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.
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:
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.
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.).
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…
“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):
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:
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.
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 (!):
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.”
I still remember the first time my suburban food-bubble was burst, when I realized the implications of fruit sold according to season. I was in Israel, and became completely dumbfounded when I couldn’t find the strawberries…”whaddya mean you don’t sell them in the winter?!?”
Of course, as my sister recently reminded me, even junk food lovers know the comforting seasonal rhythms of Cadbury Creme eggs in late winter (they’re only sold from Jan 1-Easter Sunday), Peeps in the spring, and, of course, Mallomars in the late fall.
Ah, Mallomars…If Proust had grown up in New York, he would have traded in his madeleine for a Mallomar. Respectable journalists have sung its praises to the heavens, this perfect confection, only available during the dark, baseball-less months of November through March, so delicate is its thin outer layer of chocolate, that it can’t survive the trip from factory to store in the heat of spring or summer. And what could be more Jewish than a cookie that comes eighteen to a box, 70% of which are consumed by New Yorkers?
The only cookie that comes close is its Israeli cousin, the Krembo. Similar in construction and seasonal availability, writers also wax rhapsodic about krembo season. Plus, according to its wikipedia entry:
