Thanks to our guest poster of the week, Chana Rubin, RD for this article and recipe. Chana is a registered dietitian who lives in Israel with her family. She’s the author of the new book Food for the Soul: Traditional Jewish Wisdom for Healthy Eating (Gefen Publishing House Ltd, Jerusalem, 2007). Check out Chana’s first post - and keep your eyes open for a chance to win a copy of her book!

We recently had a major heat wave here in Israel - the kind of day when you don’t even want to step into the kitchen, let alone turn on the stove. A fresh green salad was definitely in order for dinner, but what could we have with it that wouldn’t take hours in the kitchen?

From the refrigerator, a small container of leftover cooked beet greens gave me the answer: PANCAKES! Mention pancakes and most of us think of breakfast, but vegetable pancakes are especially popular in Sephardic cuisine – spinach and feta cheese pancakes and leek patties are good examples. Vegetable pancakes can be a good way to get children to eat vegetables, especially if you serve them as “finger food”.

My recipe started with about half a cup of chopped beet greens previously cooked with onion and garlic. I added an egg and about 1/3 cup of flour, salt, pepper and a dash of cinnamon. Try spinach, chard, broccoli or grated zucchini. Add an egg or two and a binder – whole wheat pastry flour works well. Fresh herbs are a wonderful addition.

Here’s a recipe to get you started - what it is your favorite savory pancake?

Read more »

Here are two amazing opportunities for farming and Jewish learning this summer - with The Jewish Farm School:

Hillel Organic Farm Alternative Breaks
The Jewish Farm School, in partnership with Hillel, will provide a total of 60 college students the opportunity to participate in a weeklong farm-immersion experience. During the two programs, students will be volunteering on sustainable farms located on the East and West coasts. No previous experience is necessary. June 11-18 (Kayam Farm, MD) and June 24-July 1 (Oz Farm, CA). Cost $200 - details here.

Program Highlights:
Learn basic skills in sustainable agriculture, food preservation, natural building and herbal remedies.
Discuss issues of food justice, sustainability and Jewish tradition.
Work alongside other college students and enjoy delicious homegrown food.

JFS Seminar on Organic Agriculture and Eductional Gardening
June 2-5
Surprise Lake Camp, Cold Spring, NY

Join us for our 3rd annual seminar in Organic Agriculture and Educational Gardening. Run in partnership with the Teva Learning Center, this program is designed for educators seeking to incorporate gardening or farming into their work. Register here.

Seminar Highlights:
Experience an early morning harvest at an organic farm and learn how small-scale, sustainable agriculture operates - first hand.
Learn the skills to build your own Jewish garden.
Study traditional Jewish texts and contemporary scholarship.
Discuss garden-based curriculum and activities.

The Jewish Farm School is supported by Hazon.

Reminder: Tomorrow night’s Food, Faith & Farming panel in New York is a must-attend event for Jewish foodies and food lovers of all stripes. If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet - now is the time!

Join Gastronomica for a panel discussion on the role of faith in farming. Farmers Zaid Kurdieh and Anna Stevenson, and writer Leah Koenig join Gastronomica’s Editor-in-Chief Darra Goldstein to explore the concept of taking care of the land through farming as seen from both the Islamic (tayyib) and Jewish (eco-kosher) perspectives. This panel is part of The Gastronomica Forum - quarterly events featuring important articles from the journal as a platform for engaging in deeper conversations about food and culture.

When: Tuesday, May 13 - 6:30pm
Where: New York City’s Astor Center for Wine and Food Experiences
Cost: $20 - ticket price includes a taste of Middle Eastern foods and farm-fresh products.

Purchase tickets here.

Jewish foodies and food lovers of all stripes - this is a must-attend event.

Join Gastronomica for a panel discussion exploring the concept of taking care of the land through farming as seen from both the Islamic (tayyib) and Jewish (eco-kosher) perspectives. Farmers Zaid Kurdieh and Anna Stevenson, and writer Leah Koenig join Gastronomica’s Editor-in-Chief Darra Goldstein for a discussion on the role of faith in farming as part of the Gastronomica Forum* series.

When: Tuesday, May 13 - 6:30pm
Where: New York City’s Astor Center for Wine and Food Experiences
Cost: $20 - ticket price includes a taste of Middle Eastern foods and farm-fresh products.

Purchase tickets here.

*The Gastronomica Forum, launched by Darra Goldstein, Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Gastronomica, are quarterly events featuring important articles from the journal as a platform for engaging in deeper conversations about food and culture.

