Can anyone hear fava beans and not think of Anthony Hopkins?

“I ate his liver with fava beans and a nice chianti.” (The movie is Silence of the Lambs, in case you missed it, and the infamous line was said by Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.)

But references to cannibalism aside, our Tuv Ha’Aretz has started here in Berkeley, and we’ve got more fava beans than we know what to do with. Which, when you get down to it, really isn’t that many at all. Read more »

I am beyond mortified. I think I missed out on my chance to join a CSA this year.

For three years, I ran Hazon’s Jewish CSA program, Tuv Ha’Aretz. During that time, CSA-related thoughts (vegetables yes, but also spreadsheets and volunteer coordination, and organizing Shabbat potlucks, and donating leftover produce to soup kitchens, etc.) dominated vast swaths of my brain, crowding out other important information like friends’ birthdays and the need to wash my bath tub.

I would complain regularly - even daily at certain times of the year - about people who could not get their act together in time to register for a CSA. Outwardly I was compassionate, of course, but inside I had no sympathy for those people who would send me frantic emails the night before vegetable pick ups started asking, “Is it too late to sign up?” What did they think this was, Fresh Direct?

After all that experience, you’d think I’d be a pro at signing *myself* up for a CSA. The first gal to send in her check, right?

Ehh..well…no. Read more »

Thanks to Yigal Deutscher for this guest post.

We have just begun the Sefirat HaOmer, counting off the direct correlation between Pesach & Shavuot, two celebrations separated by a string 50 days long. These are two moments in time, interwoven, yet at polar opposites. On Day 1, we have left bread behind, as Chametz. On Day 50, we are elevating bread as an offering in the Holy Temple, a sacrifice unique to the day of Shavuot. A serious transformation has just taken place.

The link between our starting point and our destination goal is food, bread in particular. This corridor of time marks the counting of grain ripening…from the start of the barley harvest to the start of the wheat harvest.

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Last Thursday, Hazon’s Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA at the 14th Street Y in Manhattan hosted a “Meet Your Farmer” night, conjuring up the age-old question: can Papaya Dog and fresh, local vegetables co-exist?

Hat tip to ZT at Jewschool for this story, a friend of the family Shira Kamm starts her own farm, joining the ranks of so many other women starting farms. Check this article in the Philly Inquirer about Kamm’s endeavor below the fold, and check the photo essay. Somebody invite this woman to the Food Conference!

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What would you say if someone offered you a box of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables delivered to your home every week? Ella Heeks is willing to wager you might be interested.

Heeks is the Managing Director of Abel & Cole, an Organic Delivery Service in England. Through Abel & Cole, customers order a weekly bounty of pesticide-free produce and schedule its delivery to fit into their busy lives. It’s convenience and ethical eating, waiting patiently on the porch.

While you can find Organic Delivery Services in most American cities, Brits have taken a particular liking to their weekly veg box - and also to ODS pioneer Abel & Cole. 30-year old Heeks spoke with The Jew & The Carrot about working with an idealistic company, soaking up farmer wisdom, and Able & Cole’s response to some customer’s requests that they boycott Israeli-grown produce. Read more »

This will be a great conference with lots of workshops, networking opportunities, and entertainment! I’ll be showcasing songs from my new CD ‘Eat Like A Rainbow’ (more about that in my next post). Lots of luminaries will be there, including some of our own readers! The 2008 program will focus on strengthening the resolve of children to eat nutritious, fresh foods by:

* connecting holistic food and nutrition messaging in our classrooms, cafeterias, after-school programs, homes, and neighborhoods;

* fostering relationships among school children and their communities that focus on food, cooking, and gardening;

* exploring the nuts and bolts of cross sector (i.e. health, education, foodservice, and agriculture) public and private collaborations; and

* promoting federal, state and local policies that strengthen economic and cultural bonds between local farms and schools, support the development of school gardens, and provide adequate funding for healthy, delicious school lunches for all students.

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Thanks to Michael of Green Prophet for this guest post. While the concept of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) is firmly established in the United States, it hasn’t really taken off in Israel. Still, the farmer-consumer relationship that a CSA offers is beginning to percolate in Israeli consciousness. Find out more below…

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But at Adamah, and likely all across the Northeast, we’re quietly starting up the season.

