When I ask patients what they put in their coffee, they almost always say “cream.”  So I say, “Like from a cow?”  And they usually say no.

What do they mean by “cream” then?  They mean coffee whiteners.   “Cremora Rich ‘n Creamy!”, “Coffee-mate Lite The  Original,” “International Delights Coffee House Interpretations Vanilla Latte,” “Spoon ‘N’ Stir Non-Dairy Creamer,” and so on.  They mean corn syrup solids and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.  Translation?  Sugar and trans fat.  Some of my patients even have a favorite flavor, now that the folks who make and market coffee whiteners have identified and exploited the consumer’s insatiable desire for variety.

Coffee whiteners are everywhere.  They’re at the office, at meetings, at the workshop I attended last week, and at parties given by folks otherwise committed to fresh food, backyard gardens, and the like.  Like some kind of stealth bomber, they slip in under everybody’s radar.  Coffee whiteners are Trojan horses filled with diabetes, obesity, heart attacks, and strokes.

A visit to my neighborhood supermarket reveals a few interesting facts about coffee whiteners, also known as non-dairy creamers.  In and of themselves, they are a study in advertising spin.  First, although they contain no milk sugar (lactose), they are NOT non-dairy; virtually all of them contain a milk derivative called sodium caseinate.  People who are allergic to milk protein cannot consume them.  That is why the Orthodox Union classifies them as dairy for those consumers, Jewish and otherwise, who purchase kosher food.  And that’s just the beginning.

Coffee whiteners, a very successful form of fabricated calories, are advertised as containing zero trans fats even though they actually contain almost 1/2 gram per serving.  That’s because, according to the law, products containing up to 1/2 gram may be advertised as trans-fat free.  But a teaspoon of powder isn’t very much.  If you use more, whether in one cup of coffee, tea or cocoa (as recommended on the label), or several cups, you get more trans fat.  And even small amounts of trans fat cause damage to blood vessels, increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, and interfere with fat storage, cholesterol synthesis, and fertility.  There is no amount of trans fat that is safe to consume. 

Okay, so if you use more than the recommended serving size, you’ll get more trans fat.  That’s obvious.  What of it?  Well, I’m having a hard time with the fact that the advertising on packages of coffee whitener actually encourages people to use more than a single teaspoon (powder) or tablespoon (liquid) serving size:  “Pour in a teaspoon or more of Cremora.”  “Savor the rich flavor and smooth creaminess of Cremora, cup after creamy cup.”  “Scoop or pour…”

Remembering that the more manufactured the product, the more creative the names, let’s take a look at the coffee whitener flavors: Coffee-Mate makes liquid versions in French Vanilla (blue), Hazelnut (yellow), Peppermint Mocha (light blue), Vanilla Caramel (orange), and Italian Sweet Creme (purple), this last one part of their special “World Cafe” line.  Linking each flavor to a particular color spectrum improves identification, selection, and loyalty.  International Delight makes French Vanilla (blue), Hazelnut (orange), Hershey’s Chocolate Caramel (brown), Amaretto (pink), Irish Creme (green), White Chocolate Mocha (purple), Caramel Macchiato (light brown), and Vanilla Latte (turquoise), the last three from their “Coffee House Inspirations” (silver) line. 

Coffee-Mate liquid French Vanilla comes in regular, sugar-free, and fat-free versions.  I can’t figure out how it is that all of these list the same first three ingredients (water, corn syrup solids, and partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil) in the same order.  But they do.

International Delights also makes a product called Sweet Buttercream, advertised as Limited Edition, whatever that is.  Sweet Buttercream features a thickly iced cupcake in hues of tan, gold and ivory.  I figured since it had the word “buttercream,” there must be some butter, or maybe cream, in the ingredient list, but I just found the usual — corn syrup solids and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, i.e., sugar and trans fat.

