Counting the Homer

Last year, I posted about the connection between beer, civilization and the Jewish people’s journey from Egypt to Sinai during the period of the omer.

This year, just as the counting of the omer began, I came across this article, which is a survey of contemporary authors concerning which beers they would pair with their novels! Some authors picked beers that matched the characteristics of their writing (”dark, with biting overtones,” etc.). Others chose more figuratively. For example, Michael Chabon responded, “The proper pairing with The Yiddish Policemen’s Union would of course be a nice cold bottle of Bruner Adler lager, brewed right in the Federal District of Sitka by Shoymer Brewing, Inc.”

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I just came across the most amazing story of the Ba’al Shem Tov (the charismatic founder of Chasidic judaism), which has been retold at a special festive meal at the end of Pesach for over 250 years!

The basic story is that the Ba’al Shem Tov is repeatedly thwarted in his attempts to sail to the land of Israel. Along the way, he is stranded on an island, attacked by pirates, and invents both the alphabet and matzah ball soup. OK, so I’m extrapolating a little bit with that last part, but even so, I would easily pay $10 to see Johnny Depp in this story at the local cinemaplex.

What’s most interesting to me as a Jewish food blogger is that this story, as shared by a poster on jewschool, is always accompanied by a meal featuring 31 matzah balls. Maybe it should be included as an addition to the Baskin (Robbins) haggadah?

Speaking of Jews and 31 flavors, today is Ben & Jerry’s annual free ice cream cone day! Ironically, even though these two boys met in gym class in Merrick, (pretty close to my congregation), there’s barely any scoop shops left on all of Long Island. I wonder if I would be attacked by pirates if I attempted an hour-long pilgrimage to the closest scoop shop…

How has this not been posted to jcarrot yet? Via boingboing, metafilter, jewschool, you-name-it…

I haven’t found a recipe for sasquatch yet, but since I can’t bake any of these during Pesach, maybe I should try to rustle one up…

Happy Passover, everyone!!

This past weekend, our synagogue hosted a “Pesach University”: A community-wide day of Passover workshops, on everything from the anthropological roots of the seder, to how to “green” your Pesach.

But the true highlight of the event was a live Passover cooking demonstration by none other than Ellie Krieger - an adjunct professor in the New York University Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health, and star of the Food Network’s hit show, Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger. (She also happens to be the sister of one of our Tuv Ha’aretz CSA’s core group members, and a genuinely warm and funny person to boot.)

In honor of the occasion, Ellie chose to focus on two themes of the seder: dipping, and the tension between bitter and sweet in the story, and the food that accompanies it. Ellie made two delicious recipes, adapted from her new cookbook The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life, which she has graciously allowed me to share, after the jump: Read more »

I just had one of the most revelatory food experiences of my life, and I didn’t even eat a single bite. Read on if you’d like to see how the Broadway musical South Pacific might inspire your Passover Seder this year. Read more »

Even though my school was eliminated from the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament in the second round, I’ve still got a slight case of bracket-fever. Taking a little inspiration from this book, I decided to try my hand at creating a Jewish food tournament. I created four Jewish food “regions” (beverages/desserts, shabbat/holidays, ashkenazi, and Israeli/sephardic) and ranked eight corresponding Jewish foods 1-8 in each region. Then I seeded them in the tournament, which I plan to play out in the next few weeks leading up to Pesach. Since I decided to go with a 32 “team” format instead of 64, there were necessarily some tough choices that had to be made (no apples & honey; only a generic “kugel” instead of a spot for both potato and noodle, etc.). 

You can see the results here, and even make your own predictions. I’ll be “playing out” this battle of the Jewish food all-stars over the next few weeks, so it’s not to late to get that office pool started! Feel free to post any thoughts, suggestions, predictions (and of course, complaints) in the comments here. I’ll be sure to keep them in mind for the 2009 tourney.

Are Passover snacks the new bees? Chametz-free noshes seem to be disappearing everywhere without a trace. First, TamTams disappear from the shelves, and now, the NYTimes reports about a historic New York social club that recently lost its source for the perfect macaroon.

