat coops and the enthusiastic response they’ve received from members.

And this week, the Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA in Washington DC launched a program that will offer not only ethically raised, but also kosher meat to their members.

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China is the red elephant in the room when issues of food safety and food security arise. Last month’s pet food poisoning debacle highlighted the all-but-absent Chinese equivalent of the FDA. Which isn’t saying much, because the Food & Drug Administration itself is woefully unprepared and underfunded (LA Times) to protect the public.

The Economist weighs in and this morning, KosherToday (below) takes a harsh look at China’s lax infrastructure in keeping up to par on American kosher standards as well. Read more »

I write these words on Friday afternoon. I have just finished braiding the challah that we will eat in a few hours, and it is now under a dish towel, for its final rise. I love the feel of the dough in my hands, and the ritual of braiding, feeling the tradition in between my fingers, knowing that millions of other Jewish women have done this very same thing Friday afternoons for forever. I love the way the doughy aroma fills the house — it smells like Shabbos. But I can’t help but feel the tiniest bit guilty because of my secret: the bread machine.
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I’d like to give a hearty hand of appreciation to the fresh fig.  Although their dried counterparts usually rule in America, there is nothing like slippery sweet seeds of a fig bursting through its soft purple skin. 

Figs generally grow in steamy climates, which is perhaps why biting into a fresh fig immediately evokes the warm, ancient air and sweet soil of the Mediterranean - and why these gems are one of the seven species of Israel:

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In honor of my parents, Edith & Richard Stevenson, on their 27th wedding anniversary today -– may the next 27+ be just as full of joy and adventure!

It’s the end of our fourth week here at Adamah. We’ve marked time with Shabbatot, a Rosh Chodesh, and yesterday, the summer solstice. And so, I’m stepping back to consider what it is I’m doing here, what it was I was hoping to learn, what in fact I have discovered.

The most important realization has come around what I am actually doing. I wanted to work on a farm this summer because after talking so much about CSA, farmer’s markets, eating locally, supporting organic agriculture, on and on about the benefits for health and community — I had never actually experienced what it was like to do the growing, the actual agriculture itself. I told everyone – I’m going to grow food all summer! I can’t wait!

Well, we’ve been busy dawn till dusk, doing and learning all kinds of things, but in four weeks I realized I’m not doing the one thing I came here for. I’m not growing food.

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A few weeks ago, the Adamah fellows attended the Teva Environmental Education Seminar at Surprise Lake Camp — what an amazing day. Kudos to Teva for organizing such a great event. Here are some thoughts inspired by one of the sessions by Jackie Topol. Jackie is an artist who loves photographing nature (esp. produce from farmer’s markets) — check out her website: www.jackietopol.com. Hopefully we’ll get some of her photos up here soon ;-)
– Anna

As you may have gathered from Jeff & Anna, our schedule here at Adamah is exciting and filled to the brim. So — as much as I love working in the fields, the greenhouse, and the pasture — it was a nice change of pace to head to the Teva Seminar for a day of Jewish learning and environmental education. The first lecture I attended was about GMO foods and the Jewish response, led by Noam Dolgin. Genetically modified organisms are a major piece of the conversation around contemporary food issues. We talked about BT corn, square tomatoes, vegetables with fish genes, and other new and bizarre developments that are or will soon be growing on farms in the US.

Noam shared examples from the Torah and Rabbinic commentary that could be said to pertain to our current agricultural practices, including the question of GMO. A quote that I found particularly poignant was: “Look at My creations! See how beautiful and perfect they are… Make sure you do not spoil or destroy My world, for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you” [Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) Rabbah 7:13].

But, although the biblical excerpts really resonated with me, what has really been on my mind for the past two weeks is the square tomato.

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It started with a simple question. A parent at Beit Rabban Day School in New York asked Hazon friend, Martin Kaminer, if he knew any opportunities for family vacations that involved agricultural education and working/living on a farm. Martin sent an email out to friends to gather information about experiences and opportunities for city folks to spend a few nights (or more) working, learning, and doing, in an agricultural setting.

The list he came up with is too good not to share, so The Jew and the Carrot created a resource page to share the wealth.  Some of the opportunites even combine Jewish learning with farm education. (swoon!)

Check it out here 

Frequent readers of ‘The Jew and the Carrot’ know that Hazon’s staff recently returned from a Cleanse on Fire Island with author Halé Sofia Schatz. It was, to say the least, a unique experience. Below is an excerpt from my post about it on Baking and Books :

… Now, I realize that when I say “food cleanse” you likely have no idea what I’m talking about and I know this because that was precisely my reaction when, two weeks ago, my boss told me that I would be organizing the entire event. A cleanse, you say? What could that mean? Bathing in fruit juices? Avocado face masks? I hadn’t a clue. But it turns out that a “food cleanse” - at least, one run by Halé Sofia Schatz - is all about eating healthfully and cleansing our bodies of the “toxins” we ingest every day. Sugar, caffeine, refined flour, chocolate, dairy - Halé believes that all these foods are not only difficult to digest but also put toxic substances into our systems…

… On June 14th the Cleanse experience officially began when I headed out to Fire Island with several heroic staff members. Our mission: to haul five days worth of organic produce to the beach house we’d be living in (no cars are allowed on Fire Island so this was done by hand-pulled wagon) and to kasher the kitchen. Phyllis Bieri, whose house we were using, wrote a fascinating post about the kashering process, as did my co-worker Leah Koenig, so I won’t go into that here, but suffice it to say that by evening we were knackered. Not only had we transported an incredible amount of food and thoroughly done over a kitchen, but we had done so while remaining faithful to our pre-Cleanse diets. This was a feat, especially when you consider how we passed Rachel’s Bakery on each trip to and from the boat dock. Behold the awesome power of peer pressure, by which I mean that, had I been making these trips alone, I would have been seriously tempted to duck into Rachel’s for a bite of contraband cookie. (Ok, I was tempted anyways, but I didn’t do it. Which is what matters. Ahem.)

Read the rest of this post by clicking here…

When I was home in Vancouver this spring I had the opportunity to write a piece for my friend’s awesome new newsweekly, Tooth and Dagger, about the state of CSAs in the Vancouver area. Fresh from NYC, where Just Food lists over 50 CSAs for the five boroughs, I was surprised that there were only a handful of CSAs in Vancouver — some of them barely getting started.

In talking about CSA I have a list of ready answers to the usual skepticism. But it seems the problem in Vancouver (and I wonder other cities?) is not price, consumer awareness, interest in organics, or availability of local farmland or distribution sites. Rather, we have an imitator species that has taken hold in the niche where CSA should be…

Read the article

PS - more from Adamah soon!