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A New Year, A New Lifestyle

by · September 12th, 2007
ADAMAH, Community Agriculture, Holidays, Personal Story, Rosh Hashanah

I just came home for Rosh Hashanah to be with my family at my parents’ home for the first time since I started Adamah last May. I expected to miss baskets filled with seasonal, local produce; I anticipated longing for the cultural values of so many people at Adamah. Usually my family does pretty well on the organic front, but hardly any of the produce in the house at any given time is local or fresh. It’s usually organic from California or Central America (the avocados). I was pleasantly surprised.

There is squash and zucchini aplenty on my mother’s kitchen counter. In fact, there is a small garden outside my house that supplies peppers and tomatoes, and all the other produce in the house is from a Morristown, New Jersey farmers market. Somehow, my experience with Hazon and Adamah had an impressive influence on my parents. From visiting the field at Isabella Freedman, talking to me over the course of a few months, sponsoring me in the New York ride and attending the New York ride celebration at the JCC, my mother and father literally took many of the messages home with them along with their delicious lacto-fermented Adamah pickles.

Currently I’m writing this post while my mother and sister are picking fresh apples for tonight’s dinner at a nearby apple orchard. The apples are to be paired with the local New Jersey honey my mother just purchased from a bee keeper less than 30 miles away from here. I really hope that this lifestyle continues in my parents’ home for this coming year. Shana Tova to all and may everyone’s new year be as sweet and delicious as I know the apples and honey from down the road will be tonight.

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4 Responses to “A New Year, A New Lifestyle”

  1. Edith Stevenson Says:
    September 12th, 2007 at 10:54 pm

    yes, Jeffrey, it is often a two – way street, this parenting stuff. We too, out here in Vancouver BC, have been growing a few veggies in the backyard, eat apple & pear desserts from the trees we planted years ago, and have joined a CSA this year as well. We’ve become emissaries for the messages of Hazon, and Adamah, switching to one car and two bicycles for getting around, and will be promoting at our shul to start a Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA next spring. Like in Big Yellow Taxi, written when I was in high school, “give me bugs on my apples, throw away the DDT…….” Thanks for inspiring all of us parents with your energy and committment to help the planet, one pickle at a time!

  2. Claire Says:
    September 16th, 2007 at 12:38 pm

    Jeff, I’m still using up your beets and daikon radishes (my housemate put some into a stirfry last night and they were delicious), though the tomatoes became a delicious sauce long ago. This blog is great; I’m very impressed. Might it be possible at some point for you to post a recipe for pickling (aka “lacto-fermentation”)?

  3. Jeffrey Yoskowitz Says:
    September 16th, 2007 at 5:47 pm

    I’ll gladly post some lacto-fermentation recipes on this website in the near future. I plan to do some recreational pickling in Israel so I’ll keep you posted.

  4. Annie Fox Says:
    September 23rd, 2007 at 10:51 pm

    yea! I wish my parents were as influenced by my Adamah experiences. My father still refuses to go on the hazon ride with me for fear he’ll “be recruited into the cult.” urgh.

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