But it sure is good to be home. For those readers who missed my series of posts about eating in Vietnam, here’s a reminder:

Dog. Cat. Porcupine. Deer.

The ‘Lonely Planet’ Guidebook describes the Vietnamese people as “fiercly omnivorous,” and I couldn’t think of a more apt description. We are not uploading photos so I can’t illustrate this post properly but today we took numerous photos of a skinned pig’s head, pig’s feet, live goats tied to a back of a motorbike, same with live chickens in a mesh cage, pigs tied in tortuous ways, the list goes on.

Greetings from Vietnam, the most unkosher place on the planet (kosher-keepers, never, ever come here, unless you plan on packing a month’s supply of canned tuna).

Below the jump, I’ve posted a few photos that give you a taste of our (for us) shocking food experiences in Viet Nam. Warning - they’re graphic, so look with caution.

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Sugar River Cheese Company’s gourmet kosher cheeses are a contradiction in terms. The Chicago based company makes handcrafted, hormone-free Cheddars and Monterey Jacks from the milk of pasture-raised cows. Each salty block is infused with a swoon-worthy combinations of jalapeno and cilantro, peppercorns, chipotle, garlic and green onion, or olive and sun-dried tomato. But (here’s the kicker) - they are also certified kosher.

While the world of ethical, gourmet kosher cheese is slowly gaining momentum (find the short-list here), it continues to lag significantly behind its non-kosher counterpart. Sugar River President, Mark Rosen, a technology man with an MBA, who traded weekly flights to New York for life as a professional cheese entrepreneur, considers it his personal mission to prove that while good cheese may be stinky, kosher cheese does not have to stink.

Below the jump, he shares his thoughts on happy cows and why he thinks a ham and cheddar sandwich is good for the kosher industry. He also shares his family’s recipe for Chipotle Macaroni n’ Cheese.

Want to win a gift basket of Sugar River cheese? Tell us your favorite cheesy dish below, and be entered into a drawing to win a delicious assortment of Cheddar and Monterey Jack from Sugar River Cheese Company. (Only one comment per person will be entered into the drawing - comment before Thursday, April 3.)

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Even though my school was eliminated from the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament in the second round, I’ve still got a slight case of bracket-fever. Taking a little inspiration from this book, I decided to try my hand at creating a Jewish food tournament. I created four Jewish food “regions” (beverages/desserts, shabbat/holidays, ashkenazi, and Israeli/sephardic) and ranked eight corresponding Jewish foods 1-8 in each region. Then I seeded them in the tournament, which I plan to play out in the next few weeks leading up to Pesach. Since I decided to go with a 32 “team” format instead of 64, there were necessarily some tough choices that had to be made (no apples & honey; only a generic “kugel” instead of a spot for both potato and noodle, etc.). 

You can see the results here, and even make your own predictions. I’ll be “playing out” this battle of the Jewish food all-stars over the next few weeks, so it’s not to late to get that office pool started! Feel free to post any thoughts, suggestions, predictions (and of course, complaints) in the comments here. I’ll be sure to keep them in mind for the 2009 tourney.

I really love the design and message created by the Jew and the Carrot’s own Anna Stevenson, which adorn the totes (and other awesome stuff) in our Cafe Press store - it’s far superior for lugging your groceries home than the ubiquitous, ugly Whole Foods bags. But I have to admit-when I read my friend Faye’s recent blog post, I was really feeling the urge to appropriate her lovely Judaized-Michael Pollan slogan:

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (All the rest is commentary.)”

I think the combined ideas of our two wise sages, Pollan and Rabbi Hillel, really sum up the new sustainable food movement, sweeping the Jewish community, not to mention the rest of the U.S.

Although I can’t claim to follow all of the tenant’s of Faye’s professed “Pollangelism,” I am definitely a true-believer in the fundamental pillars. Still, having recently completed a course on defining what a Sustainable Food System is, I’ve become too wonkified in some of the nuances of policy for which the religion ceases to hold up to scrutiny. And I think that in addition to voting with our forks, as Pollan suggests, it’s crucial that we also vote with our votes and letters, voices and community organizations. But hey, no religion has all the answers, especially when held up against the scientific evidence, so why should we subject the Pollangelicals to a double standard?

In this era of sound bites and tag lines, we’d love to hear your suggestions for other names for the new Jewish food revolution!

Update:  If you can top Faye’s brilliance, your winning slogan will be the next one on the Jew and the Carrot’s moichandise! 

Last Thursday, Hazon’s Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA at the 14th Street Y in Manhattan hosted a “Meet Your Farmer” night, conjuring up the age-old question: can Papaya Dog and fresh, local vegetables co-exist?

Hat tip to ZT at Jewschool for this story, a friend of the family Shira Kamm starts her own farm, joining the ranks of so many other women starting farms. Check this article in the Philly Inquirer about Kamm’s endeavor below the fold, and check the photo essay. Somebody invite this woman to the Food Conference!

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Are Passover snacks the new bees? Chametz-free noshes seem to be disappearing everywhere without a trace. First, TamTams disappear from the shelves, and now, the NYTimes reports about a historic New York social club that recently lost its source for the perfect macaroon.

It seems that the bakery which supplied the Century club with macaroons for over half a century has gone out of business, and this article describes the remarkable search by its members for a suitable replacement. I have to say, even as someone who disdainfully associates macaroons with those awful, sticky, cloying, calorie-laden chunks that come in the vacuum-sealed can, I can’t help but admire the passion and discernment by which Century Club members are conducting their search. Here’s how they lovingly describe the perfect macaroon:

“They had just the right amount of texture. They weren’t too crispy. They weren’t too gooey. You know, they didn’t flake or break. They kind of pulled apart. I would say they sort of had a nice elasticity. They displayed a particular combination of crustiness and tensile strength.”

