The New York Times, like much of the country around this time of year, is in a giving sort of mood. But despite our best intentions, giving isn’t easy. Following up on an article last week that announced severe shortages in food banks across the country, today’s Times published an article which declares that giving is more complicated than it used to be. Food giving, the article says, no longer simply refers to bringing a can of wax beans to your local food pantry (though it still means that, too).
Kim Severson writes in So Little Time, So Many Charities to Feed,
“…figuring out where to direct help can be complex, especially in an era when tens of thousands of such programs exist.
Charitable groups dedicated to saving farms from bankruptcy or delivering vegetables to poor urban neighborhoods have popped up in recent years. So have groups that build organic gardens in struggling school districts or protect endangered indigenous foods like the O’odham pink bean.”
So, do you stick with the can of beans to the food pantry? Give to a food bank like City Harvest? Donate to a Jewish hunger organization like Hazon Yeshaya, or Mazon? It turns out, just like there’s no one perfect diet for everyone, there’s also no perfect place to donate.
“The question to ask yourself as a donor is, What problem do I want to solve, and how do I best think that it could get solved?” said Melissa Berman, the president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors…”
I would add that, just as we all need to eat, so is it our responsibility to help others - or support those people who are helping others.
So what’s your favorite food charity? If you have one, list it below - if not, check back in the comments section for ideas.
This photograph was taken by Sabrina Malach at The Hazon Food Conference. Aside from just being gorgeous, I think it perfectly captures the essence of the conference. Note the snazzy glass mug every participant received when they arrived. Also note the bicycle menorah. Pretty rad.
This past weekend, Hazon had the wonderful fortune of having Sharon Lebewohl - daughter of Abe Lebewohl who founded the (closed, but soon to re-open) 2nd Avenue Deli in New York City - attend The Food Conference. When I asked her how the plans for reopening were going, she told me that she was not working on the project…turns out, her 25-year old cousin, Jeremy is charged with task of reinvigorating one of New York’s most beloved delis. The interview with Jeremy below was originally published in New York Magazine.
You Can Take the Deli out of Second Avenue
New York Magazine
By Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite
It seemed like the whole city went into mourning when the deli closed. What made it so special?
You have other places in Manhattan that have good deli cases. But our kitchen—and I say this very confidently—nobody can touch. I won’t take away the counters from them, where you can get a good sandwich. But there aren’t that many places where you can get good soup. We have chicken fricassée, goulash, all these things that come from the kitchen. There’s not a single deli in Manhattan that can compare.
Read more »
In this post, Leah spoke about the shechting of the three goats. Towards the end, she writes, “I began to wonder at what point during the process did the beautiful goat transform into “meat?” I am not sure that I can answer that question any more conclusively than Leah, but I want to pick up the story where she left off, as I had the privilege to witness the entire process needed to make the meat kosher, and how it was prepared for cooking. I also was able to discover what happened to all of the parts that we did not eat for dinner - bones, skin, and the rest of the meat.
As one can imagine, this process involved a lot of work. Many people asked me about the details, which I am happy to provide here. At time however this description can be a bit graphic. Continue below the jump for those that want to read on.
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(x-posted from The Wet Sprocket)
At a Chanukkah party with my family in Israel, my relative—a food connosieur who travels the world and eats in the finest restaurants—cleared up a major confusion of mine regarding the jelly doughnut treats.
Just last week my American friend was asking me if I grew up with Sufganiot. I wasn’t sure how to answer him. I sang about Sufganiot in my Hebrew Chanukkah songs, and I definitely had some growing up, but my family was all about latkes and we never had fried, jelly or chocolate flavored doughnuts during the holiday.
My relative, the gourmand, asked me today if I grew up with the holiday treat. I hesitated in answering him. He then told me why it wouldn’t have made sense for me to have grown up with them. “Sufganiot are an Israeli invention,” he told me as if it were a secret. Latkes are the food of the Ashkenazim that were eaten traditionally in Europe for many years. The Sephardim eat other fried doughnut-like treats, but they aren’t called Sufganiot and they’re not jelly filled. In fact, he told me, “Sephardim wouldn’t touch the modern Sufganiah.”
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My previous post laid out the reasons why – while the tzedek hekhsher and ethical kashrut are wonderful intentions – the business practicalities beg answering. Indeed, it’s an open question if our little 2% of the meat market will make an impact on the greater meat industry.
But this post is hopefully “the other hand,” and at the very least inspiration as to how working with kashrut authorities might indeed yield a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community — one which leads to a healthier and more sustainable world for everyone.
Our shochet was amazing. Rabbi Yehuda Benchimhoun, an Algerian-descended French Jew of Lubavitch conviction, is a reluctant but intense shochet whose story and words impressed us all here, but above all his kavannah, his incredible intentionality with the animals he shechts. More than just being a six day a week vegetarian, he impressed us all with the seriousness with which he approached his duty to honor the life of animals. He was deliberate, he was careful, he was precise. And his respect for the letter of the law alongside its intent was phenomenal.
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A cute poem by Rabbi Ed Feinstein, hat tip to Danya at Jewschool for this:
Oh the Jews of old Jewville, just loved holidays,
And kept them religiously, in all of their ways.
On Rosh Hashana, they ate apples and honey
Then came to the Temple, all dressed in Armani.
On holy Yom Kippur, they prayed and they fasted
Through rabbis’ long sermons, they kvetched but they lasted;
Till Neila was over, and proclaimed Cantor Fox:
“Go home and break fast, on bagels and lox!”
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In all honestly, I’m not completely sure I’ve fully digested the goat schecting enough to talk coherently about it, but here’s a first attempt.
About 70 people gathered at 7:00am, bleary-eyed and shivering (this time, because of the cold), to catch one of the shuttles down to the sadeh (Adamah’s field) a mile away from Isabella Freedman. Once there, everyone huddled into small groups, wiggling their frozen toes and talking about the goat.
The shochet –dressed in shirtsleeves and a furry hat - prepared his knife. Meanwhile, the mashgiach explained the process and answered participants’ questions, stopping to check that the knife was sharp enough by running it lightly along his fingernail.
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It’s Saturday night and for those who haven’t read so, the goat shechting has come and gone which as Leah said was a truly amazing experience. I had the questionable honor of video taping the entire process — from braying to dinner plate — the initial details of which I’ll save for my fellow brave compatriots on this blog team.
But of all the parts of the goat shechting, this Friday at Hazon’s Food Conference, I was less moved by the shechting itself and much, much more so by the moshgiach and shochet, Rabbi Mendel and Rabbi Yehuda respectively.
The overseeing moshgiach was none other than the head of the Orthodox Union’s (OU) kosher products division, the honorable Rabbi Seth Mendel. Rabbi Mandel answered tough questions about kashrut and humane treatment for over three hours straight.
Listening to Rabbi Mandel, I realized I was hearing words and concepts I’d not heard since business school. Rabbi Mendel spoke less frequently about Hashem, Torah, and tradition and more about competitive advantage, market share and consumer price pressure. It suddenly made sense that there are two primary forces at play in modern kashrut: not just God’s word but Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand.
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The sun is waning quickly - actually, it’s fully concealed behind the grey clouds as a soft blanket of snow falls on Isabella Freedman. Still, I’ve been running around all day and Shabbat is only a few minutes away, so a full post of today’s conference highlights will have to wait.
But today was, in a word, incredible - from the truly holy experience of the goat schecting this morning, to a talk about Congress’s role in the Food Bill, to a hands-on session where participants made their own urban-worm composting bins, to a discussion of the shmitta year from the farmer’s perspective, to a presentation of the changing symbolic role of bagels in American Jewish life, to a keynote presentation by Chef Dan Barber (yep, my fave ethical celebrity chef) about food miles and changing the way we eat from the community outward.