So what should you do?  Don’t use coffee whiteners.  Put cream (from a cow!), half-and-half, or milk in your coffee.  You will not gain one single pound.  Substitute soy, rice, coconut, or almond milk if you are intolerant of dairy, and stick to the original without added sugar and flavorings.  Or drink your coffee black.  Don’t use “fat-free half-and-half.”  I’m still trying to figure out what that even means. 
 
Don’t buy anything with the words “partially-hydrogenated” in its ingredient list.  “Partially-hydrogenated” means trans fats, and there is no place for trans fats in the diets of your loved ones, friends, or coworkers.  We will not build healthy communities with coffee whitener.

Birthright trips are a wonderful opportunity for 18- to 26-year-olds to travel to Israel for free. I sometimes receive e-mails from vegetarians and vegans who are going on Birthright trips and came across my old posts on heebnvegan via a Google search. Here is a compilation of the tips I give them.

Food Advice

• First and foremost, you should communicate with your trip organizers in advance to let them know about your dietary restrictions or food allergies. You should also let your trip’s staff know when you meet them on the first day.
• More often than not, you won’t have any trouble as a vegetarian or vegan. Still, I recommend taking some protein bars (sealed and unwrapped) with you just to be safe; double-check the rules for bringing food into a foreign country before heeding my advice. Meals on my trip varied greatly: Sometimes we had lavish buffets at fancy hotels, and sometimes we had a half-hour to grab falafel (or shwarma, for the meat-eaters) while walking through a village. But in addition to finding the best falafel and hummus you’ve ever had, you’ll find a lot of fresh veggies and creative salads at many of the meals. I also wound up having a lot of figs and other fresh fruit, nuts, potatoes, and couscous. All in all, it was likely a healthier diet than the mock-meat-centered diet I was eating in the U.S. at the time.
• Almost everyone speaks English, but it’s conceivable that there’d be some places you go to where you’d have to special-order and the people wouldn’t speak great English. Ask the trip staff for assistance in these situations.
• Most of the accouterments for falafel in a pita (or a laffa, which is another bread option), including tehini sauce (sesame-based), are vegan. Tzadiki sauce has dairy, and you should ask for your falafel without tzadiki. This is an easy accommodation.
• Vegetarian schnitzel (cutlet) is a popular alternative to chicken schnitzel. Think of it as though you were getting a veggie burger in a restaurant in the US. It might have some egg or dairy ingredients you don’t know about, but whether you eat it anyway depends on how strict a vegan you are.
• Shakshouka is a popular vegetarian dish, but it has a whole egg in it and isn’t vegan.
• The presence of meat might mean that some dishes are vegan! I realize that this is counter-intuitive for those who aren’t familiar with kashrut (the noun form of “kosher”). If you go to an all-kosher restaurant or are looking at packaged foods marked kosher, there are three categories: dairy, meat, and pareve. Meat and dairy cannot be mixed together (in individual dishes or even in the same meal) in kosher facilities, so if you know that a restaurant is certified kosher and that meat is present, the mashed potatoes are definitely dairy-free. (“Pareve” means no dairy or meat with regard to kashrut, but pareve foods might include eggs or fish, so “pareve” does not necessarily mean vegan.)

Miscellaneous Advice

• Some trips include camel rides. If you have an ethical objection to supporting a touristy business that likely overworks camels even in extreme heat, tell your trip staff up-front that you plan to avoid this activity.
• You’re allowed to bring two bags (not including a carry-on bag) with you. Find a way to bring only one. You don’t want to be schlepping two around with you the whole time.
• On my trip, we arrived in Israel in the early morning (Israeli time) and had a full day of activity, and then a lot of us wanted to stay up at night for social reasons. I got one hour of sleep on the plane because I was excited, which meant that I was quite exhausted on Day 1 (and that exhaustion stayed with me for the rest of the trip). One woman sitting near me on the plane took an over-the-counter sleeping pill and slept through the entire flight, and she was raring to go. I normally avoid pills whenever possible, but I think she had the right idea. Use the flight to Israel to sleep, because the rest of the 10-day trip is push push push and you’ll regret not sleeping on the plane.

