Soda.  Pop.  Coke.  S.S.B. (sugar-sweetened beverage).  Whatever you wanna call it, it’s bad for you.  Or so argues Mark Bittman, the New York Times‘ “Minimalist” columnist and prominent foodie in this Sunday’s New York Times.  This phenomenal article poses the question of whether soda may be the next tobacco.  He interviews proponents calling for a special excise tax on soda to fund obesity prevention programs, as well as other measures to curb the intake of these empty calories in a can (or bottle).  The article comes after Michelle Obama’s appointment to lead a national campaign against childhood obesity, which some believe is linked to an excessive consumption of soda and candy.

I don’t wish to disappoint anyone, but this post does not contain any recipes or ideas for healthy snacks to give out to your trick-or-treaters this Halloween.  Actually, it is an appeal for just the opposite.

I overheard an acquaintance telling someone how they would be giving out “healthy snacks” to young trick-or-treaters for Halloween.  The other replied:  “You know, that’s such a great idea.  I should do that.”

Now, I know there are many foodies reading this blog (including myself), but I couldn’t help but find myself feeling a bit sorry for the kids who would be knocking on their doors expecting Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups this Saturday night, only to find a vegan oat-bran something-or-other dropped into their plastic pumpkin.

Thanks so much to Maya Bernstein for this great cross-post from Lilith Blog.  Some of her other work can be found here and here.

Michelle Obama is hula-hooping for health on the South Lawn of the White House. Jamie Oliver’s going to teach obese America how to cook their vegetables, and eat them too. Herbivores, frugivores, and locavores are putting their stakes in the ground, amidst the moist dirt of organically grown slow food.

Meanwhile, my 20-month-old daughter went to synagogue over the holiday of Simchat Torah and learned the word “candy.” We were spending the holiday with my parents, and my girls were dressed in traditional New York Jewish holiday autumn glory, patent-leather shoes and red wool coats. On the way to synagogue, I noticed that other children on the sidewalk were carrying big plastic bags (luckily for them, they don’t live in Palo Alto, where plastic bags are illegal; I considered hauling them back West by the thousands, to sell on the sly at Whole Foods).

What could be more dear to an ecologically minded keeper of kashrut in summer than a marshmallow? In San Francisco, a panel of tasters at the local daily voted the kosher brand as their top pick. Tell us in comments where to find kosher ‘mallows in your area! Has anyone tried to make one at home?

So we only have a few days left of Pesach… and I happen to be quite happy about this!  It’s not that I don’t understand Pesach or why we don’t eat leavened things – I do.  I actually think the story of Pesach reminds us, as Jews, of some important lessons.  The reminder that I find to be most poignant is that we cannot consider ourselves free as long as others are oppressed.

Sorry for the digression – now back to food… I know some people find cooking during Pesach to be a fun challenge but I find it inconvenient.  As a vegetarian I rely (probably too much) on foods which are not considered “Kosher l’Pesach”, i.e. pasta, rice, bread, soy items, etc, so during Pesach I end up eating lots of matzoh pizza.  For anyone not familiar with matzoh pizza it is a basic combination of matzoh, tomato sauce and cheese which is then toasted (do not microwave because your matzoh pizza will be soggy).  I suppose one could come up with many variations to the aforementioned matzoh pizza recipe (please feel free to share your favorite) but no matter what it’s still matzoh pizza and is not even close to real pizza.

As you can infer from the previous paragraphs my brainstorming of what my boyfriend and I were going to eat during Pesach was a bit of a depressing process for me, however; there was one beacon of hope!  Early last week a friend emailed me for my matzoh crunch recipe.  I had made it last year and brought it to my office (filled with mostly Jews) and this friend like it so much that she went home that night and made it for her boyfriend.  He liked it so much that he requested it again this year!  I don’t know how but I until I received her email I had totally forgotten about the matzoh crunch.

*Photo by Daniel Albanese

The Jew & The Carrot is a blog about Jews, food and contemporary life. We strive to maintain a diverse and inclusive community on the blog – one which welcomes posters and readers from across the Jewish denominational spectrum and beyond, and from all walks of culinary life…Our aim is to ensure that this community is inclusive and safe, as well as being a platform for vibrant discussion.

I thought this quote from the blog’s Community Guidelines was particularly relevant in my post last week, A “Traditional” Passover Seder or How to Make Everyone Happy Around Your Table.  One of the comments on my post came from someone who identifies herself only as J. who pointed out that I had conflated the words chametz (the five grains – wheat, rye, barley, oats and spelt, according to the torah are prohibited on Passover) and kitniot (which apparently can be literally translated as “little thing-a-ma-jigs,” that are also prohibited on Passover but are not chametz and are subject to debate as to what exactly falls into this category).  I was pleased to get such a correction through the blog as it taught me something new.

