Thanks to Alyssa Finn for this guest post. Alyssa is getting her Masters degree in Clinical Nutrition at NYU and is a Hazon volunteer on the New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride Exec.

Yesterday, I came home after a long bike ride in the New York sunshine. On my plate for the evening was a pile of reading in preparation for my chemistry exam the next day. I stared at the pile of books and papers. I looked longingly at my kitchen, the primary source of my procrastination.

Then I remembered: horseradish!

Read more »

Thanks to Michael Green of the eco-Israeli blog, Green Prophet for this guest post and his take on the debate over genetically modified foods in Israel.

A headline in the Israeli press last week went a little like this: “Scientists, activists debate if genetically modified foods are panacea or plague.”

Sounds great, but where exactly is the ‘debate’? The article in question reads more like a press release for the GM lobby: ”Distribution of new, genetically engineered crops can help solve world hunger, but the question is where they are used,” said Hebrew University professor Ayal Kimhi.  Absent from the 551-word article is the voice of GM-sceptics.

In fact, according to the trusted scientists, it is those who dare to question the merits of a risky and untested technology who are standing in the way of ‘progress’:

Read more »

Last month, right before Passover, David Elcott ripped up his lawn. This White Plains-based author/lecturer was out to prove - to himself as much as others - that you do not need years of experience to grow your own food. All you need is a desire to eat great food and a piece of fertile ground - like your lawn (or nearby community garden for city dwellers). Partnering with the COEJL blog, To Till & To Tend, we’re excited to bring you David’s first hand accounts, frustrations, and victories from the “front lines” of his lawn farm.

Operation Lawn Farm: Part 1

I was going crazy today. Tech problems with my printer took hours. Nothing accomplished. A lousy conference call committee meeting. Exhausted. At five in the evening, I took the world into grip and, like Superman, ripped off my work clothes, put on my dirty sweats and headed out to the farm.

Read more »

Thanks to Liore Milgorm-Elcott at COEJL’s blog, To Till & To Tend for this guest post.

Last night I stayed up much past my goal bedtime because I was gardening. You may be asking yourself: “who gardens at midnight?” The simple answer which, admittedly, leads to more questions is: someone who lives in a 3rd floor NYC apartment. How does one garden in a NYC studio apartment? Instead of a shovel I use a large spoon, instead of lush gardens that flow into each other I have potted plants (in pots beautifully and lovingly made by my father), instead of a compost pile I have a mini bag of soil…. I think you get the point.

So there I was, past midnight, my fingers deep in soil and dirt all over the floor; throughout, an incredibly satisfied smile was planted on my face (sorry that I don’t have a picture for you).

Read more »

How does a farmer celebrate Passover? For California-based farmer Emily Freed, the seders offered the chance to celebrate both the Exodus from Mitzrayim and also the first glorious tastes of spring. Check out her beautiful photo journal below the jump.

Freed’s journey from began with her transportation of chametz to a friend’s house around the corner - by bicycle of course!

Read more »

Thanks to Yigal Deutscher for this guest post.

We have just begun the Sefirat HaOmer, counting off the direct correlation between Pesach & Shavuot, two celebrations separated by a string 50 days long. These are two moments in time, interwoven, yet at polar opposites. On Day 1, we have left bread behind, as Chametz. On Day 50, we are elevating bread as an offering in the Holy Temple, a sacrifice unique to the day of Shavuot. A serious transformation has just taken place.

The link between our starting point and our destination goal is food, bread in particular. This corridor of time marks the counting of grain ripening…from the start of the barley harvest to the start of the wheat harvest.

Read more »

Thanks to Hazon’s own Barbara Lerman-Golomb for her environmental reflections and meditations on Passover!

Passover is a natural time to take an “environmental inventory” of the chametz in our world and to be mindful of the simple lives our ancestors led in the desert in their pursuit of freedom. Chametz is the Hebrew term for any of the five basic biblical grains which traditionally observant Jews remove from their homes. These include wheat, rye, oats, barley, and spelt—that have been mixed with water and allowed to ferment. Eastern European Jews also consider chametz to include a variety of beans, peas, rice, corn, peanuts, and other foods which could be ground and made into flour or bread.

When our ancestors were dwelling in the desert, they had no choice but to live simply. In our day, simplicity has come to mean conservation, not using more than you need, and not being wasteful. Jewish law prohibits wasteful consumption. When we waste resources, we are violating the law of bal tashchit—Do not destroy. (Deuteronomy 20: 19-20).

Read more »

Our good friend Chris P. Carrot (a.k.a. Michael Croland of Heeb n’ Vegan) had a fabulous Purim, shaking his grogger.  Did anyone else celebrate in a food-themed costume?

Thanks to Elena Sigman for this guest post.

My Tante Toni (may her memory be a sweet blessing) made a dish for Purim, called noun, which I haven’t seen since the 70s. It was my favorite treat at her house: a plate of sweet, sticky pieces of noun cut in the shape of diamonds about one-and-a-half inches long. I guessed it was made of honey and chopped nuts and dates, but I was never sure of the recipe. It was dark brown and chewy and even though it was super-sweet it was also somehow tangy. The plate was passed around the table at the end of our Purim seudah, and it was quickly finished. The batches were never big.