Deciding Whether to Eat Kitniyot on Passover
I am an Ashkenazi Jew, and until my first Passover as a vegetarian at age 16, I followed the Ashkenazi tradition of avoiding kitniyot (including rice, corn, beans, lentils, peas, string beans, and seeds) on Passover. When I went vegetarian, I reasoned that kitniyot were a key source of protein and I’d be better off following Sephardic guidelines, which permit kitniyot. I wasn’t particularly observant, and frankly, I didn’t care about the Ashkenazi-Sephardic divide.

As the years went by, I realized that my willingness to eat kitniyot despite being Ashkenazi wasn’t so far-fetched. In 1989, a ruling by the Israeli Conservative movement said that all Israelis could eat kitniyot on Passover “without fear of transgressing any prohibition.” In 1997, Rabbi David Golinkin (representing the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel) issued a ruling supporting the elimination of the Ashkenazi custom of avoiding kitniyot on Passover. Several years ago, Rabbi David Bar-Hayim of Jerusalem formally lifted a ban on kitniyot in Israel. While there isn’t unanimity in Israel, the Forward reported a year ago, “According to some experts on changes in religious law, we are witnessing the beginning of the end for the ban on kitniyot in Israel.”

I concede that I am Ashkenazi, not Sephardic, and that I live in the U.S., not Israel. I concede that I have no rabbinic or other authority to tell people how to act on this issue. Nevertheless, I am utterly comfortable eating kitniyot on Passover and I encourage other Ashkenazi Jews, particularly vegetarians and vegans, to look into the matter for themselves.

For the last couple of years, I have run into numerous obstacles in trying to find a definitive standard for Sephardic kosher-for-Passover guidelines in the U.S. Long story short, I am under the impression that the Jersey Shore Orthodox Rabbinate (JSOR) offers the definitive guidelines for Sephardic/Mizrachi Jews who eat kitniyot on Passover. There appears to be no other similar document by any leading kashrut certification organization or general Sephardic community.

JSOR Guidelines
I will do my best to give an overview of JSOR’s “2010 Recommended Passover Product List for Sephardic Communities,” but I encourage people to rely on the primary source, not my summary. These guidelines are intended for 2010 only, as JSOR issues updates each year. JSOR explains its position as follows:

Since Sephardic Jews have different customs and traditional foods than our Ashkenaz brothers, this list is designed to serve those whose custom includes the consumption of Kitniyot, or legumes on the holiday. Since the majority of Jews in America are of Ashkenaz descent, the major Kashrut organizations only certify those items that are permissible for them. We have included those items, and as well have listed those foods that are permissible without special Kosher for Passover (KFP) symbols. . . .

[Hametz are any] any foods or food products, which contain ingredients, derived from one of the following fermented cereal grains: wheat, barley, oats, spelt or rye are forbidden on Passover. Even foods that contain minute amounts of [hametz], or foods which are processed on utensils which are used for other [hametz]-containing foods, are not permissible for Passover use. Many Sephardim have the custom of eating different legumes or kitniyot and foods that are derived from them. Even in the Syrian community, there are differences in customs as to which legumes are used.

The idea here is that even if it’s OK to eat beans, you can’t eat a processed-soy veggie burger. Some products are fine in their raw, unadulterated elements but not when they’re enriched with hametz. The following are some of the guidelines to navigate through the nuances of kitniyot:

