Fresh, local green beans should be here any day, now – but when they aren’t available, I rely on the frozen ones from Trader Joe’s. I like that TJ’s haricots verts are less waterlogged than many other brands of frozen green bean, and I appreciate the way each bean seems to have been individually frozen (rather than being suspended in a rectangular ice block), so that I can grab and cook just a handful or two at a time, knowing that the rest of the package won’t end up going to waste.

That last part is key, because my family is on a mission to cut down on wasted food —  not only for economic reasons, or even just because I hate it that an estimated 25% of the produce purchased in this country ends up in the garbage, but also because, from a religious point of view, it seems absurd for us to bother with separate forks and spoons for meat and dairy, but flout what Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch called “the first prohibition of creation” – namely “bal tashchit” (literally, don’t destroy) – the commandment against wasting.

First, let me apologize for the poor quality of the picture!  It doesn’t do justice to the tart or the camera’s abilities… better luck next time!  Now onto to the food itself…

I’ve always been a huge fan of onions – red, white, yellow, green – I don’t discriminate.  I like them raw and cooked, on bagels with cream cheese, on pizza, in salad, etc.   I find that most things I cook begin with my gorgeous Sur Le Table sautee pan (Hannukah present from my Dad), some olive oil, chopped garlic, and of course, some onion.   They just seem to add necessary flavor to everything.  Now I know there are people who hate onions and while I can respect that, I just can’t understand it.  However, as my friends and family will tell you, I have some weird issues with food textures that many cannot understand.  Fortunately my little sister has many of the same issues so I have an ally.  Let me also add, if you do not like onions, this recipe isn’t for you… but it’s really really good.

There is a cheesecake sitting in my (boyfriend’s) refrigerator right now. At some point late last week I got it in my head that with Shavuot just around the corner I should make a cheesecake. Since I’m doing a time-share with my boyfriend’s kitchen, permission had to be granted by the relevant roommates, which was how I found myself late last night remembering how much I disliked baking.

But I’m terribly sentimental about food and of course my cheesecake comes with a story…

Months ago I had an idea for a themed Shabbat dinner: I would invite all of my friends from Commonwealth countries, and have a Queen’s Shabbat. I could serve Commonwealth inspired foods, and it would be a fun night to hang out with friends from all over the world. Since I host Shabbat meals all the time, the idea didn’t seem particularly daunting, but I never seemed to get around to setting a date and sending out an invitation.

Right before Pesach I met with Rabbi Yoni Sherizen, who runs the Jewish chaplaincy programs in the UK. Jewish chaplains (usually a married couple) are sent to live in a college town or on a university campus in order to help provide Jewish services to students at the local university. It’s a lot like Chabad, but without the rebbe, and it’s especially important in the UK, where there have been crazy amounts of anti-Semitism on college campuses.

Yoni and his wife Dalia were incredibly helpful to me when I was at Oxford in 2004, and I was concerned about how dire Yoni told me the situation was in so many British universities. Plus, the falling economy has meant a lot of funders have had to cut back, and some universities are in danger of losing their Jewish chaplains.

Thanks to Avi Rubel for this great guest post cross-posted from his site Zen and the Art of Cheese-Making.  Avi makes home-made cheese and bread in Brooklyn, NY. When not performing culinary experiments in his kitchen, Avi spends a lot of time managing MASA Israel Journey’s North American operation which takes him around the country and world getting more Jewish young adults to spend quality time in Israel.

I’ve become a home cheesemaker!

I’d been running my mouth for the past few years about how I’d like to have a goat farm one day where I would milk my goats and make my own cheese. But, I live in Brooklyn NY. It would be hard to fit a goat here in my little NY apartment. Alas, I decided a few months ago that at least I could learn how to make cheese while I’m here in NY. I bought a home cheesemaking guide book and have begun a great adventure making a new cheese every weekend.

So far, I’ve made some tasty farmer’s cheese, a great mozarella (see below), a nice ricotta, a curd-y cottage cheese, the best yogurt I’ve ever had, and finally went for some hard cheese and made what looks to be a fine Cheddar which is aging on my counter as I type.

Now that Pesach has come and gone and we are back into the swing of eating leavened things again I though I would share a great spring recipe with you.   I think I’ve mentioned before that my dad has always been the cook in my family – and fortunately he’s very talented at it.  One of my favorite “Dad meals” is a risotto he makes with fresh peas and parmesan cheese (and sometimes mushrooms as well).  Because of this recipe I have become a lover of risotto.

