I had my sweet “eureka!” moment in the health food store yesterday, more specifically in the canned goods aisle. With a glance at a can of coconut milk, all my non-dairy dessert dissatisfaction just fell away.
My devotion to dessert is almost religious. I believe that no good meal is complete without a sweet ending, and that chocolate sometimes does the job better than sex, drugs, or rock ‘n roll. However, I often fall short in the dessert department when preparing a meat meal, meaning: my parve desserts aren’t spectacular. I have been tinkering with non-dairy chocolate cake recipes for a while, but until now always felt somewhat dissappointed with the results. One version wasn’t nearly chocolatey enough, another was throat-sticking dry, and how about the one with the weird sawdust aftertaste?…. And then, alas, there was this chocolate number. Rich, endlessly chocolate, dense, and moist, this cake makes me retract my earlier declarations that baking without butter is just a waste of time. The coconut milk gives this cake creaminess and heft without being coconutty in flavor, and the Trader Joe’s parve chocolate chips lends it a deep dark chocolate-ness. The chocolate glaze is optional, but my theory is if you’re having dessert- have dessert.
This Friday night, I’m thinking of serving gundi, or gondi, the dumplings that are a Shabbat dinner mainstay for Iranian Jews. What are Jewish Iranians experiencing right now? I know that some Jewish Iranian ex-patriots are siding with the uprising, and that no matter what, this moment is meaningful to Iranians of all religions. It is also significant for Israel. Especially when words may fail us, there is nothing like sharing a meal together. Here is one recipe, and another. L’Chaim.
As many of you know, and as two of our contributors mentioned in their posts Flooding Fields: An Argument Against Eating Locally? and Prayer for No Rain?, the abundance of precipitation on the northeast of the US has had a sad impact on local farmers. Our CSA was impacted by the deluge two weeks ago, so we received less produce than usual, but the following week more than compensated for it–despite an ominous, last-minute email which read: “The cherries have been compromised. Wash and eat immediately.”
Who knew local agriculture could garner so much drama? Read after the jump to hear about scapes, ramps and other vegetables with funny names.
The plants in the photo grew from seeds out of a packet that was marked “melons” and printed with a picture of round, yellow-skinned fruit. I consider it a miracle. Not that cucumber plants sprouted forth from melon seeds. Rather, the fact that I have cucumbers in my garden. My several previous attempts to grow cucumbers had resulted in plants that yielded maybe one or two measly, pale fruits before turning brown and shriveling up. However the cucumber seeds got there, the guilty party seems to have considerately provided a fungus-resistant variety. And they’re actually pretty tasty for cucumbers, which, lets face it, are generally more crunchy than flavorful.
(Originally published on My Jewish Learning)
I grew up eating my mother’s American tabbouleh–starchy, lemon-doused bulgur salad. This was the 1980s, when many American Jews were incorporating “Israeli-style” foods into their culinary repertoire. But while my mom’s tabbouleh was delicious, I later discovered that it hardly resembled the authentic version, which features a higher ratio of painstakingly chopped fresh parsley and tomatoes to grains of bulgur.
Tabbouleh, which comes from the Arabic word tabil (”to spice”), is not actually an Israeli or Jewish dish, per se.
Well it seems like the only bees making the news these days are the bees that go missing (apparently they were in Argentina and not hiking the Application Trail) or banned bees. Unlike several other major cities around the United States such as Chicago and San Francisco, beekeeping is legal. But, in New York City beekeeping is illegal. This isn’t really breaking news (we’ve written about this before) but earlier this week a “Beekeepers Ball” was held in order to bring attention to the issue that some people want to make NYC beekeeping a legit activity. According to the New York Times,
In attendance [on Monday] were New York City beekeepers, aspiring New York City beekeepers, beekeepers not from New York City, friends of beekeepers, friends of bees, people who like to dress as bees, people who like to dress their children as bees, bee-dressed children, one cross-dressing beekeeper, a couple of guys who spend much of their time dressed in armor, fans of honey, fans of local food and a team of French videographers.