• Cereal: Cold cereals like cornflakes and Rice Krispies have malt added to them and are therefore hametz. JSOR adds, “We strongly suggest that even those cereals in which the listed ingredients are 100% kosher for Passover, should not be used as they are in constant contact with grains that are real [hametz].” Look for a kosher-for-Passover hechsher.
• Milk Alternatives: For soy milk, the only acceptable varieties are Soy Dream Brand Original Unenriched Soy Milk, Vitasoy Brand Sansui Original Natural Soymilk, and Zendon Soy Plain (not enriched). For rice milk, the original plain variety is acceptable for Nature’s Place, Nature’s Promise, RicePure, Shoprite, Wild Harvest, and Wild Oats brands. For almond milk, only Blue Diamond brand Almond Breeze is permitted (although almonds in their unadulterated form are acceptable even for Ashkenazi Jews). The JSOR guidelines include recipes for homemade rice and almond milks.
• Oil: Pure corn, soybean, canola, or vegetable oils are acceptable so long as they do not include citric acid.
• Rice: For white rice, any unenriched or organic rice is fine; the only acceptable types of enriched white rice are the Carolina, Goya, Mahatma, Publix, River, Riceland, Blue Diamond, WaterMaid, Success, Carolina Gold (parboiled), and Uncle Ben’s brands. For brown rice, any brand without additives is acceptable. For Basmati rice, Deer brand or any unenriched variety is OK. JSOR says that any kind of pure wild rice is acceptable and that it is from the grass family “and not a legume at all.”
• Seeds: Flax and hemp seeds are explicitly permitted.
• Soy Foods: JSOR says that “while actual soybeans are permissible for most Sephardim, products made of soy, such as soy sauce, TVP and tofu, are forbidden. These products are made through extraction methods that use grain alcohol in the processing of the soybeans.”

Tips for Vegetarians (and Meat-Eaters) Regardless of Whether They Eat Kitniyot

• If you’re going to a seder where you expect to be the only vegetarian or vegan there, talk to the host in advance and offer to bring a vegan dish with you. You’ll guarantee that you’ll have enough to eat, and you’ll also get to expose people to meat-free eating.
• Consider using quinoa instead of other grains on Passover. According to the Orthodox Union, “Quinoa is not one of the five grains that can create chametz (wheat, oat, barley, spelt and rye). Nonetheless, there is a difference of opinion among Rabbinic decisors (machloketh haposkim) as to whether quinoa is considered kitniyoth (Ashkenazic custom is not to eat kitniyoth on Pesach). We suggest asking your local Orthodox Rabbi if it is or is not kitniyot.”
• Nuts are an indisputable source of plant protein on Passover. Check out Zel Allen’s heebnvegan guest post about nut-based cuisine. There’s so much more you can do with nuts than just eating a handful of them, throwing them in a salad, or eating leftover charoset.
• Take the opportunity to embrace raw foods. Click here to read Robin Silberman’s 2009 heebnvegan guest post, “Passover From a Living Foods Perspective.”
• Read Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s 2007 heebnvegan guest post, “Cooking Up a Vegan Passover.”
• Read Jenny Goldberg’s 2008 heebnvegan guest post, “Vegan Passover Guide for Hungry Jews.”
• Get a copy of Deborah Wasserman’s No Cholesterol Passover Recipes or Roberta Kalechofsky’s The Vegetarian Pesach Cookbook.
• Click here to read vegan Passover recipes from PETA and here to read vegetarian Passover recipes from Jewish Vegetarians of North America.

Cross-posted to heebnvegan

(Cross-posted at Mixed Multitudes)

When Passover approaches, it seems like everyone in the Jewish community goes a little bit (or more than a little bit) crazy. You start hearing about people going through every page of every book in their house, trying to eliminate miniscule crumbs. Kosher stores are clogged with families inspecting the new Passover friendly products, and elaborate Passover recipes are getting passed around, each of which seems to call for potato starch, and 7 egg yolks.

If you don’t have an endless supply of time and money to buy and cook for Passover, then let me give you my foolproof Passover food tip:

Chill out, and go as simple as possible. You do not need a kitchen full of new supplies, a full slew of kosher for Passover spices, or a new cookbook to get you through the week of Passover. In fact, you need the opposite. Strip it all down to the bare minimum.

Think of the week of Passover almost like a camping trip. You have to plan ahead of time for what you’ll need, and you want to bring things that are relatively easy to make, and that you’ll like eating.

