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.

Read more »

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.

Read more »

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 »

Although I am no fan of flying, I do find that one of its perks is having uninterrupted reading time. I was already looking forward to my husband and I celebrating our one-year anniversary with four days in Oregon. But when the New Yorker arrived last week, and I saw it was a double issue dedicated to food, it made me even more excited — what better airplane reading could there be?

It didn’t disappoint. Read more »

One thing I hate about living in California is having to wait until Wednesday to get The New Yorker. When I lived in New York, receiving both that and New York on Mondays made the beginning of the week a little bit brighter. My friend Deborah used to refer to it as “Magazine Monday.”

I admit it, I’m a total New Yorker junkie, and it hasn’t abated since I left. (Did anyone catch Roz Chast’s full-page cartoon recently of ‘The Museum of One’s Kitchen?’ It’s up on my fridge right now, and absolutely everyone who has seen it has chortled in recognition of their own ‘Cabinet of Too Many Teas…’) Well, given that it only came yesterday, I haven’t had time to read it yet. But I noticed that in the double issue which is entirely dedicated to food, readers of this blog will find several articles of interest; most notably, there is a Jane Kramer profile of Claudia Roden, author of one of my favorites, “The Book of Jewish Food,” and an exploration of eating from the five boroughs by Adam Gopnik. If you are not a subscriber, I’d go get a copy, it looks to make for some excellent holiday-weekend reading.

Since Tuv Ha’Aretz started here in Berkeley, I’ve gotten to know Adam Edell quite well. We sit and chat while waiting for members to pick up their boxes of produce. We talk, we schmooze, we inspect the zucchini and tomatoes. I’ve even met his dad. But I can’t say I’ve ever seen him “grinning grubbily.”

That’s how Adam was described in this article called “Sustainable Synagogue,” published this week one of the area’s free weeklies, the East Bay Express.

I’m sorry, I’m a journalist too, so I know how tempting it can be to put in that perfect alliterative phrase, even when it doesn’t fully apply. I’m not even sure what a grubbily-looking grin looks like. But after reading this otherwise very complimentary article about us, I couldn’t help but fixate on that one line. Then again, maybe it’s only natural to grin grubbily when talking about composting.

So a Reuters reporter emailed me last week. She had seen my Jew & the Carrot post “Could I play for the other team?” in which I mused about whether I could go back to eating meat after almost 20 years of being a pescatarian. She asked whether she could interview me for a story she was writing about “Compassionate Carnivores,” and vegetarians who are thinking about eating meat once again because of the more humane methods now being used in farming.

She interviewed Mollie Katzen, of Moosewood cookbook and restaurant fame. She interviewed Isa Chandra Moskowitz, TV personality, vegan punk rock spokeswoman and cookbook author. And she interviewed me. What’s more, I’m the first to be quoted in the article, and she gave me equal time with these two food world luminaries.

Katzen and Moskowitz are food personalities. While those who know me certainly would say I have a personality too – and even a strong one at that – I am not even a blip on the foodie radar screen. I certainly don’t have a cookbook or TV show to my name. I am just a journalist-turned natural foods chef who is still trying to get my business up and running. I am truly honored to be in such great company.

Read more »

I read the other day that consumption of fresh mozzarella vastly goes up when it’s tomato season. OK, guilty. Who can resist that all-time summer favorite combo, with fresh basil?

But our Jewish Film Festival caused me to think about a long forgotten dish that is especially good for tomato season. In a scene from the Israeli film, “Aviva, My Love,” that I just saw last weekend, the main character, Aviva, was at her professor’s house. He apologized he had nothing in the fridge. She looked inside, and found eggs and a handful of tomatoes (I guess no one told those Israelis that tomatoes aren’t supposed to be refrigerated.) In the next scene, the professor is chowing down on shakshuka.

Shakshuka’s origins are up for debate. I always thought it was Yemenite, but some argue that it’s Ashkenazi in origin. And how you make it is up for debate, too. All I know is that on my third trip to Israel, when I arrived tired and hungry from over 20 hours in transit, my Israeli aunt made me this dish. I had never had it before, but I never forgot it. It was some of the best eggs I had ever had. Call it Israeli comfort food. Read more »

Last week, our Berkeley Tuv Ha’Aretz held a zucchini recipe contest. Since joining Tuv Ha’Aretz, we’ve received zucchini every week. Not only did we have fun, but we got some coverage in our local Jewish newspaper (it helps that a Tuv Ha’Aretz volunteer, myself, used to work for the paper.) Anyhow, here’s the article, or you can read it at jweekly.com

Food boxes ‘good for the land’ and good for Jews
by alexandra j. wall
correspondent

Bulgarian frittata with zucchini, feta and dill; dill zucchini pancakes with mint; zucchini in yogurt; zucchini sauté.

Read more »

I haven’t had a bite of meat in almost 20 years. I didn’t set out to become a vegetarian, but in college, it was just so easy to be one. I lived with one, and very slowly, I stopped eating it. I remember once I opened the freezer and saw a package of turkey breasts I had bought months ago. At that point, I already hadn’t eaten meat in several months or more. I knew I wouldn’t cook them, and threw them out. That was that, though I did begin eating fish a few years later. So I’ve now been a pescatarian for about 15 years. But lately, I’ve been having second thoughts.

Read more »