Last summer, during the height of tomato season, The Jew & The Carrot blogger, Alix gave us this recipe for shakshuka.  Unless you live in Mexico, the tomatoes are nowhere near in season these days - but we can dream.  Thanks to the folks at Jewlicious for sharing their version of Shakshuka, from a bonafide Moroccan Mama.  We love the complete disregard for measurments and clear instructions this recipe has.  We also love the mere thought of perfect, ripe tomatoes - this receipe has us drooling for summer already…

Recipe for Jewlicious Shakshuka below the jump…

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Thanks to Maria Russakoff for this guest post, originally printed in the Arizona Jewish Post.  It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything about Hazon’s Food Conference or the controversial goat schecting, but this piece is worth sharing. 

The handwritten sign over the shiny percolator reads: “Chai tea - made lovingly with raw goat and cow milk, brewster honey, sadeh hot peppers, blackstrap molasses, black tea and ginger.” I haven’t the faintest idea where brewster honey comes from or what makes hot peppers “sadeh,” but I know from the first sip that I have come to a place that will nurture my stomach, mind and soul for the next three days. I breathe a contented sigh of relief, happy to have made it in one piece from sunny Arizona to the Connecticut Berkshires in the dead of winter, happy to be back at the Hazon Jewish Food Conference in its second year.

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The Jew & The Carrot blogger, Jeff Yoskowitz, has been on hiatus from the blog for a little while - but he has a darn good excuse.  He is currently living on a kibbutz in Israel.  On the one hand, like many kibbutzim, internet access is spotty so posting frequently is a challenge.  But Jeff’s situation is a little different.  Jeff is currently researching the (painfully ironic) pork industry in Israel.  His kibbutz happens to house an industrial pork feed-lot, which means he’s spending most of his time hanging out with animals he’d never personally eat.

The little bit of time Jeff’s not researching pigs, he’s logging in his experience at his personal blog The Wet Sprocket.  And while we understand his need to prioritize his web time, his stories are just too interesting not to share.  To find out more about Jeff’s extraordinary daily experiences check out his blog, and read a few key (and quite graphic) excerpts below: 

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Thanks to Rhea Kennedy of the You are Delicious blog, for this guest post.

When I was a kid, my parents gave me weird food for lunch and packed it in weird ways. God bless them, they sent me off into the world with chunks of tempeh, entire raw portabellas, dark whole-grain bread with thick pieces of cheese inside. These treats were invariably wrapped in waxed paper, which my mother had deemed better for you than plastic baggies or packaging from a factory. As soon as I was old enough to notice this was different from the other kids’ cold cut sandwiches in neat Ziploc bags and individually-wrapped string cheeses, I became mortified.

Around the same time, I started attending Hebrew school in the evenings – something I approached mostly with dedication, although I occasionally dragged my feet about going. After all, it wasn’t the Christian kids’ religion class (which we all just referred to as Religion) that got them out of school early once a week. To me, those who went to Religion sat in the soft cloak of normalcy—and I didn’t.

Fast forward a few years.  I now follow Jewish tradition with pleasure and am a zealous whole foods foodie. Although eating and religious study practices may be hard to take for an image-conscious little kid, I now understand eating whole foods, keeping kosher, saying brachot and other thoughtful ways of approaching food are central to my life.  Indeed, I’d argue that observing these traditions - in combination - is rather revolutionary.

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Thanks to our friends at the amazing new Israeli environmental blog, Green Prophet for this guest post.  Tu Bishvat may have been yesterday, but Hazon’s seder is tonight, so we’re still in a celebratory mood.  Hag Sameach!

Although Israel has grown into a modern post-industrial economy, the country still has strong agrarian roots, most famously, the agricultural socialist community of the kibbutz.

So it’s no surprise that the relatively minor Jewish festival of Tu Bishvat, which starts tonight, has been growing in importance. In recent years Tu Bishvat, the New Year of the Trees, has taken on a more ecological significance and represents an opportunity to reflect on one of today’s key environmental questions – the impact of what we eat on our environment.

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Thanks to Rhea Kennedy of the You are Delicious blog, for this guest post and two delicious recipes. 

As yet another plate of lamb careened toward the table, the scene at my boyfriend’s aunt and uncle’s Shanghainese house started to feel very familiar.  I’d already discovered that latke-like potato cakes are a staple street food in Shanghai.  Now, as my boyfriend’s aunt’s chopsticks moved from serving plate to individual bowls, clunking down pieces of meat in front of the people she’d decided should eat them, I realized that eating Chinese food on Christmas is not the only thing that bonds Jewish folks with our friends in the Far East.

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Thanks to Carly for this guest post. Carly is developing a program called “Seder for all Seasons,” which expands upon the traditional seder format for broader use throughout the year. Find out more on Carly’s website Peeling a Pomegranate.

Food has always played a large part in my life and in my understanding of Judaism. I’ve joked for years that the religion of my family is food and how we used to have to talk my dad out of going for pancakes on the way to Yom Kippur morning services. But, so many of my happy memories of my family and Judaism also revolve around food. Passover was always a huge thing in my house growing up. It was like Thanksgiving, just more organized. I have great memories of summer and lobster and clambakes with lots of fresh New England salt marsh corn! Yes, I’m aware that shellfish isn’t kosher, but I assure my family didn’t mind. Every holiday had some food association for me, as it does for so many people. It’s an easy way to connect to your family’s traditions.

But, my relationship with food hasn’t always been healthy. I was a very heavy child. I learned young that ice cream was “medicinal” and so we ate a lot of it. I actually didn’t understand what medicinal meant for years, I just thought it was an excuse to eat ice cream. Heart disease and type II diabetes runs rampant in parts of my family because of our love of food. I struggled with binge eating and body dismorphia problems through college, and still have the occasional relapse.