Roasted vegetables are your friends. So is roasted chicken, and fish cooked with lemon, garlic, and olive oil. Meat and potatoes are kosher for Passover without any special preparation. Omelets are delicious and easy to make.

Don’t make yourself crazy over preparations for this holiday. Instead, relax, shop the produce section, and make the simplest meals, with the cleanest flavors. Remember, it’s the feast of freedom. If you’re feeling chained to a box of matzah meal, you’re doing it wrong.

I’m fascinated when tradition gets tested by modern science and comes out standing.  I’d cheered when acupuncture was shown to be effective for chronic pain.  Now, I’ve learned that America’s Test Kitchen, which publishes Cook’s Illustrated, has subjected challah to its test kitchen experimentation.  The results: pretty much what you’d learned from your mother and grandmother (or would, if you had one).

The best tasting challah is not too sweet, not too dense, not too fluffy and not from the commercial bakeries.  Their results, from the Holiday Baking 2009 issue, included:

3-3-1/4 c unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 c sugar

2-1/4 tsp instant yeast

1-1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk

4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted  *

1/2 c plus 1 tbsp warm water

1 large egg white (for wash)

1 tsp poppy or sesame seed (optional)

* For the kosher bakers: they also tested oil and found that it did not add much flavor.  But, you already knew that.

This yields one large loaf, which is not enough for the average Jewish household in which Shabbat is observed and one would need two whole loaves for each meal.

Methods for braiding the challah were also tested and they preferred the trompe l’oeil method (which I’d discovered on my own but has abandoned) of topping a large three-braid loaf with a smaller three-braid one.

Reviewed by Hannah, who usually makes a pareve, vegan, German-style challah for Shabbat

I got an intriguing email from another member of my synagogue this week. He knew I had organized bringing a sustainable meat co-op to the shul, but was wondering what I knew about bulk dry goods in our area. Married to a vegetarian, he cooked a lot of legumes and grains, but found it hard to find them in larger packages (more than say 1-2 pounds for legumes or 10 pounds for grains). Also, prices for these staples have been rising. He floated the idea that there might be interest in the synagogue in buying these items in large quantities (say, 100 pounds at a time) from a bulk supplier, both to bring down cost and to reduce packaging. It also might provide all of us with more variety, since the risk of trying a new product would be spread among the group, and encourage us all to eat more sustainably by reducing our meat and dairy consumption.

I really like his idea (though am too swamped right now to take this on as a new project!) and it has tickled my thinking. What are other ways that synagogues and organized Jewish communities can help their members eat more cheaply and more sustainably? What about swaps of packaged goods you think you might not use (I’ll trade you a can of beans for some dried seaweed)? Or communal potlucks made up of Shabbat leftovers? I thought I would throw this one open to the Jew and Carrot community: what possibilities are there?

Photo credit: The Sierra Club’s blog “The Green Life.”

Recently, Michael Pollan linked the reduction of medical costs to the even more controversial reformation of the food industry, what he calls the elephant in the national debate about the health care crisis. While Washington dukes out the legislative challenges to securing a healthier national environment, the country’s children have already returned to another school year and the Jewish New Year is upon us. Can we really wait for all this legislation to be enacted? Not me. I’m joining others who believe that change begins at the kitchen table. This year we are going to do a family food tashlich and symbolically cast away the elephants in our own refrigerators, the habitual bad food practices of everyday life.

1) Casting away disembodied eating

We’ll be taking more family expeditions to Farmer’s Markets or the local produce section of the grocery store. We’ll be talking to the kids about how food is grown and introducing them to more farmers who make cheese, grow food and milk cows or goats. Our most recent hero is the cheese guy from Olde Oak Farm in Orono Maine. Teaching children about food’s origins will help them respect eating it. It will also signal to our kids how much we care about them. Active concern about what goes into your kids’ bodies and foods sacred relationship to the earth, teaches them that their body really is a temple. A healthy regard for the physical self reflected by parental behavior helps children establish good personal boundaries. Good personal boundaries are the foundation of healthy eating and respect for limitations.

