Like many foodies, I imagine, I’m always experimenting in the kitchen. Chocolate and tea are favorite exploratory ingredients, but with Rosh Hashanah just around the corner lately I’ve had apples and honey on the brain. So yesterday afternoon I decided to take a break from schoolwork by playing around with my recipe for Honey-Vanilla Challah. A few hours later I had a woven round loaf of Apple-Honey Challah sitting on the kitchen counter. This was the ‘test loaf’ that, if delectable, would make a return appearance at Rosh Hashanah dinner. Shown above sliced and covered in blueberry-peach butter, I’m happy to report that this challah was a scrumptious combination of three Rosh Hashanah symbols: apples, honey and round challah goodness. An encore is definitely in order.

Ask the average American to name a Jewish bread and there’s a 50% chance they’ll say bagels. But what is it that has made bagels a poster-child for Jewish baking? There is more than one answer to this question, the most popular attributing the creation of bagels to a Jewish baker living in 1683 Vienna. According to folklore, this unnamed man invented the bagel as a tribute to King John III Sobieski of Poland, who had saved the city from Turkish invaders with a daring cavalry charge. This story has led some to believe that bagels were originally U shaped like stirrups. However, other historians dispute this claim, arguing that the Yiddish word ‘beygal’ has been traced to 17th century Crackow, Poland. It is here that an official document of ‘Jewish Community Regulations’ – dated to 1610 – listed ‘beygals’ among the approved gifts for women in childbirth or midwives. These beygals were circular like our modern bagels, and the shape was thought to symbolize the eternal cycle of life, with no beginning and no end. Whatever their origin, what we do know for certain is that bagels were brought to North America by Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in the late 1800’s where they quickly gained popularity in New York City. Yet the bagel appreciation that is so much a part of American culture today didn’t begin to take shape until the 1950’s, when Lender’s began selling them to supermarkets. Hard to believe America’s love affair with bagels & cream cheese is only fifty odd years old, but there it is!

The other day it occurred to me that my relationship with food is an ever changing one. The foods that delighted me as a child have lost some of their mystic in my adult years. Lollipops are nothing more than a sticky mess waiting to happen, while bags of Chips Ahoy cookies have lost their luster in the wake of homemade coconut biscotti or beignets. Looking back I realize these changes began when I moved into my first apartment and, faced with an barren kitchen and an empty stomach, began my love affair with cooking and baking. Little by little pre-packaged foods became a thing of the past, and I happily hovered in this state of from-scratch-eating until this past May, when I began working at Hazon. Since that momentous first day in Hazon’s office – not to mention our Cleanse experience – my relationship with food has changed once again. I still cook and bake, but I’ve also become a vegetarian by default – by which I mean that I still love my steaks and relish a good burger, but will only eat ethically raised/slaughtered meat, which is woefully difficult to come by in today’s commercial market. Our produce is organic now too, as is our milk, and the resulting rise in our weekly grocery bill made me marvel at how all the discounts you get with a ‘grocery store card’ are for cheap, processed food.

In a recent interview with chef and author Rick Bayless I had the opportunity to explore this developing relationship with sustainable, seasonal foods. When I wasn’t admiring his awareness of the environment, and our relationship to it through food, I was imagining the delectable dishes that must grace the tables of his restaurants as a result. He gave me much food for thought, sharing his views about farming while discussing his Frontera Farmer’s Foundation:

Every now and then I’m struck by the sheer awesomeness that is the Internet. What once would have taken at least twenty minutes of searching through library card indexes (not to mention driving to the library and maybe even a paper cut) now requires no more than a few seconds of our time. From the average annual rainfall of the Amazon rain forest (9 feet per year, in case you’re wondering) to how to make firecrackers (the carrot kind, not the exploding kind) – it’s all right there, at our fingertips. This is all quite impressive if you stop to think about it, but it wasn’t until last Friday that I realized just how many things the internet can make possible, because it was then that a crazy notion sprung into my head. You see, the 2007 Jewish Environmental Bike Ride is just around the corner and I wanted to fundraise for it – but how could I do so when I wouldn’t be attending the actual event?

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog posting to bring you this brief announcement: “The Jew and the Carrot” has been nominated for two Bloggers Choice Awards! If you have a moment and are so inclined, please vote for us in the “Best Food Blog” category and the “Best Religion Blog.” You can do so by clicking on the Bloggers Choice images in the sidebar, or by clicking on the links below:

* The Jew & The Carrot totally rocks! I’m voting for them in the Best Food Blog category. Click.
* The Jew & The Carrot is the best! I’m voting for them in the Best Religion Blog category. Clickity click.

Frequent readers of ‘The Jew and the Carrot’ know that Hazon’s staff recently returned from a Cleanse on Fire Island with author Halé Sofia Schatz. It was, to say the least, a unique experience. Below is an excerpt from my post about it on Baking and Books :

You know you’re addicted to blogging when, despite spending much time on your own site, you jump at the opportunity to also blog on someone else’s. That is my story, and this first post on JCarrot is an introduction of sorts – which is another way of saying that Leah asked me to write a little about myself and my mind promptly went blank. Ahem.