It seems that the bakery which supplied the Century club with macaroons for over half a century has gone out of business, and this article describes the remarkable search by its members for a suitable replacement. I have to say, even as someone who disdainfully associates macaroons with those awful, sticky, cloying, calorie-laden chunks that come in the vacuum-sealed can, I can’t help but admire the passion and discernment by which Century Club members are conducting their search. Here’s how they lovingly describe the perfect macaroon:

“They had just the right amount of texture. They weren’t too crispy. They weren’t too gooey. You know, they didn’t flake or break. They kind of pulled apart. I would say they sort of had a nice elasticity. They displayed a particular combination of crustiness and tensile strength.”

Mmmm…tensile strength. Good luck with that. So much for Macaroons. The cheese(cake) half of this post is after the jump… Read more »

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.” - Anthony Bourdain, “Kitchen Confidential,” p. 70

Tell us how you really feel, Anthony!

Of course, vegetarians and vegan chefs were not about to take this crude, carnivorous cri de coeur lying down, and thus was born Hezbollah Tofu, a blog where vegan chefs are systematically veganizing chef Bourdain’s most celebrated recipes. They plan on selling the resulting compilation, and donating the proceeds to vegan causes (farm sanctuaries, public education, etc) in Bordain’s name. Take that, Anthony!

This topic brings up a whole host of questions for me, as a Jew and as a self-professed foodie who also strives to eat sustainably (although not regularly animal-product free):

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Did you ever wish that you could create an energy bar with just the right nutritional ingredients, that tasted great, and was (mostly) kosher and organic? How about if the company that made them gave a percentage of their profits to a local foodbank? How about if the company was a mother and son who started out in the kitchen of their synagogue? 

Check out this great story in the NYTimes, and head over to youbars.com if you feel like creating (and naming!) your very own Powerbar.   

 What is it about Jews and Chinese food?This oddly-passionate obsession has inspired scholarly dissertations,  cookbooks, multi-cultural festivals, and even affected international relations [this last link, btw, about Asian chefs in Israel going on an eggroll strike over the elimination of foreign worker permits, is worth a trip to Jewschool to read in its entirety]!

So when this article appeared recently in the NYTimes about the history of the fortune cookie, I immediately thought, “hmmm…what’s the Jewish connection?” The answer? The long Jewish tradition of bibliophagy (eating the written word). Find interesting examples of Jewish bibliophagy after the jump:

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I’ve already posted once today, so sorry for double-dipping, but this is worth posting ASAP:

From the JTS press release:

Dr. David Kraemer, the author of Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages [and 2006 Hazon Food Conference Keynote Speaker], will discuss “Jewish Eating and Jewish Identity” at The Jewish Theological Seminary’s Henry N. Rapaport Memorial Lecture at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, February 4, 2008. The event will take place at JTS, 3080 Broadway (at 122nd Street), New York City.

Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages is the first book ever to explore the history of Jewish eating practices from the Bible to the present, and the first to interpret Jewish eating practices throughout the ages as keys to understanding current Jewish identities.

That’s right, your long wait for cheeseburgers in a can is now over. They’re even more convenient than these (but don’t forget, February 12th is International Pancake Day! Although you’ll have to wait a week to celebrate at IHOP).

I think if “Sarah” had eaten this cheeseburger, she might have become Ba’al Teshuva instead of secular. Of course, if you want the ultimate in non-kosher (both eco and traditional) eating, you could cook your cheeseburger on one of these while driving on shabbos:

There was a disturbing story in the Times today about the alarmingly high level of mercury in both store-bought and restaurant-served sushi-grade tuna. How is it possible that no government agency tests for mercury in our country’s seafood, when even the FDA and EPA have issued warning advisories about the consumption of certain fish that are known to contain unsafe levels of this industrial pollutant?

While it might be fun for my three-year-old son to color in this page from his “Jewish Activity Book (!):

…maybe I should just substitute a page with Joe Camel smoking a cigarette, which would be no more toxic?

The good news for fish-eating Jews everywhere is that there are sustainable seafood choices out there, including smaller fish found lower on the food chain (but just as high up on the kiddush buffet line), which are not only safer in terms of mercury levels, but very high in healthy omega-3 fatty acids. So dig into those herring, sardines and anchovies, everyone!

Between luscious bites of pomegranate or dutiful bites of carob, why not surf over to hoarded ordinaries, who are hosting this month’s festival of the trees -

“a monthly blog carnival for all things arboreal. Like other blog carnivals, the Festival of the Trees is a collection of links to blog posts and other spots on the web, hosted each month at a different blog.”