2) Casting away processed foods

When we journey to the river’s edge this Rosh HaShannah, we’ll take a pinch of processed food. This is to establish that sound eating is a spiritual goal as well as a health one. When healthy eating is only about rules it robs nutrition of its aesthetic merits. Eating healthy expresses a love for self, other, nature, pleasure, and, by extension, that which we know as God.  While banning processed foods, we’ll be emphasizing  sugar as a spare pleasure by home-baking with whole grains, unprocessed sugars, and sweetener substitutes like agave nectar.

3) Casting away disconnection

Not only are we going to eat together we are going to prepare meals together.   Shabbat dinner is a great opportunity for this but not the only one. Even school lunches can become a fun family activity.   Cooking with kids teaches responsibility, self-reliance and collaborative thinking. Dining together promotes relatedness and non-verbal emotional synergy. Eating healthy  food together is almost countercultural, a shared family brand that can help your children stand up to the pressure of consumerist messaging.

There is no reason to wait for Washington to do something about our country’s health and food crisis. As Michael Pollan says, changed consumer patterns brought on by transformed eating patterns will send a message to congress, not to mention the food industry. Yet, I wonder. When the year heats up with everyone’s dreams, goals, beloved passions, do you think we can keep up our taslich (think cold nights in February when the kids are exhausted, the parents have work piled high and even the family pets are dragging)?   Any other thoughts about how individuals and families can bring on Michael Pollan’s food revolution in the year to come? Maybe bread baking?

Oh dear readers, the Shmethicist has been AWOL for a while.  But now I’m back and better than ever (not unlike that pea soup that was even more delicious when we reheated the leftovers!).

Dear Shmethicist,

I am currently feeding a family of four (two adults, two toddlers) on a very small food budget ($150 a week).  A couple of years ago, my husband and I were able to buy all organic dairy and produce, and free range meats and eggs.  Now, it is a rarity.  Our costs are so tight, that even at $150 a week, we only cook nice dinners on Shabbat.

We have noticed a difference in how we feel and would absolutely love to do this again. We do not have our own yard in which to garden, which I would love to do someday.  There are several farms near here, but they are not open to the public (instead, they drive their goods to the farmers markets in the large city, which is over an hour away and which we cannot afford to drive to regularly, at $20 gas for the trip and $10 parking for the day).

With the only food access regular grocery stores and the occasional (every 2-3 months) Costco trip, how do you make the best (ethically and healthy) choices?  If you can only afford 1 organic thing out of your grocery trip, should it be eggs, poultry (free range is almost always too expensive ($10 for two breasts!), we have been buying frozen Foster Farms chicken breasts from Costco), beef (we rarely eat beef because of price, and when we do it is a pot roast on sale or from Costco), milk (this we always splurge on organic, because my kids love milk), or produce?

What are some money-saving tips at the grocery store (or at home, I can cook) that would allow for more organic and ethical purchases, and healthier meals for my family?

Signed,

Hungry for Help

Dear Hungry,

Healthy, ethical, and affordable—alas, not an occasion when even the most heartfelt rendition of “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad,” will do the trick.

I’m pretty sure that Meat Loaf wasn’t kosher, organic, or healthy, actually.

Your question raises a number of shmethical dilemmas.

For one thing, as I have noted elsewhere, we should buy organic produce not merely to protect ourselves from harmful chemical exposure (that’s just the pareve icing on the cake), but to protect farm workers and their families, since they are the ones suffering most from Big Agra’s long-term love affair with toxins.

For another thing, your question about how to prioritize organic purchases suggests that there is some logical way to make such a choice.  Which there isn’t.  Because really, no one knows for sure the long-term effects of choosing organic milk versus rBGH-free, non-organic milk, versus  “conventional milk” (that last phrase being one that only makes sense if you happen to believe there is something charmingly customary about farm animals being kept in confined spaces, fed who knows what, and pumped with antibiotics and artificial hormones).