Mmmm…tensile strength. Good luck with that. So much for Macaroons. The cheese(cake) half of this post is after the jump… Read more »

Here are three newsy bites for your Friday reading enjoyment. The first is about the ongoing meat recall crisis, the second about the (also ongoing) Agriprocessors saga, and the third about the disappearance of Tam Tam crackers. (Okay, maybe I used the word “enjoyment” a bit too soon…but certainly food for thought.)

Rotten Meat. The Meat & Poultry Business Journal reported that, “The U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering a proposal to not identify retailers where meat cited in recalls was sold except in cases of potential serious health risks to consumers.” Already, the report says, stores are required to remove recalled meat from shelves, but not obligated to alert customers about the recall. Read the full story here.

AgriProcessors fined $180,000 - The Forward reported that the controversial kosher meat company, AgriProcessors was fined over $180,000 by the state of Iowa’s Division of Labor for, “failure to provide workers with proper safety training, insufficient programs to manage blood-born pathogens and a failure to label toxic chemicals.” AgriProcessors denies many of the citations. Get the story here.

Where’s the Matzah? The New York Times City Blog reported the sad truth this week: Because of a technological glitch, Tam Tams Crackers (the beloved unleavened snack cracker) will be all but extinct this Passover season. (hat tip to Jewschool) In equally distressing news, Streit’s Matzo factory is closing down - shut out by rising rents on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where the family-owned business has churned out Matzah for the last century. Like many New York residents who can’t take the rent hike, Streit’s is moving to New Jersey. Read the Streit’s story here.

I admit it - I live in a bubble. A tiny, insulated bubble within which everyone cares about eating ethically, and while some people eat meat and some don’t, just about everyone can agree about the merits of garlic-sauteed kale. Inside my cozy world, I forget that a whole other world exists out there - but this week, my trip over to Midtown Lunch reminded me.

Midtown Lunch - an entertaining (and eminently useful!) blog that seeks out the dining gems within the culinary wasteland that is Midtown Manhattan - profiles a different Midtown employee each week. It asks them questions like, “favorite/least favorite foods,” and “if you could work anywhere in New York (just because of lunch) where would it be and why?” This past week I was profiled. I was pleased to have the opportunity to give shout outs to Hazon and The Jew & The Carrot and excited to share my dietary habits with a bunch of related strangers.

Turns out, Midtown is not the most veggie or kosher friendly place on earth. Here’s a smattering of the comments my vegetarian and kosher focused profile received:

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“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.” - Anthony Bourdain, “Kitchen Confidential,” p. 70

Tell us how you really feel, Anthony!

Of course, vegetarians and vegan chefs were not about to take this crude, carnivorous cri de coeur lying down, and thus was born Hezbollah Tofu, a blog where vegan chefs are systematically veganizing chef Bourdain’s most celebrated recipes. They plan on selling the resulting compilation, and donating the proceeds to vegan causes (farm sanctuaries, public education, etc) in Bordain’s name. Take that, Anthony!

This topic brings up a whole host of questions for me, as a Jew and as a self-professed foodie who also strives to eat sustainably (although not regularly animal-product free):

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(x-posted at All Voices)

The AP reported this week that inmates in Vermont prisons are suing the Vermont Prison System for cruel and unusual punishment: disgusting dinner food.

Instead of the processed meat and cheese-heavy dinners served throughout most of America’s prison system, the worst offenders in Vermont (particularly those inmates with a history of disruptive and dangerous behavior at meal times) are served Nutraloaf: a mixture of cubed whole wheat bread, nondairy cheese, raw carrots, spinach, raisins, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, powdered milk and dehydrated potato flakes.

The prison system argues that the “square meal” is nutritionally complete. More importantly, because it can be served without utensils or trays, it doubles as an effective tool for behavior control. Speaking about Nutraloaf, Vermont Corrections Commissioner Rob Hofmann said:

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Our good friend Chris P. Carrot (a.k.a. Michael Croland of Heeb n’ Vegan) had a fabulous Purim, shaking his grogger.  Did anyone else celebrate in a food-themed costume?

What do parsley, pickles, and charoseth have in common?  They constitute the exhaustive list of Jewish foods that fit neatly into a raw food diet.  The remaining arsenal of heavy, noodle-egg-and-shmaltz-filled dishes that dominate the world of traditional Jewish cuisine don’t exactly make the cut.

But now - proving that there is indeed an online community for every interest - there is a new Yahoo group for raw foodists who love Jewish food.  Members will swap Jewishly-inspired recipes created through vegan and raw techniques.  While I can see how borscht and hummus would be fairly straight forward to make raw, I’m having a little trouble wrapping my mind around an uncooked matzah ball…

Check out Jewish Raw Food here.

Photo credit: Judy Pokras “Raw Vegan Potato Latkes and Mock Sour Cream”

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend about a lecture she went to with a representative of a major beef company, in which she tried to challenge his assumption that the solution to improving the fatty-acid profile of beef is to genetically modify the cattle (as opposed to just feeding them more grass instead of grain, which is how it was done…forever).

During our conversation, we shared the impression that the beef industry is much less concentrated and integrated than the poultry and hog industries. Well, apparently we were wrong:

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