Tante Toni had blue eyes that were two different colors because one was hers and the other was glass. The glass eye was bluer and bigger and her real eye was smaller and more hazel. At home in the evening, she wore a hairnet in order to preserve her coiffure from erev Shabbos, after she came home from the beauty parlor, until the next Friday morning when she’d get her hair done again. She was a smart, compact woman, barely taller than my child self, but she walked with a spine so straight no runway model could match it. She never tried to make chit chat with me. When I was a kid I would occasionally sleep over at her apartment on Friday night. After dinner she read the B’nai Brith Messenger cover to cover in her high-backed chair, and I read my book (Agatha Christie mysteries one year, Pearl S. Buck novels the next) on the couch until the Shabbos clock clicked off the light.

Read more »

On Monday, Chef Gil Marks offered us a delicious array of recipes to fill your shalach manot basket with freshly-baked treats (hamentaschen, of course, but also baklava, almond horns, pecan tassies and even fortune cookies!) Now, he’s back with even more ways to surprise your friends on Purim with creative, DIY shalach manot.

Chef Marks is the author of The James Beard Award-winning, Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World, and the upcoming Encyclopedia of Jewish Food - Next week, Chef Marks will be back with a menu for a Purim Persian Feast!

Themed Gifts:
Besides giving baked goods and confections, theme baskets provide an outlet for your ingenuity.

Try an Italian motif with an assortment of pastas, homemade tomato sauce, pesto, balsamic vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes, salami, Italian bread or focaccia, biscotti, and a bottle of Italian wine.

For a sushi basket (most of these items can be found in health food stores) include some homemade sushi, short-grain rice, nori (seaweed sheets), rice vinegar, tamari, mirin (sweet rice wine), homemade pickled ginger, wasabi (Japanese horseradish), salmon caviar, dashi (soup stock), sake, and Japanese tea and enclose instructions on how to use everything.

For an English effect use scones, an assortment of marmalades or jams, Cheddar cheese, rice pudding, pound cake, shortbread cookies, English ales and beers, and an array of teas.

After you have gone to the trouble of making and/or purchasing special items for shalachmones, it seems only appropriate to put them into something special…

Read more »

Thanks to Chef Gil Marks for this wealth of resources and recipes that will brighten up your Shalach Manot basket. Chef Marks is the author of The James Beard Award-winning Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World, and the upcoming Encyclopedia of Jewish Food - Keep your eye out for more of his Purim ideas and recipes!

Sophisticated Shalach Manot - Recipes

The Megillah declared “… they should make them days of feasting and gladness, of sending portions (mi’sholach manot) one to another and gifts to the poor.” The obligation of shalachmones entails sending gifts of at least two ready-to-eat foods to at least two people. The most common Purim foods are sweets, a symbolic way to wish for a “good lot” or, in other words, a sweet future. It is for good reason that Moslems refer to Purim as Id-al-Sukkar (The Sugar Holiday).

Shalachmones has become a bit commercial lately, many baskets containing the same assortment of bags of snack foods, chemically-laden cakes and cookies, and candy bars. While store-bought foods certainly fulfill the letter of the law, they lack something in the spirit. Homemade goodies show special care and thought and they generally taste better. Granted, many people are simply too busy to prepare their own shalachmones, and they should not feel guilty. If you have the time and desire, prepare any or all of the following impressive treats:

Hamantaschen, Pecan Tassies, Individual Baklava, Leaf Cookies, Fortune Cookies, Flower Spritzes, Almonds Horns, Lemon Halos, Spice Sandwiches, Sarah Bernhardts, Chocolate Bells

Recipes below the jump and Purchase Gil’s cookbook, Olive Trees and Honey here.

Read more »

Thanks to Michael of Green Prophet for this guest post. While the concept of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) is firmly established in the United States, it hasn’t really taken off in Israel. Still, the farmer-consumer relationship that a CSA offers is beginning to percolate in Israeli consciousness. Find out more below…

Read more »

Thanks to Jonathan Bloom for this series of photos. Jonathan is writing a book on wasted food in America. He became interested in the topic after a day volunteering at D.C. Central Kitchen. Seeing the truckloads of rescued food that would otherwise have gone to landfills made him wonder how much edible food does slip through the cracks.

As a journalist, Bloom set out to learn why and how Americans waste more than 40% of the food produced for consumption. He started a blog dedicated to the topic and worked at a grocery store, farm and catering company to better understand the problem.

The photos below depict the incredible amount of food wasted in America, and also some hopeful examples of food recovery.

Read more »

The Jew & The Carrot {hearts} Aitan and Adva Dairy. Thanks to Nextbook for producing a wonderful podcast and feature one of our favorite Jewish goat farmers - yes, there’s more than one!

“Goat Days”
Nextbook 2.25.08
By: Jesse Graham
(Listen to the podcast)

There’s a growing movement among environmentally conscious observant Jews to rethink kashrut. Its adherents place less emphasis on the official kosher stamp, and more on where their food comes from. They want locally and organically grown produce, and if they are meat-eaters, they want to know that the meat they’re eating comes from farms that treat animals humanely.

One devotee of this movement is an unassuming thirty-year-old named Aitan Mizrachi, founder of the AVDA Dairy, a small-scale goat dairy farm in northwestern Connecticut that produces organic, kosher raw milk yogurt and cheeses.

Read more »