Mel Brooks had it right in his hit 80’s movie Spaceballs - it’s all about moichandising!  Now, thanks to the folks at Cafe Press, you can support The Jew & The Carrot in style.  

The beautiful “Eat, be Satisfied, and Bless” decal (designed by The Jew & The Carrot contributor, Anna Stevenson) comes on coffee mugs, aprons, journals, T-shirts, tote bags, and throw pillows.  They’re great for birthday gifts, mishloach manot, or for your own stylish foodie self.  Click here to find out more!

Read more »

Today, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an above-the-fold, front page article about our newest source of mystery meat - cloned cows.

In the article “Consumers May Not Be Able to Avoid Cloned Food,” the Chronicle reported that the Orthodox Union has publicly stated that food items derived from cloned animals are kosher. Rabbi Menachem Genack of the O.U. stated that cloned animals would be kosher as long as they belong to a single kosher species, such as cattle, sheep, and goats.

Given the highly uncertain health effects of eating cloned meat, and the biological manipulation necessary to create cloned animals, I call on rabbis from across the denominations to speak out on this issue.

How can an animal production technology, which is proven to be cruel to the animals it creates, be kosher?

Animals can be cloned from the tissue of a dead animal. Would that cloned animal be kosher?

The principle of Kelayim requires the separation of species - what does it say about the replication of species?

What about the fundamental notion of eating food in its natural state, as God brought it to us. Does the biological tinkering with the DNA of life disturb our respect and awe for the divine manifestation of the natural world - in the food we eat?

I think the O.U.’s statement is wrong - I’d like to hear what others think, particularly our Jewish legal scholars.

With Love for Hashem, and Love for its divine manifestation in Food.

Z

By the way, for more information, check out my previous post, “Is Milk or Meat from a Cloned Animal Kosher?“

Yesterday, the California-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Company issued the largest beef recall in history - 143 million pounds.  According to the NYTimes, the recall: 

“…comes after a widening animal-abuse scandal that started after the Humane Society of the United States distributed an undercover video on Jan. 30 that showed workers kicking sick cows and using forklifts to force them to walk.

The video raised questions about the safety of the meat, because cows that cannot walk, called downer cows, pose an added risk of diseases including mad cow disease. The federal government has banned downer cows from the food supply.”

In other words, the meat itself was not necessarily tainted.  Instead, the recall was largely a precautionary (and perhaps futile) measure to safegaurd the American dinner plate from the irresponsible practices of the meat industry.  A precautionary measure that sent 143 million pounds of meat to the trash heap. 

If ever there was a modern-day example of violating bal tashchit, this is it. 

Read more »

I suppose it was just a matter of time: Pepsi just joined the world of greenwashed corporations with the introduction of Pepsi Raw. 

Like other “natural sodas” available on the market, the new drink comes in glass bottles and is made with ingredients like cane sugar, coffee leaf, apple extract, and sparkling watter.  (I suppose you might call it “Kosher for Passover” Pepsi’s eco-friendly cousin?)

While Pepsi Raw certainly beats regular Pepsi’s brew of high fructose corn syrup, phosphoric acid, and artificial colorings, I’m not planning on running to the stores just yet.  Actually, I couldn’t even if I wanted to - as of now Pepsi Raw is only available in the UK. (I haven’t decided if this counts as another nod to the Brits for being one step ahead.)

If you have 20 seconds to spare, I highly recommend checking out Pepsi Raw’s bizarre ”dance dance revolution” website splash page.  I’m not yet sure what it has to do with soda, but it’s definitely entertaining.

It’s been about a year and a half since I hosted my first Shabbat dinner.  While I can’t remember exactly who came or what I served, I distinctly remember how freaked out I was about it!  Would there be enough food?  How could I possibly find time to cook - and bake challah! - for all those people, while getting my work done?  Would it be possible to accomodate my non-Jewish friends and help them feel comfortable around all the ritual-stuff?  How should I respond when people ask me if they can invite last-minute guests (which they invariably do)? 

Looking back, I now realize that Shabbat dinners kind of host themselves.  They take a bit of planning and forethought, but once you get the ball rolling, they somehow just kind of flow.  And miraculously, there always seems to be enough to eat and enough places to sit, despite the last minute add-ons.  Still, I wish I’d had Tamar Fox’s great Shabbat hosting guidelines back on that crazy Friday afternoon a year and a half ago - before I knew it was all going to be okay. 

Shabbat Made Easy Totally Manageable Read more »

Hey Friends,

Sorry to be the bearer of scary news on Valentines Day, but if you thought GMOs in your tofu was a bummer, guess what Monsanto is bringing you next - yep, GE sugar for your Valentine!

About half of sugar produced in the U.S. comes from sugar beets (the other half is cane sugar). In the next few weeks, sugar beet farmers throughout the U.S. will be considering what type of sugar beets to plant, and food companies will have to decide what types of sugar they will accept.

And this year, there is something new for farmers and the sugar cooperatives to choose from — Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beet, genetically engineered to survive direct application of the weed killer, Roundup.

In addition to the specter of eating GE sugar, the sugar that comes from these novel plants will also have much heavier loads of pesticides on them. At the request of Monsanto, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency increased the allowable amount of glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup that kills plants) residues on sugar beetroots by a whopping 5000% at the time USDA permitted the growing us GE sugar beets. The inevitable result is more glyphosate pesticide in our sugar.

Read more »

When winter hits full force in Chicago, I retreat to my kitchen. At this time of year, I crave warm, comforting food - and I often try and use up whatever I already have in my apartment so that I don’t have to head out in the snow and bitter cold to go to the store. 

Just the other day, I bought a bag of apples, quite a few of which had bruised spots. Did I throw them out? Of course not. My philosophy is: when life gives you bruised apples, you make applesauce.