I really love the design and message created by the Jew and the Carrot’s own Anna Stevenson, which adorn the totes (and other awesome stuff) in our Cafe Press store - it’s far superior for lugging your groceries home than the ubiquitous, ugly Whole Foods bags. But I have to admit-when I read my friend Faye’s recent blog post, I was really feeling the urge to appropriate her lovely Judaized-Michael Pollan slogan:

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (All the rest is commentary.)”

I think the combined ideas of our two wise sages, Pollan and Rabbi Hillel, really sum up the new sustainable food movement, sweeping the Jewish community, not to mention the rest of the U.S.

Although I can’t claim to follow all of the tenant’s of Faye’s professed “Pollangelism,” I am definitely a true-believer in the fundamental pillars. Still, having recently completed a course on defining what a Sustainable Food System is, I’ve become too wonkified in some of the nuances of policy for which the religion ceases to hold up to scrutiny. And I think that in addition to voting with our forks, as Pollan suggests, it’s crucial that we also vote with our votes and letters, voices and community organizations. But hey, no religion has all the answers, especially when held up against the scientific evidence, so why should we subject the Pollangelicals to a double standard?

In this era of sound bites and tag lines, we’d love to hear your suggestions for other names for the new Jewish food revolution!

Update:  If you can top Faye’s brilliance, your winning slogan will be the next one on the Jew and the Carrot’s moichandise! 

The Jew & The Carrot {hearts} Aitan and Adva Dairy. Thanks to Nextbook for producing a wonderful podcast and feature one of our favorite Jewish goat farmers - yes, there’s more than one!

“Goat Days”
Nextbook 2.25.08
By: Jesse Graham
(Listen to the podcast)

There’s a growing movement among environmentally conscious observant Jews to rethink kashrut. Its adherents place less emphasis on the official kosher stamp, and more on where their food comes from. They want locally and organically grown produce, and if they are meat-eaters, they want to know that the meat they’re eating comes from farms that treat animals humanely.

One devotee of this movement is an unassuming thirty-year-old named Aitan Mizrachi, founder of the AVDA Dairy, a small-scale goat dairy farm in northwestern Connecticut that produces organic, kosher raw milk yogurt and cheeses.

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Here’s the newest article about kosher, ethical meat…this one I wrote for American Jewish Life  (Those of you who read this blog religiously might already be well-versed on the subject - but for the non ethical food-obsessed Jews out there, it’s definitely still hot news.)

Conscious Carving
American Jewish Life
By: Leah Koenig
February 25, 2008

Early on a Friday morning this past December, 70 Jews gathered in a frost-covered field in rural Connecticut. Some of them huddled in small groups, talking in hushed tones and blowing on their frozen fingers. Others stood at a distance, quiet with thought. They were all there for one reason — to witness three goats being slaughtered for meat, in accordance with Jewish law.

No, these people were not part of some underground Jewish cult. They were attendees of a food conference hosted by the New York-based non-profit, Hazon (which, for full disclosure, is my employer). The purpose of the ritual slaughtering, was to “enable people to have a more direct understanding of where kosher meat comes from,” said Hazon’s Executive Director, Nigel Savage. In this case, it would be the same meat that many of the participants would eat that night for dinner.

Read more »

Today, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an above-the-fold, front page article about our newest source of mystery meat - cloned cows.

In the article “Consumers May Not Be Able to Avoid Cloned Food,” the Chronicle reported that the Orthodox Union has publicly stated that food items derived from cloned animals are kosher. Rabbi Menachem Genack of the O.U. stated that cloned animals would be kosher as long as they belong to a single kosher species, such as cattle, sheep, and goats.

Given the highly uncertain health effects of eating cloned meat, and the biological manipulation necessary to create cloned animals, I call on rabbis from across the denominations to speak out on this issue.

How can an animal production technology, which is proven to be cruel to the animals it creates, be kosher?

Animals can be cloned from the tissue of a dead animal. Would that cloned animal be kosher?

The principle of Kelayim requires the separation of species - what does it say about the replication of species?

What about the fundamental notion of eating food in its natural state, as God brought it to us. Does the biological tinkering with the DNA of life disturb our respect and awe for the divine manifestation of the natural world - in the food we eat?

I think the O.U.’s statement is wrong - I’d like to hear what others think, particularly our Jewish legal scholars.

With Love for Hashem, and Love for its divine manifestation in Food.

