Thanks to Tamara Mann for this guest post. Tamara lives in New York City and is a Ph.D candidate in American History.
I think I screamed. I opened the fridge, saw the gelatinous lard on the top shelf and screamed. Welcome to Durham, North Carolina, where five regionally distinct 19-year olds shared a disintegrating house with a large kitchen and a wraparound southern porch. Hailing from New York City, rural Georgia, a litany of military bases, New Jersey by way of India, and the Midwest, our motley crew looked like a trite “We Are Diverse” poster. And the smells emanating from the kitchen reflected the sentiment.
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Two of the most interesting stories that came out of Postville this week show two very different sides of the kosher meat industry, and particularly Agriprocessors.
Flood Relief. As you might have read (or experienced) there has been a LOT of rain and flooding in the Midwest over the last couple of weeks. According to Chabad.org Iowa’s Jewish community - including the Rubashkins - has been spared a lot of the most destructive flooding and is stepping in to help other Iowans. The company donated 1,000 pounds of meat to residents saying:
“Agriprocessors is proud to serve the greater good,” said Juda Engelmayer, a spokesman for the Postville, Iowa-based Agriprocessors, the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the United States. “The people need our help right now.”
I’m glad to hear that the Jewish community is pitching in to help their neighbors. Still, whether or not donating 1,000 pounds of meat makes up for Agriprocessors’ other “less honorable” business practices is up for debate. (hat tip to Arieh Lebowitz)
The OU Weighs In. In other news, Ben Harris over at the JTA wrote on The Telegraph that Rabbi Seth Mandell - the head Mashgiach (kosher supervisor) at the OU - has been spending time calming people down about the fate of Agriprocessors.
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White Plains resident, David Elcott, recently ripped up his lawn. He is out to prove (to himself as much as others) that you do not need years of experience to grow your own food. All you need is dedication and a piece of fertile ground - like your lawn (or nearby community garden). Partnering with the COEJL blog, To Till & To Tend, we’re excited to bring you David’s first hand accounts, frustrations, and victories from the “front lines” of his lawn farm.
Operation Lawn Farm Part 2
I couldn’t write this past month. Too nervous.
The temperature dipped, I read up on all the pests and bugs and germs that could kill the seeds. The little seedlings looked so vulnerable. When it looked like the temperature would hit the low 40’s I panicked and ran out to Home Depot, bought some metal to make hoops and heavy plastic and actually hid my tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in their own private green houses. The days between Pesach and Shavuot are for counting the Omer – fifty days that according to tradition are anxiety producing because the dry winds or heavy rains could wipe out the crops and people would starve. I certainly identified with that anxiety even if I knew that the green grocer was open and waiting for my business. So, like I said, I could not write.
But now I can.
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(x-posted from www.greenprophet.com)
I was so anxious Monday as I awaited word of the delivery of my very first Israeli community supported agriculture (CSA) delivery to its drop spot in Tel Aviv. I was nervous, not because I thought the vegetables wouldn’t be good or because I was unsure if I was getting a good deal (the veggies are great and it’s very cost-efficient), but because I was relying on this week’s box of straight-from-the-farm vegetables to convince my Israeli flatmates that CSAs are a worthwhile investment.
I picked up the box right near the corner of Dizengoff and Gordon in Tel Aviv. I walked home with vegetables in hand for ten minutes, smelling the basil and thinking about making pesto, which I probably won’t have time to make this week. As I approached my apartment I saw that nobody was home. Damn. I wanted my flatmates to see me walk in with it and “ooh” and “ahh” at the produce. I left the box prominently displayed in the kitchen and gently rearranged the chard and arugula to look a bit more presentable. Within twenty minutes one flatmate returned home. She was visibly excited about our new abundance so we started unpacking the box together when we noticed that one of the tomatoes was squished. She looked disappointed and I panicked. “We’ll use it for sauce,” I think I muttered in Hebrew, trying a bit too hard to stay positive. “Lo Nora,” she said, it’s not a big deal.
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Hazon’s friends Devora Kimelman-Block, founder of Kol Foods (a kosher, organic, grass-fed meat company) and Rabbi Morris Allen, Director of Hekhsher Tzedek, joined American University Radio to discuss the situation at Agriprocessors and explore the questions:
“If food meets the strict rules elaborated in religious texts, does it matter how food arrives at our plates? And where do workers’ rights and other ethical considerations factor into kosher food production?”
Listen here.