Why doesn’t anyone know about the relative long-term effects?  That, at least, is a question I can answer:  Because the folks who (nominally) regulate our food supply haven’t cared to find out.

Which means pretty much the entire state of Nevada couldn’t lay accurate odds on what your one best organic purchase (milk? eggs? meat? produce?) might be.

Nevertheless, I am the Shmethicist, and as such, am ready to tell you what to do.  Or at least to suggest some ways to make choices that will have you and your family feeling good in as many ways as possible.

Although my meat-loving lover may not want to admit it, one of the best ways to dine ethically, healthily, and cheaply is to give up meat.  Doing it now, when your kids are too young to notice, can mean a lifetime of easier food choices for them.

I realize that “give up” sounds so, well, deprivational.  But actually healthy food choices don’t always have to involve sacrifices.

Or at least, not sacrifices that you’ll regret.  Last year, I got a little freaked about the chemical exposure inherent in eating canned foods.  So my would-be carnivore and I ate our way through the larder (note to self:  should I be calling that the Crisoer?) and then stopped buying canned foods.  With legumes as our at-home dietary staple, that’s meant a lot of time in the bulk aisle, scooping up dried beans.  Which I’ve now realized are cheaper, tastier, healthier (because we control the sodium content) and (because they’re shipped at a much lighter weight than cooked beans) better for the environment.

Besides bulk bin bean-ocentric begetarianism (oops, guess I went a little boverboard on the balliteration),you should also making your dreams of future gardening come true today.  If you fashion yourself a Che Guevarberg, try some guerilla gardening. If you’re not ready to join the underground just yet, you can always spy out some unused land in your community and ask the owner if you can have permission to turn it into a food plot; offering to share your bounty may sweeten the deal.  But if you, like your dear Shmethicist, have a chronically brown thumb (seriously, am I the only one who ever planted zucchini and produced not a single succulent squash?), log onto Local Harvest and check for a CSA near you.

Even if all you have is a sunny spot somewhere around (or inside) your house or apartment, try growing a few fresh herbs.  I’ve already managed to kill my basil and my mint (it’s a weed and still it is shriveling and dying . . . seriously, how bad a gardener can I be?), but even I have managed to sustain rosemary, thyme, sage, and parsley.  All of which make any home-cooked dish taste superdeluxe.

The more you cook from scratch, the more you can control cost and assure the healthiness of ingredients.  And as produce is plentiful this summer, you might try preserving things to enjoy year round.

Okay, let’s face it, I’m a Jewish girl from Long Island.  I’m about as likely to can vegetables as the Pope is to order from the Glatt kosher menu at CitiPark.  But I do know that the extension arm of the state university here in the Oregon Territories has great tips for home canning (which doesn’t even involve cans, good news for keeping the BPAs at bay), and thus I heartily pass that idea along, in case you need something to do while I proceed to belt out Side B of Bat Out of Hell, which has been catching in my head lo these many paragraphs.

Meanwhile, dear readers, any other tips for Hungry for Help?

Or other questions entirely for the Shmethicist?  Cause I’ve got a whole lot more 70s rock I’m itching to quote.

I met someone special at Purim this past year.  It wasn’t love at first sight, not at all (after all, I was wearing a mask when we met). And it took some persistent and clever wooing on his part, but I am now very smitten.

It’s been a few months now, but my heart still races whenever I see him.  I get this big goofy grin on my face when I am with him.  He makes me want to be a better person.  In the past I’ve described myself as a conscientious omnivore, but he really challenges me (in good ways) to think about my food choices.   Needless to say things were going quite well.   We had gotten to the point in our relationship where he offered me some space in his apartment to keep some of my personal items, like a toothbrush and some clothes, stuff like that.