However, I will disagree with J.’s point that as a convert I don’t have minhag. As I do feel that I carry with me a minhag avot (traditions or as defined by Michael Makovi in the comments specifically as “what your forefathers did”).  Although I do not have a Jewish family, I still have a loving family and traditions that I was raised with.  Traditions that I have tried to incorporate, the best that I can, into my new Jewish life – which brings me to charoset.

If you’re reading the Jew And The Carrot, it’s highly likely that you’re interested in food and sustainability. So, when you’re making your mishloach manot you’re probably thinking about the health and quality of the food you’re giving your friends and making efforts to minimize waste as well. You may even be making hamantashen from scratch with homemade local jam canned from last spring’s berry harvest. (Kol HaKavod to Lisa Fine-decidedly impressive!)

Maybe it is just me, but I find this product’s origin ambivalence hysterical.

Photo by Ivan Soto

Chanukah gelt always seems like a good idea at the beginning of December, but these days, the chocolate just doesn’t seem worth fighting with the foil to eat. Similar to Rhea Yablon Kennedy‘s experience, we wanted to find another way to use up our leftovers. When my roomies came back from a trip to Ohio they were inspired to make Buckeyes – the unofficial candy of the state of Ohio. Buckeyes are a tree nut and the candies do resemble the naturally occurring buckeye. Rachel, who hails from Cincinnati, referenced the Isaac M. Wise Temple Sisterhood cookbook for recipes. Not 1, but 2 recipes can be found (pages 113 and 114 for those of you who have the 2001 edition of the cookbook).  The Hazon office sure enjoyed these tasty treats…Buckeyes are basically peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate.

Not everyone suffers from this problem, but I personally have leftover holiday candy. Mine is a half bag of Sunspire chocolate drops, which I bought as dreidel game “gelt.” It turns out you don’t need an entire 10-ounce bag of M&M wannabes to play a good game of dreidel, and being one of the only women on the planet who does not require frequent intake of chocolate (some kind of hormonal imbalance, I’m sure), I had these things sitting around for the past two weeks.

I did notice them sitting there and I did think about snacking on them. Somehow, though, I couldn’t get into the idea of crunching down on the sugary candy shells and the room temperature chocolate inside.

The joy of Diaspora is the variety of experience it brings into our tradition. Almost any kind of food has analogues in every tributary of Jewish heritage and candy is no exception. We’ve sifted through the internet and our cookbook collections to bring you Jewish candy recipes from Eastern Europe, South Asia and the Mediterranean, including, of course, the sticky and celebrated halvah, in its classic sesame rendition and with a serendipitous autumnal twist.

Raw Halvah
(From Arrowhead Mills)

1/2 cup Sesame Seeds (ground)
2 tablespoons Sesame Seeds (whole)
3 tablespoons Raw honey
1/4 cup Sesame Tahini (use the driest part of the jar)
1/8 teaspoon Almond extract

Grind 1/2 cup seeds in a blender. Mix ground seeds, whole seeds, tahini, honey and extract in a bowl all together until thoroughly blended. Roll into small balls or into a long roll and refrigerate.

More after the jump…

Okay, okay – so Halloween isn’t exactly a “Jewish holiday.” But considering that the dominant theme on October 31st is chocolate (witches and goblins decidedly take a back seat to Snickers Bars and M&Ms), it seems like a perfectly good time to celebrate Jewish and Israeli chocolate makers.  Over the last few years, the chocolate industry has grown significantly in Israel, with many new boutique chocolate stores and manufacturers popping up around the country.  And in America, Jews continue to contribute to the industry, creating some of the world’s most renowned chocolate.

Below the jump, we’ve compiled a list of some of today’s most innovative Jewish chocolate makers – folks like Chuck Siegel, the official chocolate maker for Google, who started his company in the kitchen of the San Francisco JCC – and Netanya’s Choconoy, an Israeli company with a special mission.

Read below for the whole list…

I’m somewhat surprised, but I’m really looking forward to Halloween. Let me state up front what I don’t like. The candy is excessive. I still have a large bag hidden on a shelf in the back of the pantry of LAST YEAR’s candy that my kids lost interest in long before all the good stuff was gone. I also don’t love the gore and the death. I’m not a big fan of scary stuff in general and it seems to get gloomier each year. I also don’t love the idea that kids demand candy, it is bad enough when they do it at the supermarket check out there should be no need to encourage them.

This being said, I am excited nonetheless. And despite all my misgivings, without the candy, this holiday would be not have the same draw.