On the same page, you can also find a segment featuring Jennifer 8 Lee, author of the Fortune Cookie Chronicles which was reviewed on The Jew & The Carrot.
Here’s the latest news from Uri L’Tzedek, the modern Orthodox organization that circulated a letter in the days following the Agriprocessors raid calling for higher standards of justice and ethics from Agri (and by extension other kosher food producers). It’s a powerfully-written letter - definitely worth the read. Find the back story here.
Friends,
Yeshar kochechem.
Thanks to your efforts, over 1200 kosher consumers, rabbis, educators, and activists have no signed on the petition. Our collective call for justice has been heard by the synagogues, day schools, hillels, and summer camps that have stopped purchasing Rubashkins meat. It’s being in heard in the debates raging in Jewish listserves and blogs about immigration, workers’ rights, and kosher food. It’s being heard in the coverage of this movement in the Forward, The Nation, The JTA, The Jewish Week The Des Moines Register, and other national media outlets.
We are making our voices heard, and we are making change. But there is still critical work left to do.
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Rabbi Rebecca Joseph is a conservative rabbi, a cultural anthropologist, and a Tuv Ha’Aretz member! Her blog, The Parve Baker is filled with delicious recipes and (equally delicious) words of Torah. This is her second installment of “Unboxed” - posts that demystify summer’s most seasonal produce. See her first post on rhubarb.
There is something very special about the first pick-up of the Tuv HaAretz CSA season. Having invested in a farmer’s harvest-to-come in the cold dark of winter and then waited patiently through the spring, the initial sight of tables piled high with the first produce of the season is a delight in the midst of the densely built environment. No wonder our ancestors were enjoined to bring offerings of first fruits to the Temple in gratitude for the blessing of the earth’s bounty!
At Congregation Ansche Chesed in New York City last week, new and returning Tuv HaAretz members gathered shares of vegetables, fruit, flowers, and eggs from Eve and Chris Kaplan-Walbrecht’s Garden of Eve farm. Early summer greens prevailed. Red lettuce, mesclun, and arugula went into bags and boxes of all shapes and sizes along with elegant asparagus spears, bunches of red radishes, and a single stalk of rhubarb each. Then there were the leeks. Sturdy and humble in appearance, these gangly onion and garlic cousins fit awkwardly among the leafy beauties.
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These days, Shabbat is a part of my weekly routine - a time I long for on those crazy weekday afternoons when I’m behind on my ever-growing to do list. A time I relish for the opportunity to relax with friends and eat amazing food. But that wasn’t always the case. Until a few years ago, Shabbat felt like something that I couldn’t quite get my head and hands around. The rituals seemed overwhelming and the weekly commitment felt onerous. Slowly, incrementally - I’ve found my way to Shabbat, and now that I’ve found it, I’m keeping it!
Meredith Jacobs new book The Modern Jewish Mom’s Guide to Shabbat was written by Jacobs - a busy mother herself! - to help other moms (and the advice would work equally as well for dads) connect themselves and their families to Shabbat. Offering one part enthusiastic encouragement and one part practical advice (e.g. how to bake challah, Torah-based discussion questions for the dinner table) ,The Modern Jewish Mom’s Guide to Shabbat helps families make Shabbat - and spending time with one another - a weekly family tradition.
Below the jump: An interview with Meredith Jacobs and a chance to win a copy of her book!
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Thanks to Moshe Cohen for this guest post. Moshe is participating in Hillel’s Sustainable Agriculture Alternative Break at Kayam Farm in Maryland and sending in “reports from the field.” The alternative break is being led by the Jewish Farm School.
“I had a convo with my chi,” said Alison Fields, recently of Indiana University, leaning on her shovel during a work break in the shade. After our first full day at Hillel and The Jewish Farm School’s Alternative Break at Kayam Farm, we have already taken a complete tour of the grounds, dined on white mulberries right off the tree, sampled new vegetables out of the garden like garlic scapes and kohlrabi and participated in a morning Chi Gong session (hence Alison’s “chi conversation”).
Every day we have three work blocks where we split into teams to tackle a variety of assignments, working and learning together with farm staff and trip organizers. The first major project we undertook was constructing a fence to keep the deer out of the lettuce, reminding us that our food cycle intersects with other living things, as well. Some of us picked leafy greens from the garden and snuck away from the hot sun to “kasher the harvest” in the kitchen.
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I remember it like yesterday - Charlie exclaimed, “You’ve never had a SLURPEE?! Dude?!”
