Not too long ago, I posted here asking what Michael Pollan would do in a given situation. Today’s Chronicle asks the same question. It’s the lead article in the food section, complete with *huge* photos of Pollan and his son Isaac cooking, and then eating, lunch.

Among the interesting tidbits: that his next article is about orchid sex, and that he’s a little bit tired of talking about food.

When the weather is storming outside, (and I say this knowing that what we are experiencing here in Northern California is relative to other parts of the country), there is nothing that satisfies quite like a bowl of piping hot soup.

While I am no lover of winter, I do love eating soup and salad for dinner, and I do that mostly in the winter.

A few months ago, we had a glut of broccoli from our CSA, and quite a lot of carrots, too. I found a recipe for a broccoli miso soup on someone’s web site, and tweaked it considerably. I’ve now made this soup at least a dozen times, for clients, and for us. Our CSA ran it in its newsletter too, so I thought I’d post it here for anyone in need of a new soup recipe.

While absolutely delicious, I will say that in order for the broccoli to be pureed, it has to be quite soft, and with the tamari and miso, rather than a beautiful vibrant green, this soup is a rather bland-looking brown. Ah well. At least it makes up for it in taste.

Recipe follows the jump.

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I grew up in a non-kosher home. My Bronx-born father was strongly Jewish, but an atheist, and my mom was raised Catholic from ages 2 to 6; her life was saved by her gentile nanny in Poland during the Holocaust, who raised her as her own daughter. Her favorite food during that period: bacon. And even when she reverted back to Judaism, she never lost her love of all things pork.

My grandparents on both sides didn’t keep kosher either. Nor did any of the Jewish families we knew, except maybe one or two. I grew up eating ham and cheese sandwiches, and thinking nothing of it. Except for one great aunt in New York who kept a strictly kosher home, but ate pork and shrimp every time we went out to dinner with her, I had very little exposure to it.

Looking back, I wouldn’t change that. I was one of two Jews in my high school, always feeling very much “the other.” If I would have had to decline eating at a friend’s house because of kashrut, I don’t know how I would have managed. It just would have been another reminder that I am more “other” than I like to think.

But despite the fact that kashrut is pretty much still a non-issue for me, the fact that I care so much about where my food comes from is making me feel more and more kosher all the time.

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When Brian Malarkey was trying out to be a contestant on Bravo’s favorite TV show, “Top Chef,” I can guess that he never imagined that one day soon, he would be presiding over a Manischewitz cook-off.
But there he was today at a San Francisco Hilton on the border of Chinatown, looking dapper in a pin-striped suit rather than his chef whites, acting as emcee for the Simply Manischewitz regional semi-finals. This is the second year of the contest.

With some of my regular clients on vacation, I didn’t have anything in particular to do today. So when I heard about the Manischewitz cook-off, I thought, “I’m into food. I’m into Jews. Why the hell not?”

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Warning, a shameless plug follows: Some of you at the food conference might have met a brother-sister pair Lisa Schachter-Brooks and Stephen Brooks. For the very first time, their company, Costa Rican Adventures, is offering a tour specifically for people who are interested to know where their food comes from. It begins in late February.

While Lisa lives here in the Bay Area (and helped coordinate our local Tuv Ha’Aretz chapter), Stephen has been mostly based in Costa Rica since he graduated from college (now, quite some time ago). He lives on an organic farm called Punta Mona, where he plays host to the numerous high schoolers they bring down, as well as other travelers.

To read more about their edible Costa Rica tour, click here.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s dining section has been doing an occasional series called “Food Conscious” that has addressed many of the same issues found here on “The Jew and the Carrot.”

Today’s installment is about the numerous studies that are beginning to prove what proponents of organics have hoped for (or known)  all along, that the food is often more nutritious. Read the article here.

Not too long ago, I wondered on this blog “Could I play for the other team?” What I meant was after almost 20-years of being a pescatarian (a fish-eating vegetarian, but no meat of any kind for over half of my life), could I go back to eating meat?

I was reconsidering for a number of reasons, all of which are mentioned here, but what was troubling most was the change in identity I would undergo. I absolutely couldn’t — and still can’t — see myself as a carnivore.

The post even attracted the attention of a reporter from Reuters, who quoted me in a story about Compassionate Carnivores, as the voice who was thinking about making the switch, but hadn’t yet done so.

I wasn’t sure when I would be tempted to try meat again, but I had the feeling it was coming any day now, or possibly any month, or year. And I was right. Read more »

Our local Tuv Ha’Aretz ended recently, and we were faced with the decision: do we want to sign up directly with the farm to keep getting its boxes of produce?