In my family if you helped cook the meal you didn’t have to clean up (this is especially relevant to Shabbat dinner) so I would always volunteer to help my dad cook.   Thinking back, this is probably one of the reasons I got interested in cooking.  On nights when he made risotto my job was to stir the risotto and add more liquid when necessary.  At the time it seemed like quite a tedious process but I now feel fortunate to have been given that job since the stirring and adding the right amount of liquid at the right time is the key to perfecting risotto.  Risotto is really incredible because it starts out as rice (Arborio rice to be exact) and through a specific (yet fairly simple) method of cooking it becomes very creamy and delicious.

Risotto is great as a main course or as a side for fish or meat.  I happened to get a beautiful bunch of asparagus in my CSA box so I decided to add it to some risotto, however, the other great thing about risotto is that it’s quite versitile.  Feel free to add other veggies, meats, fish, etc.  As usual please share your favorite risotto recipes!

One more thing… this recipe contains milk and meat.  I personally wouldn’t recommend leaving out the milk ingredients since they’re key to the richness so I would recommend substituting vegetable broth (or pareve chicken flavoring) for the chicken broth.

And now for the recipe…

Thanks to Ken Ovitz for this guest post. Ken holds multiple degrees and certificates in culinary arts and food preparation from The New School University, The Institute of Culinary Education, and the State of New York. He is an expert on Jewish cuisine and religious feasts, and has written numerous articles for the Jewish Voice Newspaper and contributed scholarly papers on the history of Jewish cuisine, the Seder, and kosher rules at a variety of conferences.

For a true gastronomical adventure in Israel, one only needs to drive a mere 10 minutes from Ben Gurion airport in Lod to Moshav Nechalim, which is home to the esteemed Eretz Zavat Chalav dairy owned and operated by Mr. Moshe Markovitz. Built on love and passion for quality cheese, Markovitz created the Israeli El Dorado of sheep cheese production.

“Eretz Zavat Chalav” (A Land flowing with Milk) references the quote from the bible when G-d described the land of Israel as one that is “flowing with milk and honey.” Markovitz doesn’t believe that the bible was referring to cow’s milk since cows did not inhabit the land of Israel in any large numbers during that time period.

It’s been a crazy few weeks for milk in the US. Earlier this month, dairy prices officially tanked, collapsing over $5 between last February and this one. It’s the worst drop in prices since the Great Depression, when the government asked dairy farmers to pour off millions of gallons of milk. The drastic losses have prompted 35 senators to send  a letter to Vilsack and the new administration asking the government to support the dairy industry.

In somewhat more unconventional milk news, the first pharmaceutical goats were approved by the FDA (big surprise there) as was the drug that they produce in their milk. The goats produce ATryn,  a drug approved to prevent blood clots.  ATryn is a human protein, and the gene for its production is implanted in the goat embryo, while the protein itself is extracted from the milk.

Umami is so hot right now. Barbara Kingsolver talked about it in her food movement tome “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”, NPR covered it, it’s been scientifically proven, and now it’s basis of a new Kikkoman advertising campaign, one that tells folks they can add umami to any dish to make it dazzling.

So what is umami? It’s glutamate, a non-essential amino acid that breaks down proteins in food. It also has the effect of exciting the neurotransmitters in human brains. When it’s bound to other amino acids, as in whole foods like tomatoes, asparagus, cheeses and meats, it has no adverse effects and makes life better from the tongue on down. When it’s free-floating though, as it is when used as an additive in the form of Monosodium glutamate and it’s many incarnations, in any savory processed food, and, unfortunately, in some delicious by-products like brewer’s yeast, that old neurotransmitter stimulation gets out of control. In up to 25 percent of the population (depending on your source, of course), MSG can cause side effects from over-stimulation of neurotransmitters. The side effects include a range of neurological and cardiac responses from the mild and incident-specific to the life-inhibiting and permanent, depending on the person doing the eating and the amount that they consume. (This article has a list, though I can’t vouch for or against their sources)

The Hazon food conference was my first trip out to California, and boy did I fall in love. After a few days hiking in Big Sur, where sheer cliffs dropped down hundreds of feet to the blue ocean, foam rising rhythmically around small mountains of eroded rock, stretching as far as we could see, I drove North to San Francisco to visit friends. These particular friends had made the move from New York a year before, and they accepted me and my travel buddy on their futon with only a few days notice. At the very least, I owed them breakfast, and in honor of my new surroundings, I tried a new dish.