Yesterday was the first day (finally!) of my local farmers’ market here in NJ, and I’ll admit I went a bit fruit happy, coming home loaded with local blueberries, strawberries, and cherries. It took some detective work to figure out what things were not local–the farmer may be Pennsylvania Dutch but those sure aren’t local peaches, not yet. I’m much stricter about eating fruit locally and seasonally than I am vegetables. I can go months without fresh berries or stone fruit, hoping that it counts towards my balanced diet if I eat many servings of fruit in the summer and far fewer in the winter. Sure, there are days towards late February when I am sick of citrus fruit, grapes, and bananas, and look longingly towards the plums flown in from California. But in my heart, I know they will disappoint me.
It’s hard to swallow, but the average meal travels 2500 miles from farm to plate — 2500 food miles, burning fossil fuels along the way. Like all our lifestyle choices, our food choices increase our carbon footprint and therefore affect our health and the health and sustainability of our planet. After transportation, the food sector uses more fossil fuels than any other sector of our economy. We all know that we need to eat locally and adapt more sustainable behavioral changes in relation to food. But there’s even more we can do. We can make our voices heard!
The American Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454) is scheduled to come to a vote in the House tomorrow (Friday, June 26). You can call the Capitol RIGHT NOW 202/225-3121 and ask for your Congressperson. Urge them to support this comprehensive bill that promotes renewable electricity and clean electric vehicles; increases energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy; limits greenhouse gas emissions; and helps both the US and the most vulnerable communities around the world adapt to the devastating impact of climate change.
If you don’t know the name of your Congressperson, tell the Capitol Operator your zip code and she will tell you then put you through or you can visit: www.congress.org/congressorg/home/ to find our his/her name.
Motivated by the Jewish tenets of environmentalism and social justice, Eden Village Camp seeks to foster the best experience of campers’ lives while empowering them to promote a healthy, sustainable future for themselves, the Jewish people and the world.
Pretty cool huh? But the camp itself won’t be open to campers until next summer. However, on Sunday July 12, 2009 from 10am until 8pm in Putnam Valley, New York, Eden Village Camp is holding its first Beresheit Festival, which will include workshops, plant walks, camp tours, lots of music and tons of fun. Click here for more information.
Tahina, the thick, brownish-gray paste of ground sesame seeds, is one of the latest foods to turn “gourmet” – at least in Israel. If supermarkets once sold only one brand of tahina, today it comes in squeeze bottles and glass jars with fancy labels; brands with Arabic on their labels proclaiming their “authenticity” vie with the all-Hebrew labels of the standard brand. (As far as I know, however, Melo Hatene is the only place to actually offer tahina tasting — the ultimate sign of a gourmet food.)
Cross-posted at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and at davka.org
The prophet Isaiah asks (58:6-7):
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the fetters of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor that are cast out to your house? when you see the naked, that you cover them, and that you hide not yourself from your own flesh?
If we are to “loose the fetters of wickedness”, what might our fasting have to do with Darfur?
What could be more dear to an ecologically minded keeper of kashrut in summer than a marshmallow? In San Francisco, a panel of tasters at the local daily voted the kosher brand as their top pick. Tell us in comments where to find kosher ‘mallows in your area! Has anyone tried to make one at home?
Yeah, so we talk about our vegetables a lot. Last week after I picked up my CSA share I thought about blogging about taking my veggies out on the town (I had participated in the New Israel Fund’s event Love, Hate, and the Jewish State – vegetables in tow). I ultimately decided against it. But others have been more forthcoming with their CSA adventures.
Each week Rebecca Tanen, one of the Jew and the Carrot Associate Editors, has been sharing her weekly adventures in her CSA box as a “CSA Newbie.” And the Hazon CSA in Chicago (Tuv Ha’Aretz Chicago) has even started their own blog. Anyone else have any more stories to share?
While most of us in the Northeast who are plugged in to local agriculture are reveling in our early CSA bounty, many of the producers of this bounty are worrying about the future of this year’s crop.
Laura, a friend in Cambridge, MA, who is a participant in this summer’s Adamah Fellowship in Falls Village, CT, writes on her blog that the Adamah CSA, which delivered its first share this week, is in danger of losing its crop due to the high volume of rain received by the Northeast US in the past few weeks. This amount of rain, combined with the fact that the rain is predicted to continue for several more days at least, and the fact that the farm is located next to a river, mean that it could cost them the viability of many crops, especially so early in the season.