It was a no-brainer of a decision. On our “meet-the-farmer” night way back in April, Nigel, our farmer, told us that some of his subscribers had threatened bloody mutiny if he ever stopped producing — or, well, his chickens, to be exact – eggs. At the time, it sounded kind of humorous, but after six months of eating them practically daily, my husband would no doubt be one of those people.

But the eggs weren’t the only reason. After spending a Sukkot Shabbaton on the farm, and standing by it during its recent Medfly crisis, we realized we couldn’t just quit. It was more than the eggs, and more than the produce. It was the people who were bringing us our food, and the fact that we were helping to support them. We had a relationship with Eatwell, and we couldn’t just break it off now. Read more »

So there I was this morning, in the baking aisle of Whole Foods, buying a few items for Thanksgiving, along with the shopping I was doing for a client. I have made a chocolate-pecan pie with Bourbon several times for Thanksgiving now, and well, I never make it any other time of year, so I was craving it again.

(A disclaimer from the natural foods chef: On holidays, everything I’ve learned about natural foods cooking recedes to the back of my brain, and I allow white sugar and white flour and whatever else to find their way back into my food. It’s only a few times a year, after all.)

I got my organic pecans. I got my fair trade chocolate chips.

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I’ve been visiting New York City for over a week, sadly because my 97-year-old grandfather has been in the hospital. And in this time, I’ve eaten almost every meal out. Not by choice, necessarily, but when you’re getting together with friends or relatives in the evenings, going out to a meal is the easiest thing to do.

We have already pretty much said goodbye to tomatoes in California, and basil as well. But when we went to a quite good Italian place near my dad’s apartment on the Upper West Side the other night, I couldn’t believe there was a caprese salad, without basil, on the antipasto table.

While the brussel sprouts and mushrooms and grilled endive and marinated carrots and olives all looked delicious, the tomato slices were an embarressment. Why were they even on the table, I wondered. They were so pale, they didn’t even look like tomatoes, and I could tell they were hard as a rock. Why didn’t they just do without a caprese salad? Read more »

I often listen to talk radio when I cook. And today, while I was prepping for a Shabbat dinner I’m cooking tomorrow at the Foster City JCC where I’m facilitating a discussion on organic food, I heard an interview with Howard Lyman, otherwise known as the Mad Cowboy. If you haven’t heard of Lyman yet, you will.

A fourth-generation cattle rancher from Montana, Lyman converted his family’s small organic family farm into a massive feedlot with 5,000 cattle at one time. He was no different than all the other cattle ranchers, until he was diagnosed with a tumor on his spinal chord, paralyzing him from the waist down. Lyman had surgery, and was granted his mobility. But he also decided that that tumor was a wake-up call. He sold the farm, and decided to become a bit of a crusader, speaking out about the evils of the feedlots, and urging people to go vegan.

Imagine, a Montana cattleman promoting veganism. It is pretty funny when you think about it. Read more »

As promised, here is the article about our Eatwell experience. Kudos to Adam Edell, Jon Rosenfield and Zelig Golden for putting it all together.

An article about the Berkeley chapter of Tuv Ha’Aretz’ Shabbaton at Eatwell Farm will be posted here in a few days, but in the meantime, I wanted to post a photo that sums up a great deal about our experience.

In short, we had an awesome time. It was really wonderful to camp in the very orchards that have been supplying our delicious plums, and meet the chickens who have been feeding us the most delicious eggs we’ve ever eaten.

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Members of Berkeley’s Tuv Ha’Aretz learned a hard lesson in CSA farming last week. I had two Israeli cousins in tow — they were staying with me for a few days as they took their two teenaged kids on a jaunt through parts of the U.S., and incidentally, just as they looked at me in astonishment when I told them I lit candles and said kiddush every Friday night, they were equally incredulous when I told them that I picked up a box of organic veggies every Wednesday from my synagogue — as soon as I took my box, I felt it was much lighter than usual. I didn’t stop to find out why; I was in a rush to get my cousins to the car rental place.

If we were disappointed to learn that we wouldn’t be getting our gorgeous tomatoes last week, it was heartbreaking to read what is happening on our farm. A vacationer returned from Hawaii to the Dixon area (where our farm is located, right outside Davis, CA) with the dreaded Meditteranean Fruitfly. The whole area of Dixon has been quarantined, and no produce that the fruitfly likes can leave any farm. Read more »