Our baked eggs that day were made from what was available at the Ferry Plaza farmer’s market. Baked eggs make a very easy, and pretty impressive main course for brunch. They’re versatile as far as seasonality, since eggs, cheese and cream are year-round commodities, and the casserole on the bottom of the dish can change depending on the veggies currently in season. In December in San Francisco, our eggs included mustard greens, spring onions, shitake mushrooms and canned tomatoes preserved with garlic and a few leaves of basil. When I returned to New York in early January, I made my next batch with potatoes sauteed with garlic, onions, lots of ginger, kale, more preserved tomatoes and a few flax seeds sprinkled in for good measure.

There comes a time in every food-conscious person’s life when he/she/ze realizes that there’s a little bit of stomach lining in every block of cheese. Who’s stomach lining, you might ask? Well, calf, kid or lamb, with the species of the stomach generally corresponding to the species of the milk.

Why stomach lining is perhaps your next question? In order to make cheese, you need to coagulate or “set” it, that is, separate the curds (solid proteins and fats) from the whey (liquid). Soft cheese is often acid-set with lemon juice or vinegar, which produces a loose, brittle curd, but hard cheeses need something a little more complex.

Enter rennet – every mammal has rennet in its stomach lining to help digest its mother’s milk. The rennet from a young, milk-fed animal’s stomach contains an enzyme called chymosin, which breaks down proteins in milk at a single point in their structure, and makes the resulting particles extremely attractive to one another– the result is the uniform texture of a hard or semi-hard cheese like cheddar or gouda or brie.

Rennet isn’t the only animal product in cheese either. Lipase, an enzyme that hastens the breakdown of fats and enhances flavor, is extracted from animal tongues. Seem kind of like a fundamental violation of that whole don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk injunction? Interestingly, it’s not.

Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.“ - Benjamin Franklin, July 1779

Jeff Morgan is a man with a mission. As if being an author, winemaker and wine educator (not to mention a former professional musician) doesn’t keep him busy enough, he is also on a quest to change the way the Jewish community thinks about – and drinks – wine.

He and his business partner, Leslie Rudd, are the creators of Covenant Wines, a kosher wine company that strives to “harness quality commensurate with the rich and profound story of the Jewish people.” That might sound like a lot to swallow, especially considering that Jews tend to be linked with a legacy of barely drinkable kosher wines (ahem, Manischewitz). But the former West Coast editor of Wine Spectator magazine is on to something sweet.

I spoke with Jeff right before Yom Kippur to hear more about his vino-philosophy. He shared his thoughts on the current state of kosher wine, where it’s headed, and why consumers should think twice before reaching for a Mevushal bottle.

Want to WIN Jeff’s amazing kosher wine? Tell us your favorite wine memory to be entered into a drawing to win two bottles of Covenant’s Red C Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006. This wine is made from grapes grown on a 2-acre parcel of land in Napa Valley and aged for 18 months in French oak barrels. Total retail value, $84. (Only one comment per person will be entered into the drawing – please comment by Sunday, October 19.

In the beginning, there were vegetables. Then came fruit, and it was good. Now, Community-Supported Agriculture programs across the country are partnering with local farmers to include everything from milk and cheese, eggs, flowers, meat, and even locally-grown wheat berries in their members’ shares. This broad expansion indicates that people across the country are clamoring for more opportunities to eat local food, and that the CSA model provides the structural support to make it happen.

Hazon’s Tuv Ha’Aretz Jewish CSA program is no exception. This year, the Long Island Tuv Ha’Aretz program, which is run out of the Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore, partnered with 5 Spoke Creamery to bring their kosher, raw-milk, artisanal cheeses to members’ tables. The cheese share was a first for the Tuv Ha’Aretz community and the company, which had never distributed their products via CSA before.

We interviewed Tuv Ha’Aretz coordinator and The Jew & The Carrot contributor, Eric Schulmiller, as well as 5 Spoke Creamery owner, Alan Glustoff to find out how the partnership panned out. If you’ve ever read The Onion’s Point/Counterpoint segment, the dual-interview below is kind of like that – except replace the biting sarcasm with earnestness and a passion for all things cheese.