And that was just around the same time my lease in my apartment was up – so I moved.  Downsized along with the economy.  But what had been an hour-long commute between our separate boroughs, now became a 10-minute walk (shorter by bike).  And in my new place I would have a garden for the first time – all good things that somewhat made up for the fact that the apartment I was moving into was significantly smaller than my last one.  Whereas over the last two years I’ve been able to host 30-person sit-down dinners, Passover seders and other fun foodie events, the new place did not offer such accommodations.

But I didn’t despair since my new roommates appeared accommodating and understanding that I had lots of kitchen stuff and welcomed me to put it to good use in our dollhouse-like space.  That was until my stuff arrived crammed into my tiny U-Haul and seeing box after box fill this tiny new apartment brought dread to the dollhouse residents.

Storage seemed like the only plausible solution, but not having access to my kitchen tools seemed like an unfortunate punishment.  After talking to my boyfriend and his roommates, they offered me space in their comparably palatial kitchen.  I, in turn offered to cook for them to express my gratitude.  I seemed like a good deal, until I began to move myself in.

I hired Revolution Rickshaws, a pedal-powered transport system.  Helen showed up at my apartment, punctual despite the rain.  She brought the larger bike and despite my original estimate – the move took two trips.  Between the two trips was when I got the call, “Uh, hi.  Um, how much stuff are you planning on moving over here?”

Okay, it was a totally fair question.  And as the boxes began piling up in my boyfriend’s apartment he started getting very nervous.  Wasn’t it just some kitchen stuff?  The truth was, I had a lot of kitchen stuff – a lot more than I had thought.  Sure I had packed poorly, trying to keep the boxes light, but it looked like I was taking over his kitchen.  I won’t bore you with the details of the rest of that tense rainy afternoon, but after everything got unpacked and tucked away into his kitchen I began to regret my choice in apartments.

Where was I going to cook?  I loved cooking.  I love cooking for other people – which was a good thing because my boyfriend had the room for me to have dinner parties.  But it is not my apartment and his roommates did not agree to a fourth person living with them.  And as I settled into my new place with its limited kitchen, I realized how important cooking space is.

So I’m looking for suggestions for my disjointed culinary life that preserves my relationship with my boyfriend, my roommates, his roommates and my desire to cook.

Ask not what your CSA can do for you but what you can do for your CSA…  OK maybe that doesn’t quite work. However, lately I have been thinking somewhere along those lines. This week marks the second annual start of the spring/summer season of my community’s CSA in a suburb of Philadelphia. We knew approximately what time the trucks from rural PA were due in but they still hadn’t come an hour past their scheduled drop-off time. I’d helped unload the trucks in the past, but there was something awesome about the season beginning again. I was restless and excited. I’d marked the date on my calendar weeks before. Turned out that dismissal from my kid’s school came before the truck and I packed my toddler and camera up and got into the minivan to repeat a trip I do more often then I’d like.

I don’t know if any of you lie in wait for your CSA trucks or if I stand alone but it got me wondering what was all that exciting? Was it the veggies themselves or something else? I can honestly say it must be more than the actual delight of staring at the produce—which is beautiful. (Last year my squashes and carrots often acted first as centerpieces before transitioning to table food.) Perhaps it is my artificial connection with the land that is so wonderful. The farmers are a conduit for me, my liaison to the lands. Or maybe it has to do with community. Am I getting a side order of community with my heaping share for the week? Sometimes I’d like to think so…

My CSA is mostly made up of people who belong to my orthodox synagogue. Since our inception last year our membership has more than doubled. However it is still small relative to the crowds I imagine arrive at the pick-up spots in Manhattan.  Because of our “manageable” number of families, which is a few less than 30, I began thinking I could plan extracurricular events like pot-lucks and possible field trips and speakers. But the more I think about it, the more I think maybe the beauty of the CSA begins and ends with the veggies themselves.

I was wondering what other people’s opinions are on the interplay between CSA and community? Are you looking for more from the experience or do people mostly want to pick-up and rush home for cutting boards and knives?