The following article was written by Leah Koenig and published in the Jewish Daily Forward earlier this week. Be sure to click on the link below to check out the comments.
On Tuesday November 3, His Royal Highness Prince Philip will host over 200 guests for lunch at Windsor Castle, the 900-year-old palace that serves as an official residence of his and Queen Elizabeth’s. But this lunch will be noticeably different from the roasted quail and crème fraîche typical of castle meals. Instead, the menu is entirely vegan and centered on seasonal, regionally sourced ingredients.
Recently I had the chance to speak with Noah Alper, founder of the eponymous Noah’s Bagels. Noah, who sold Noah’s Bagels in 1999, has been in the food business since the 1970s, when he started Bread and Circus, the East Coast natural food chain (bought by Whole Foods in 1992). He’s kept kosher since the early 1990s, and at one point Noah’s Bagels was the largest kosher retailer in the country. (For those on the prowl, there’s still one kosher Noah’s Bagels, in Seattle.) Nowadays, he’s committed to preaching the gospel of socially responsible business practices, and to that end he’s come out with a book called Business Mensch that aims to connect Jewish principles to good business practices and convince business leaders that community values are good for their bottom line.
Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals is not for the faint of heart. His recent article in the New York Times (excerpted from the first chapter) includes stories of his grand-mother, a holocaust survivor, which he uses to define himself as well as frame his book. The Jew and The Carrot’s Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus wrote a nice post about it, including:
“But I what I found most moving was the way he connected his own ethical commitment to vegetarianism to his grandmother’s commitment to kashrut, even under the most extreme circumstances. She gets the last word in the dialogue he recalls,
Today’s New York Times features several letters to the editor in response to “Experts Worry About Feeding the World as Its Population Grows,” an article published on October 22. The letter writers call attention to several issues: the political realities that perpetuate global food insecurity; the relationship between access to contraception and reduced food demand; and a desire for integrated farming strategies that combine conventional farming practices with agro-ecological approaches. What the letters do not include, however, are examples of grassroots organizations that are implementing many of the creative solutions the authors are seeking.
Do you have the next big idea for social change? And do you have what it takes to start your own groundbreaking organization?
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I don’t wish to disappoint anyone, but this post does not contain any recipes or ideas for healthy snacks to give out to your trick-or-treaters this Halloween. Actually, it is an appeal for just the opposite.
I overheard an acquaintance telling someone how they would be giving out “healthy snacks” to young trick-or-treaters for Halloween. The other replied: “You know, that’s such a great idea. I should do that.”
Now, I know there are many foodies reading this blog (including myself), but I couldn’t help but find myself feeling a bit sorry for the kids who would be knocking on their doors expecting Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups this Saturday night, only to find a vegan oat-bran something-or-other dropped into their plastic pumpkin.
Did you know that twenty-five thousand people die of malnutrition each day? It’s true and it’s unconscionable. Our world’s so-called “food crisis” is not, in fact, the result of food shortage. Rather, it stems from a deep flaw in our global economy that prevents food from reaching everyone — what we call a food insecurity crisis. How can we fix this?
American Jewish World Service (AJWS) recently launched Fighting Hunger from the Ground Up, a campaignto mobilize the Jewish community to help end global hunger.
The other day my boyfriend and I were enjoying a Sunday walk in Brooklyn when we ran into his friend Ana, her partner and their adorable new baby. Among the introductions and pleasantries she mentioned that she was distributing her film FRESH. “Here, tell me what you think of it,” she said handing me a copy, knowing I was a food writer.
So, one night a while later my boyfriend and I tucked into the sofa and watched FRESH, the new film by Ana Sofia Joanes. As someone who has seen Food Inc and has read a lot of Michael Pollan, the material was not new to me, however I found the material’s presentation (forgive the pun) fresh. I had found Food Inc to be a good film, but heavy on the propaganda. I felt that FRESH got its message across in a far more even-handed way. The film invoked a pretty good discussion, and I was happy to see on their website they had some additional educational materials and even a call for recipes. But you don’t have to be a Jew and the Carrot writer or have chance encounters with the director to see this film. If you live in the New York area there will be a screening this Tuesday.
The Crossroads spirit was with me on Sunday. At 6 a.m., I headed down to the starting line of Washington D.C.’s Marine Corps Marathon decked out in my Crossroads Farmers Market shirt and fortified by a well-wishing card from the market’s director. (For anyone interested, my tummy was fortified by some organic coffee and a PB & J on sprouted grain bread–what I’ve found to be an excellent pre-race snack).