(Baby kale plants, Adamah, Summer 2007; photo by Jackie Topol)

Farm time is a quite remarkable way to think about the year. Here I was yesterday with Megan Jensen, our Greenhouse Manager, in a sunny, 75-degree greenhouse (we do use oil heat to warm the benches, but when the sun is out, it really heats up), holding a packet of scallion seeds. In front of me was a tray with 200 little square cells. We’d filled the tray about 3/4 full of soil, packed it down a bit, and then the idea was to drop ten of those little baby seeds in each hole. (When you buy a “bunch” of scallions, in fact, you’re buying ten little plants that were seeded and planted and harvested together.) And to look at the tiny seeds, and the tiny soil blocks, and think of all the scallion omelettes, diced scallions in salad, garnishes and other delightful uses of these tasty alliums was kind of a trip, because the warm summer months of harvest time seem so far away.

Adamah is a program for Jewish 20-somethings to live in community, learn about sustainability and environmental issues, and grow food. This year, we’ll be growing food for the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center; for our line of pickled products, which includes half-sour pickles, dilly beans, pickled beets, sourkraut and kim chi; and for a Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA in White Plains, New York. The long term planning that we’ve done ahead of the season has been really exciting.
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I made a recipe for a client today that was so delicious, I feel compelled to share. I wish I had brought my camera on the job today, to take a picture, but alas, I didn’t. And while I found a photo of these very veggie burgers on another blog, it says it’s copyrighted, so I won’t use it here.

Now before you think: “she’s getting all excited about veggie burgers?” and move on to “Serious Eats,” or “Amateur Gourmet,” or whomever, hold on.  (You can check out those great sites afterwards.) These veggie burgers are something else. They have beets. They have carrots. They have sunflower seeds and cheddar cheese(!) They are some of the best damn veggie burgers I’ve ever had.

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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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Many people complain that it’s difficult to find a synagogue to join in New York City. There are just so many options, that none of them feel exactly right - you might call it The Shul-Goers Dilemma. These days, however, I’m feeling pretty good at Temple Bet Pollan.

Michael Pollan gets his fair share of love on this blog, and his new book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto has already joined its predecessor, The Omnivore’s Dilemma as a New York Times Best Seller. Pollan is in the middle of his second whirlwind book tour in two years (I guess he sleeps on the plane) – and I hear the same account every where he goes. Huge venue, sold out show, knockout performance.

Like any effective leader - Martin Luther King included - he’s charismatic and big on the big ideas that change the way we think - or in this case how we eat. But as I devoured (pun intented) Pollan’s new book on my subway commute, I wondered what, if anything, does his worldview offer to the Jewish community? And, perhaps more interestingly, what wisdom does the tribe have to offer back to him?

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As a chef, I am an expert at making wonderful food – from other peoples’ recipes. My ever-growing cookbook collection keeps me busy with wonderful dishes, created by other people.

But one thing my CSA membership has done is it has forced me to start creating my own recipes. In the old days, I would decide what I wanted to make, shop accordingly, and follow directions. Now, things work differently. I think of what is in the fridge, and what I can make using the most ingredients that I have on hand. In a way, it’s like Iron Chef, although they have one ingredient to use in numerous ways; I am trying to use as much of my CSA box in one dish as I can.

That led me to this creation today: Wilted Arugula Salad with Sauteed Leeks and Apples. (Recipe after the jump)

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We’re all familiar with the saying, “you are what you eat.” But two recent articles got me thinking that perhaps this old adage would be better stated, “you are what you think you eat.”

The first is a unnecessarily hateful article called “Extreme Eating” by Joel Stein in this week’s Time magazine. Stein decides to stick it to the “luddite” locavores, by making a meal strictly with ingredients grown 3,000 miles from his Los Angeles home and purchased at Whole Foods. (He must mistakenly believe that locavores revere Whole Foods as some sort of local food Mecca.) Stein writes:

“I want the world to come to me, to see it shrink so small it fits on my plate. I want Maine lobster in broth flavored with Spanish saffron. I want Alaskan salmon, truffles from Europe, a bottle of Beaujolais, a damn pineapple. And I want them much more than I want that carrot you grew in your garden. Because I know you’re going to talk to me for 20 minutes about your carrot.”

I’m not about to fight to the death for locavores or stop supplementing my CSA share with the occasional avocado or grapefruit. And as I’ve said before, there’s bound to be some backlash against sustainable food this year. But Stein’s “distavore” meal is little more than a petulant and obvious attack on a movement that has caused a lot of people to consider more carefully the impact of their food choices.

In his article, Stein likens his meal to one fit for a “European king.” Well, he’s right. European kings were known for cutting off people’s heads to get what they wanted, and in a sense, that’s exactly what his meal (ahem, publicity stunt) accomplished. Read more »