Apples & Berry Sauce

The recipe below is inspired by the applesauce in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone - it’s one of my favorite everyday cookbooks.  Pick up a copy here.

I cut off the bruises and chopped up the apples into half inch pieces (roughly) with the skins on, threw them in a saucepot with a bit of sugar (about 2 tablespoons) and a splash of water (about an 1/8 of a cup). I then added a stick of cinnamon, a few grinds of fresh nutmeg and a shake of ground cinnamon and turned on the stove. As the apples started to simmer and permeate my kitchen with cinnamon-y goodness, I decided to slice a lemon into thin wedges, and added that as well. Then I remembered the half bag of frozen berries in my freezer. I threw these in at the last minute, and they brightened up the dish into the most beautiful ruby-red color. 

I tried this again yesterday, and added half a bag of cranberries to the apples. Just as delicious and just as beautiful.  Btai Avon!

Here’s the newest “kosher meat industry article” from Nathaniel Popper over at The Forward.  This time he covers Israel’s South American meat fetish - as in South America where he reports that most cows are killed using the controversial “shackle and hoist” slaughter method that is largely banned in the US.  (In comparison, the folks at Agriprocessors are given a relative ”kudos” by PETA for using alternative methods.)

Is anyone else just getting bored by our (meaning Jews, meaning Americans, meaning Israelis etc.) collective ignorance and/or defiance about how the animals that give their lives to feed us are treated?  Also, is anyone else kind of shocked - and I learned this in the article - that Congress passed a Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act in the early 20th century?  I imagine it must have been Upton Sinclair fallout (let me know if you know otherwise), but considering the state of things today, what a joke!

Widespread Slaughter Method Scrutinized for Alleged Cruelty
The Forward 
By: Nathaniel Popper 

Read more »

I made a recipe for a client today that was so delicious, I feel compelled to share. I wish I had brought my camera on the job today, to take a picture, but alas, I didn’t. And while I found a photo of these very veggie burgers on another blog, it says it’s copyrighted, so I won’t use it here.

Now before you think: “she’s getting all excited about veggie burgers?” and move on to “Serious Eats,” or “Amateur Gourmet,” or whomever, hold on.  (You can check out those great sites afterwards.) These veggie burgers are something else. They have beets. They have carrots. They have sunflower seeds and cheddar cheese(!) They are some of the best damn veggie burgers I’ve ever had.

Read more »

 What is it about Jews and Chinese food?This oddly-passionate obsession has inspired scholarly dissertations,  cookbooks, multi-cultural festivals, and even affected international relations [this last link, btw, about Asian chefs in Israel going on an eggroll strike over the elimination of foreign worker permits, is worth a trip to Jewschool to read in its entirety]!

So when this article appeared recently in the NYTimes about the history of the fortune cookie, I immediately thought, “hmmm…what’s the Jewish connection?” The answer? The long Jewish tradition of bibliophagy (eating the written word). Find interesting examples of Jewish bibliophagy after the jump:

Read more »

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the New York Times published “I Love You, but You Love Meat” - an article that explores how dietary differences between couples impact their relationship - for better or for worse.  When it comes to eating with loved ones, the article suggests we all just need to be a little more “flexitarian.”

My boyfriend and I are included in this story - he’s strictly kosher and I’m a vegetarian.  See if you can spot us!  And let us know - how does food impact YOUR relationships?

I Love You, but You Love Meat
The New York Times
By: Kate Murphy

SOME relationships run aground on the perilous shoals of money, sex or religion. When Shauna James’s new romance hit the rocks, the culprit was wheat.

“I went out with one guy who said I seemed really great but he liked bread too much to date me,” said Ms. James, 41, a writer in Seattle who cannot eat gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye.

Read more »

Since the days of the Bible, Jewish tradition has had something to say about appropriate waste disposal:

“Further, there shall be an area for you outside the camp, where you may relieve yourself. With your gear you shall have a spike, and when you have squatted you shall dig a hole with it and cover up your excrement.”– Deuteronomy 23:13-14

The latest in waste technology, however, is not in spikes and holes, but one of the oldest tricks in the book: compost. Consider this fact: flush toilets account for 40% of household water consumption in Israel. In other words, almost half of the water used in Israeli households goes to disposal and transport (through the sewage system) of peoples’ daily needs. A new company, operating according to a “Jewish-holistic, small is beautiful” philosophy, believes that this is unnecessary. In a country where a chronic water shortage causes rivers, lakes and nature preserves to dry up, brings about the collapse of ecosystems and exacerbates an already intractable political situation, they just might be onto something.  Read more at Treehugger.com:

Can the Composting Porto-Potty Solve Israel’s Water Woes?
By Jesse Fox, Tel Aviv, Israel
February, 02, 2008
Read full article

(Comic: “You’re passionate about salad, aren’t you Miss Allen? Ballard Street)

For all of you worried about where your salad comes from, and what you should or shouldn’t put in it, and how often you should eat it, and if you should eat cold salad in the winter, and where you might get your vitamins if you don’t eat cold salad in the winter, and what kind of dressing goes on it and whether to splurge on that avocado or not (and granted, I fall into just about all of these categories) -

RELAX! It’s Adar - a joyful month! It’s all going to be okay.

Last summer, during the height of tomato season, The Jew & The Carrot blogger, Alix gave us this recipe for shakshuka.  Unless you live in Mexico, the tomatoes are nowhere near in season these days - but we can dream.  Thanks to the folks at Jewlicious for sharing their version of Shakshuka, from a bonafide Moroccan Mama.  We love the complete disregard for measurments and clear instructions this recipe has.  We also love the mere thought of perfect, ripe tomatoes - this receipe has us drooling for summer already…

Recipe for Jewlicious Shakshuka below the jump… 

Read more »