I went into this knowing that the campaign to rejuvenate the Crossroads’ Fresh Checks program for low-income shoppers through writing articles about it and running 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) had not actually reached its goal. My attempt at a charitable and world-healing act–an act of tikkun olam–had raised awareness and monetarily netted just shy of $700 ($698 to be exact) in donations. My goal was $1,000, but I was pretty sure I had reached my limit. The market managers had sent the ask to their supporters and shoppers, too, so together we had tried the best we could.
Thanks so much to Maya Bernstein for this great cross-post from Lilith Blog. Some of her other work can be found here and here.
Michelle Obama is hula-hooping for health on the South Lawn of the White House. Jamie Oliver’s going to teach obese America how to cook their vegetables, and eat them too. Herbivores, frugivores, and locavores are putting their stakes in the ground, amidst the moist dirt of organically grown slow food.
Meanwhile, my 20-month-old daughter went to synagogue over the holiday of Simchat Torah and learned the word “candy.” We were spending the holiday with my parents, and my girls were dressed in traditional New York Jewish holiday autumn glory, patent-leather shoes and red wool coats. On the way to synagogue, I noticed that other children on the sidewalk were carrying big plastic bags (luckily for them, they don’t live in Palo Alto, where plastic bags are illegal; I considered hauling them back West by the thousands, to sell on the sly at Whole Foods).
Do you love your CSA (or Tuv Ha’Haretz) but also want sustainable products that are not found locally where you live? Things like olive oil and dates are local to the Mediterranean Sea – not New England. But for folks in the greater New York area committed to sustainable agriculture, some of our CSAs have recently partnered with a new company that supports small-scale farming and economic development in the Negev Region of Israel.
Negev Nectars, a new business that launched last week, will be bringing gourmet, sustainably produced foods to CSAs (and Tuv Ha’Haretz) to the United States. Negev Nectars members will be sent olive oil, jams, chutneys, honey, dried herbs and other unique products (check them out here) three times a year just before Hanukkah, Passover and Rosh Hashanah. Negev Nectars can be shipped all over the U.S., although your share can be picked up at participating sites. Currently Negev Nectars can be picked up at the Tuv Ha’Haretz in White Plains, NY and Forest Hills, NY with additional sites coming soon in New York and New Jersey.
Much is new over at KOL Foods, the country’s largest provider of kosher, sustainably raised meat. Founder Devora Kimmelman-Block has started a blog, which covers both news from the company and issues in sustainable meat production, written with a Jewish twist. KOL Foods has also started online ordering, to allow people from a wider range of locations to order ethical kosher meat. While there has been some criticism of this move, on the argument that this undermines KOL’s commitment to local meat, a counter-argument is that there are some areas of the country where local, ethical kosher meat simply isn’t possible: for example, Florida may have many Jews calling it home but no kosher slaughterhouse. KOL has also expanded its offering to include pastured poultry, the first time this has been available on a wide level (there have been smaller efforts in New York, Boston, and Ohio). From now until November 3rd, you can order a pastured turkey for Thanksgiving. All orders will be entered in a raffle to win a free turkey.You can read all about the turkey farmer and his birds on the KOL Foods website.
With the tragic closing of the iconic publication, Gourmet, the already struggling world of food journalism got a bit grimmer. Fortunately, a few quality food magazines are still up and running – like Saveur, a magazine dedicated not only to delivering delicious recipes, but sharing the food traditions, people and stories behind them.
Well, The Jew & The Carrot must be on an upswing too because recently, Saveur added us as a “Site we Love” on their website! In other words, Saveur’s editors are handpicking the “best of the food web” to share with their readers – and we got the golden ticket. Or, rather, the red stamp of approval. Well Saveur, consider us flattered – and consider yourself invited over for tea any day.
If you didn’t catch Jonathan Safran Foer’s wonderful piece “Against Meat” in last Sunday’s NY Times Magazine Food Issue, it’s well worth reading. He writes how his Holocaust survivor grandmother’s “obsession with food” formed his own vegetarianism, and how his Jewish values and experiences informed his and his wife’s decision to raise their children vegetarian. But Safran Foer also points out his way to vegetarianism was not a straight path. He very nicely captures the ambivalence of those of us who lean towards vegetarianism, but still eat meat, as well as what appears to be a kind of ethical inconsistency in our enjoyment of the taste of meat. As he bluntly puts it,