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*Thanks to Michael Croland of Heeb N’ Vegan for this guest post.

In 2007, we witnessed the very beginnings of a revolution in the way farmed animals are treated. Thanks to a series of major announcements this year, the cruel confinement typical of factory-farming is, in several cases, on its way out.

In January, Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pig-meat producer, announced that it is phasing out gestation crates—which prevent pregnant sows from turning around—within 10 years. The announcement has already had a ripple effect in the pork industry, as Maple Leaf Foods (Canada’s leading pork producer) announced shortly afterward that it would phase out gestation crates and Cargill Foods said that it has stopped using gestation crates in half of its pig factory farms.

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The personal responses to last Friday’s goat schecting were varied and intense. Thanks to Joti Levy for sharing her reflections in this guest post.

Friday morning I woke at my regular 6 am. The difference was that everyone else in the house also woke up, and more people were gathering. It felt like the cozy feeling of going on a road trip with people you love, except the road trip was down the block to the sadeh (field) to slaughter the goats.

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Thanks to Andrew Kastner for this powerful guest post on his decision to train to be a shochet, a Jewish ritual slaughterer. It’s easy to talk in the abstract about getting in touch with one’s food, but significantly more difficult to actually take the responsibility of doing so into our own hands….

Earlier this year, I began training to be a shochet, a Jewish ritual slaughterer. As a rabbinical student who is passionate about culinary traditions, I felt that I was profoundly disconnected from the source of my food. Influenced by Maimondes’ dictum, which states, “Anyone who desires to eat meat must take the responsibility to procure it”, I felt that the challenge, though daunting, could help me relate to my food and the source of life in a more meaningful way.

After weeks of studying Jewish legal codes relating to schitah, the rabbi informed our small group that he would be bringing a few chickens to our next class. Later that week when we met, the rabbi opened the cardboard box holding three young birds.

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Thanks to Rabbi Ian Pear (Rabbi of the Shir Hadash community in Israel) for this guest post. It’s funny how things come in twos and threes - Rabbi Pear’s post picks up on the theme of simcha and meat that Avi included in his most recent post about Chef Frankel.

Cross-posted from (Joyous Judaism)

For vegetarians, one Talmudic phrase is particularly bothersome: “There is no simcha (joy) without meat and wine.” The customary way to deal with this dictum — that is, if one is a vegetarian — is to argue that the Talmud was speaking subjectively not objectively — i.e., it did not believe meat and wine were objectively the only means by which simcha could be achieved, but rather the most likely catalyst for the majority of people. Or to put it another way: If one genuinely feels simcha by eating meat and drinking wine, then such a person certainly should not refrain from doing so when mandated to celebrate life — like at a wedding, brit mila, Shabbat meal, etc.. He must enjoy himself! A puritanical asceticism is not permitted; the simcha requires meat and wine. On the other hand, if a person does not feel simcha by eating meat and wine, then he is certainly not obligated to do so, but rather must find an alternative source of joy and pursue that course instead.

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Thanks to Hazon’s friend, Lindsey Paige Savoie, for this guest post.

I eat meat. When I first said those three little words to Sabrina, her response was, ‘whoa.’ She didn’t gasp because I eat meat. She could hear the fear in my voice when I said it. Why should I be ashamed to eat meat?

I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska – land of cows. We ate meat daily. Friday night was especially noteworthy as we gathered at my grandparents for the rarest of all meats. I don’t mean hard to find. I mean purple, raw, rare. Now I know why my dad preferred the end cuts.

Summer camp and youth group conventions opened my eyes to new ideas including the notion of becoming a vegetarian. I went through a teenage phase (as my parents called it) of not eating meat or fish. After a few years, I slowly and at times secretly went back to eating meat.

Years later, I still struggle with how, when and where to eat meat. Due to my work in Jewish environmental education and my petsitting business, eating meat is a challenge both socially and mentally. How do I preach environmental values and eat a hamburger? How do I care for animals on a daily basis and then prepare a different type of animal for dinner?

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Thanks to The Jew & The Carrot friend, Robbie Friedman, for this guest post.

Rectangular pizza, sloppy joes and canned corn — classic components of a school lunch. Many of our schools still spoon out such unwholesome foods, yet a growing number of them are turning the greasy corner.

Since New England born physicist Benjamin Thompson founded the Poor People’s Institute in Munich, Germany in the late 1700’s, providing daily staples such as potato soup, barley and peas to children during the course of their studies, our social institutions have constantly “sought to develop meals which would provide the best nutrition at the lowest possible cost.”

This approach has undoubtedly fed countless mouths, but it has also led to the deterioration of food quality. Today the struggle to nourish our children persists, due in part to school systems’ ailing budgets, parents pressed for time and our own lack of nutritional knowledge. However, a failure to deliver a wholesome source of vitamins, minerals, proteins and healthy fats to our children’s plates is a detriment to their development. People, including Jews, are beginning to take the matter into their own soiled hands.

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(Thanks to our friend at Gluten Free Bay for this guest post.)

Holidays are a challenging time to deal with food allergies and intolerances. For those of us who are Jewish, they are a time when we worry that we won’t be able to eat at our friends’ and families’ holiday tables, and that we will have to forego the traditional Jewish delicacies we grew up with.

Fortunately, people with gluten intolerance or celiac disease have more options than ever. Recipes abound, and with creative modification almost any recipe can be made gluten-free. I have posted a round-up of gluten-free ideas for Rosh Hashanah menus, including my honey cake (pictured at left).

I’ve done my best to represent a culturally-diverse wide range of recipes for meat eaters, vegetarians and vegans alike - all totally gluten-free. This is a useful tool for people who are gluten-free as well as anyone hosting an individual who is gluten intolerant at their holiday table.

Shana tovah!