Z

By the way, for more information, check out my previous post, “Is Milk or Meat from a Cloned Animal Kosher?“

From this week’s New York Jewish Week:

Can You Be A Kosher Locavore?
by Sandee Brawarsky
Published on: Feb 5, 2008

‘Locavore” is 2007’s Word of the Year, as anointed by the Oxford American Dictionary. The word refers to someone who makes an effort to use locally grown ingredients. More than a word, it’s a collaborative movement, encouraging people to buy their food from farmers’ markets or grow their own, with the aim of eating healthier, supporting local farmers and avoiding the great costs of fuel in shipping foods long distance.   

Locavores — some of whom set a 100-mile radius to define local — may be environmentalists, food lovers who appreciate a challenge, health conscious cooks, novice and veteran farmers, for those with a spiritual bent who want to be aware of what they’re eating and where it comes from. But locavores who are both urban and kosher face particular challenges, especially in New York City in mid-winter.

Read more »

Seldom have I found an article as compelling as the January, 19th NY Times article The Food Chain - A New Global Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories.

Many of us are very conscious of what we eat, where it comes from, and how it is produced. We do what we can in our communities by supporting CSAs, local farmers markets, buying not toxic household cleaning products etc. While we are aware on some level of why these choices are important, I find that it is often hard to see the big picture. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around the extent to which there is a global food crisis emerging all around us. Because we live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, in many ways this reality has not yet hit home.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this article.

As a staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety, I was appalled that the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved cloned animals for use in our food today. I have to ask, “who does our federal government protect? How can they allow this into the food system without facts showing it is safe and without any labeling or public disclosure requirements?” As a Jew, it makes me ask other questions: “Will this be allowed in kosher milk? Kosher meat? What do our rabbis think? What about the eco-kosher movement?”

FDA Approves Cloned Animals for Our Food

Today’s FDA decision was a long-awaited regulatory assessment of cloned animals, proclaiming that food from cloned animals are just as safe as food from naturally raised animals. (See FDA on Cloning) And while the FDA did not address whether cloned milk and meat is kosher, they did decide today that it is safe for Americans to eat.

The FDA made this decision in the worst way possible. FDA based its decision on an incomplete and flawed review that relies on studies supplied by cloning companies that want to force this cloning technology on American consumers. Biotechnology companies such as ViaGen provided FDA with the “science” in this case. There are no peer reviewed studies showing that this stuff is safe for us to eat.

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Conversation around the dinner table on Shabbat turned to the topic of kashrut. Why is it so expensive? (in Vancouver, a 14lb turkey goes for $75) Why does it cause Jews to be so rude to other Jews, whose kashrut standards don’t match their own? Why does it matter if I wait four hours or seven – and says who?

I did not grow up keeping kosher, and although I’ve lived in de facto kosher kitchens for the past 4 years (my roommate’s dishes were dairy, but I was mostly a vegetarian so it didn’t really matter), it’s only recently that I’ve begun toying with the idea of taking on this particular yoke of heaven. But I found that all of the reasons I would give for why I might chose to keep kosher had nothing to answer all these tachlis questions. Read more »

As a card-carrying Jewish professional, I have the maddening responsibility of thinking two holidays ahead at all times. So while I am trying to put the finishing touches on our second annual (Fair Trade) Chocolate-Covered Tu Bishvat Seder, I’m also looking for a more sustainable vendor for the hot dogs for our Purim carnival. I can’t believe that after several years of serious progress (especially on the krunchy-kosher koasts), no one is selling a kosher organic hot dog yet. Even with some serious google-fu, this is the best I could come up with. Kosher organic chicken dogs. Blech. Maybe we’ll just go with these.

Any thoughts?

My previous post laid out the reasons why – while the tzedek hekhsher and ethical kashrut are wonderful intentions – the business practicalities beg answering. Indeed, it’s an open question if our little 2% of the meat market will make an impact on the greater meat industry.

But this post is hopefully “the other hand,” and at the very least inspiration as to how working with kashrut authorities might indeed yield a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community — one which leads to a healthier and more sustainable world for everyone.

Our shochet was amazing. Rabbi Yehuda Benchimhoun, an Algerian-descended French Jew of Lubavitch conviction, is a reluctant but intense shochet whose story and words impressed us all here, but above all his kavannah, his incredible intentionality with the animals he shechts. More than just being a six day a week vegetarian, he impressed us all with the seriousness with which he approached his duty to honor the life of animals. He was deliberate, he was careful, he was precise. And his respect for the letter of the law alongside its intent was phenomenal.

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