Archive for the 'Coffee' Category
You Gonna Eat That? New York Chains Post Calorie Counts
(x-posted from All Voices)
Yesterday, while waiting in line at Starbucks in New York City and perusing the refrigerated food case (mmm…pre-portioned cheese plates), I noticed something was different. It took a second for me to put my finger on it - like realizing that a friend got a haircut or is wearing glasses. But then it was all I could see: calories! Next to each cranberry scone and piece of chocolate-drizzled coffee cake was a small plaque bearing the name of the treat and the number of calories it contained.
As of March 31, all chain restaurants in New York City (restaurants with 15 or more outlets - Mc Donalds, The Olive Garden, TGI Fridays, and the like) were required to start posting calorie counts for all menu items in the hopes of enabling consumers to make informed (and ideally healthier) decisions. CNN reported in January:
4 Comments »Does A Bagel Platter Make Us Hypocrites?
Last Sunday Hazon hosted our annual BIG board meeting. The board itself meets four times a year, but January’s meeting is the only time when the staff is invited and everyone is in the same place. It’s kind of a big deal around here.
As with every business meeting these days, serving food is essential - Michael Pollan writes in In Defense of Food, “It is apparently considered gauche at a business meeting or conference if a spread of bagels, muffins, pastries and soft drinks is not provided at frequent intervals.”
What Pollan doesn’t say is that, of all the aspects of a given meeting, food is probably the thing that attendees grumble about most. Maybe the bagels were too hard, the muffins too sticky, and would it have killed them to have herbal tea with the coffee? In the end, it seems getting the food “right” is almost as important as the meeting agenda.
Unfortunately, finding the right food when your organization is committed to health, sustainability and inclusive Jewish community is not particularly straight forward.
Eat your way (organically and sustainably) through Costa Rica
Warning, a shameless plug follows: Some of you at the food conference might have met a brother-sister pair Lisa Schachter-Brooks and Stephen Brooks. For the very first time, their company, Costa Rican Adventures, is offering a tour specifically for people who are interested to know where their food comes from. It begins in late February.
While Lisa lives here in the Bay Area (and helped coordinate our local Tuv Ha’Aretz chapter), Stephen has been mostly based in Costa Rica since he graduated from college (now, quite some time ago). He lives on an organic farm called Punta Mona, where he plays host to the numerous high schoolers they bring down, as well as other travelers.
To read more about their edible Costa Rica tour, click here.
Jewish Traditions / Sustainable Food Systems
America, Blessings, Coffee, Community Agri., Cooking, Dinner parties, Featured, Food Conference, Food Justice, Hazon, Health, Israel, Jewish Farm School, Jewish Learning, Personal Story, Shemita, Travel, Tuv Ha'Aretz, gardeningBelow is the full text of Friday night’s keynote at The Hazon Food Conference. The keynote was given by Nati Passow, co-founder of The Jewish Farm School. It’s a long post, but definitely worth the read - even if you have to print it out (on recycled paper of course!) and take it home.
(Nati’s on the right, next to Simcha Schwartz. Photo by Sabrina Malach.)
Hazon Food Conference
December 6-9, 2007
Keynote Address: Nati Passow
Thank you Nigel. Shabbat Shalom and Chanukah Sameach. It is a great honor to be here with you all tonight. Nigel suggested that I begin by sharing my story with you, my connection and relationship to food, which I think is a great way to begin this talk, because one of the things I like most about food is that sitting down to a meal is a great excuse to spend time with friends and listen to each other’s stories. So here is a little bit of mine.
Seven years ago I took a Sabbatical. I left university for the year and traveled in Israel. I studied in yeshiva, toured the country and then settled into an apartment in Jerusalem. After having little success finding a job, I decided to enjoy my sabbatical for what it was time to just be present. This was when I discovered good coffee, which for any honorable coffee drinker is a moment you never forget. An older friend of mine sat me down and said that if I was going to drink coffee everyday, I should make it good. Buy whole beans, grind them myself and brew something delicious.
The coffee was my gateway drug to the world of slow food.