Now, as the snow continues to fall, the energy is shifting - the Chanukah candles are coming out (for those of you who want a visual, imagine four long tables lined with foil and covered with an assortment of glowing, flickering menorahs), and people are readying themselves for Shabbat and two more days of delicious food for thought.
Thanks to everyone for your comments on the first Food Conference post - I look forward to updating you tomorrow night!
Happy Chanukah and Shabbat Shalom!
What does healthy and sustainable Jewish food look like?
We asked participants of the 2007 Food Conference (and other flash-popping foodies) to submit their original photos for a special showcase at the conference. The submissions ranged from gorgeous zoom-ins on dinner, to political statements, to celebrations of life on a farm. It is a truly delicious collection.
Here are four photos from the exhibit to whet your appetite.
Photo Credits: 1. Miriam Rubin 2. Ian Hertzmark 3. Dory Kornfeld and Leah Koenig 4. Jackie Topol
Prints are available - contact editor@jcarrot.org for more information
This is the first of a series of updates from the Hazon Food Conference today through Sunday.
I spent much of tonight shivering.
Part of that has to do with being up in the Connecticut Berkshires, in December where 17 degrees is a normal morning temperature. But the shivering started in earnest when I walked into a conference session called, “Lifting the Cellophane Veil: Shecting a Goat.” The session was mandatory for anyone who is thinking about attending tomorrow morning’s schecting.
The Food Conference is, of course, not simply about the goat - we have four days crammed with sessions and a collection of 240 amazing people here at Isabella Freedman. But the schecting tomorrow will be - for me, and many participants - a once-in-a-lifetime and emotionally-charged event. The hope for tonight’s session was that, by introducing the key players (the goat farmer and caretaker, organizer, shochet,-ritual slaughterer, mashgiach-kashrut supervisor, and lead educator), the participants would be able to enter the space tomorrow morning aware of the process and feeling prepared (as much as possible anway).
I think the session served it’s purpose. The educator, Dr. Shamu Sadeh, and goat farmer, Aitan Mizrahi started off the conversation explaining the importance of getting a closer to our food choices - particularly where meat comes from, giving a history of the goats and explaining logistics. By the end of the night, about 70 of the 100-ish people in the room raised their hand to indicate they would wake up early tomorrow, get on a shuttle van, and weather the cold to witness the schecting.
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Latkes a little too Eastern European? Not sephardic enough for sufganiyot? Here are some more American ways to celebrate the miracle of the oil, courtesy of our synagogue teen group’s yearly Fry-Fest(tm):
- Fried Oreos - These are amazing. The cookies become warm chocolate cake, and the middle turns into an internal glaze, all surrounded by fried dough. Take that, jelly donut!
- Fried Snickers Bars - known in England as Fried Mars Bars (what they call Snickers across the pond), these were OK, but a bit too goey for my taste. But hey, fried candy can’t be a total waste…This site also references another classic:
- Fried Twinkies - now we’re getting somewhere!
- For a savory treat, you can try a southern favorite, fried pickles - they’ve got to be better than these.
- And why not wash it all down with the newest state fair sensation…Fried Coca-Cola!! We’re trying this one tonight, and I’ll report back with results. You can find cola syrup as a digestive aid in many pharmacies.
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Hazon is T-1 day away from The Food Conference!
For the last three days (not to mention weeks and months) the Hazon staff and our wonderful volunteers have been organizing, calling, emailing and blowing many kisses at our poor, overworked copy machine. The advance crew is currently up at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center turning it into a winter foodie wonderland, and the first group of people start trickling in tomorrow afternoon.
We’ll be posting live updates from the Food Conference throughout the weekend - check back to get your taste of the inspirational sessions and panels, cooking and pickling demonstrations, and spirited Shabbat and Chanukah celebration! To view the full schedule, click here.