It’s true. Until the ripe age of 32, I had never had a Slurpee. When you grow up in Quebec with their peculiar arcane language laws, there are a lot of corporations that don’t want to take the jump and work out all the French and English stuff. I always assumed that that was why there were no 7/11s in Quebec. The first time I even saw one I was 16 and visiting London, Ontario.
When I moved to the DC area I finally gave it a shot. Simply put they’re good. No doubt. I love Coca Cola in general and this became a whole new mode of ingestion. (Added to Coke Brisket. Coke short ribs. Rum and Coke. Ice Cream Coke Floats. Warm Coke. Cold Coke. Coke with ice cubes. Coke with crushed ice… I think that’s it Forrest.)
And today in my email inbox next to 30 emails about Rubashkins was the “Kosher Slurpee List.” It comes out every year just before the summer. It is available online or in a convenient printable format that I suppose you can put in your car or wallet or can be folded into your portable siddur.
It is a document that should give us all pause.
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So, we were on a conference call the other day. When I say “we,” I mean those of us who have the gargantuan task of menu-planning for Hazon’s 2008 Food Conference.
I am chairing this committee, along with Sue Carson, one of the co-chairs of the conference. On this call, one person casually suggested a lox and bagels brunch. Lox and bagels were served last year at the conference. No surprise, as lox and bagels are often a staple at Jewish events.
But we most likely will have a lox-less conference.
Gasp. How could we take lox off the menu? Isn’t having a conference celebrating Jewish food without bagels and lox like holding a Japanese cultural celebration without sushi?
Exactly.
It’s sad to say, but both of these are cultural practices that need to be reconsidered.
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The JTA reported today that after last month’s raid on Agriprocessors, production has “slowed to a crawl” and kosher meat is in short supply across the country. The frenzy of media coverage has slowed down some too, though the issue is still very much on the minds of Jewish individuals and organizations struggling to grasp what lasting impact a raid of this proportion might have on the Jewish community.
In the midst of a confusing time, I had the chance to speak with Zalman Rothschild - a former mashgiach (kosher supervisor) at Agriprocessors. Rothschild represented an insider’s voice - someone who worked in the plant, spent Shabbat meals at the Rubashkins’, and could offer a perspective on the raid that I had not yet read. I was excited - and also terrified by the opportunity. Would he be incredibly defensive or hostile? Would he embody the mythic “Agriprocessors monster” that has been uncovered (or created, depending on one’s perspective) by the media? And most importantly, could he impact my views - a progressive, vegetarian Jew who is wary of industrial food in general and the kosher industry in particular - on the situation in Postville?
The short answers are no, no and yes, respectively. For the complete version, check out the full interview below the jump.
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George Greenstein, author of Secrets of a Jewish Baker (your new baking Bible) knows his stuff. He has traveled the world, and in his book gives recipes from challah, to sourdough, to cheese bread, to corn muffins. Each recipe comes with three sets of meticulous instructions: one for kneading by hand, one for using a food processor, and one for using a standing mixer.
The introduction is packed with nuggets of wisdom, including tips on giving your bread the beautiful golden crust you see in bakeries, and troubleshooting for beginning bakers. But my favorite part is the twelve menus he includes for whole mornings of baking. He gives you a schedule and pointers so you stay on top of your breads and end up with yummy and gorgeous results. George spoke with The Jew & The Carrot about baking on a budget, buying organic, and a good challenge for a seasoned baker.
Below the jump: The full interview, and a chance to win a copy of Secrets of a Jewish Baker!
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One of the primary differences between shopping at a supermarket and joining a CSA is that, in the latter model, customers benefit along with their partner farmer when the weather is good, and share the burden when the weather is excessively hot, wet, or dry, and the crops fail. The farmer does not suffer alone, and the customers are more deeply connected to the seasonal shifts that impact their food source.
The following guest post, by farmer Vicki Westerhoff who farms at Genesis Growers with her family in St. Anne Illinois, is a pair of letters she wrote to Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA members about the recent flooding across the Midwest. In response to the flood damage, Tuv Ha’Aretz members will head out to Genesis Farms this month to help them replant their fields.
Friday, June 7
We are flooded. On Wednesday night last week we had a furious storm roll through the farm. It pummeled us with five and 1/4 inches of driving rain. The wind gusts exceeded 60 mph. The devastation I suppose could be worse, but what happened is bad.
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