It’s a marvelous state for a Moondance
The New York Times reported this week that New York City’s oldest diner, Moondance, is moving…to Wyoming. While property values skyrocket throughout the five boroughs, La Barge, Wyoming residents, Cheryl and Vince Pierce, “stole” Moondance for a tag-sale rate of $7500. The diner, which features many of its original furnishings, will travel across the country on the back of a flat bed truck, before settling in its new home. That’s one less restaurant for New York City, and one (total) restaurant for La Barge.
The whole situation is sadly fitting. With Starbucks on every corner and $25 omelettes on brunch menus, Manhattan is no longer the kind of place for a place like Moondance. In last week’s parsha, Eikev, Moses lies on his deathbed as the Jewish people are about to cross into the land of milk and honey they’ve been wandering towards for forty years. He commands them to beware and avoid the belief that ”my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth,” - in other words, to remain humble despite their new plentiful existence.
Hopefully, as Moondance makes its own journey towards a new home, New York - a city made beautiful by quirky diners and drab by each Frappucino - can take Moses’ message to heart.
Read the article here.
The ‘bucks stops here.
Back in 2000, I was fortunate enough to take part in a “Jewish heritage” tour of China. I came home with some amazing memories, including shabbat dinner and davening with a local minyan in Bejing, and a tour of the Jewish neighborhood in Shanghai where thousands of Jews successfully fled Nazi persecution. Six straight weeks practicing with a Chinese language tape in my car allowed me to successfully navigate the streets of China (or at least ask, “where’s the bathroom?” or “is there pork in this?” at least five times a day). But my proudest moment came when I was able to walk into a store in Shanghai and order a package of my new favorite tea (a sweet concoction called ba-bou-chai - “8 treasures tea”) without uttering a word in English.
I had quite a different cultural experience when I entered a brand-new coffee shop in the Forbidden City and ordered a Venti non-fat caramel latte. Yes, Starbucks (or *$ for short) had managed to outdo the parodies of its own ubiquity by opening a branch in the most culturally innappropriate spot in all of Asia. I shouldn’t have been surprised - American culture had infiltrated urban China to such a shocking extent that an alien plunked down in Tienanmen square would have assumed from the sheer number of KFC awnings that Colonel Sanders was China’s “Great Leader,” and not Chairman Mao. But the juxtaposition of American consumerism and ancient/communist Chinese culture was too great to wrap my head around without a serious infusion of caffeine. Read more »
Summer time, and the coffee is chilly
The summer season is marked in a special way here in New York. I’m not talking about blooming trees or free concerts in the park (although both of these things are pretty great). Summer in New York officially arrives when everyone starts drinking iced coffee.
It’s especially visible on my daily commute. For most of the year, sleepy subway riders nurse a blue paper cup (or, too infrequently, reusable thermos) of steaming coffee as they rumble towards work. Sometime around June, however, a switch occurs, and these same commuters begin toting plastic cups of milky iced coffee, gleaming with condensation.
No Caffeine…no carbs…and no sugar…
As Leah, one of my colleagues, posted last week, our staff is getting ready for our Food Cleanse which will be this weekend. Not only do we have to prepare the logistics of getting all of us and our food out to Fire Island, we have to adjust our eating habits and wean ourselves off of certain foods this week so as not to shock our systems when we start eating “Cleanse” meals. The main items that pose as a personal challenge include caffeine… carbs… and sugar. When our staff was informed of this information, some of us were afraid to react vocally and were a tad surprised. While it makes sense to engage in these changes, no one said the process will be easy!
Fair Trade Omer
The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation is focusing their “omer education” this year on Sustainability (who isn’t focusing on sustainability these days?)
Their most recent omer teaching focuses on fair trade coffee and the mitzvah of Kan Tzipor, which is based on the text below:
If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life. Deuteronomy Ki Tetzei 22:6-7
Two Jews…two coffee shops?
(Thanks to Jcarrot reader, Sara Shalva, for this post)
Last week I was staying with friends in a beautiful apartment off Kikar Hamedina in Northern Tel Aviv. Down the street a bit were two cafes, with the same name, across the street from each other. Unlike the US with Starbucks on every corner, this was a bit of an anomaly to me. I asked my Israeli friends, who explained, “one is kosher, one isn’t.” Opting for the kosher and kosher l’pesach café because, it was the season, I kept marinating on this silly aspect of life in Israel. Segregation. The religious and non-religious water fountains/ eateries. Separate but equal.
