Archive for the 'Featured' Category
Jews Bring Food: Tips for Feeding Grieving Friends
I’m an avid cook, but I think in the past three months I’ve probably made a total of four meals. Menu planning, grocery shopping, and cooking elaborate meals—all activities I love—have been out of the question since March, when my mother was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. We have spent so little time in the kitchen since the diagnosis that my mom, an enthusiastic and innovative chef in her own right, recently joked she had probably forgotten how to use a measuring cup.
Though I miss cooking and baking, spending time with my mom is my top priority these days, so I’m glad that our community has stepped in and set up an extensive network of people to bring us food so we don’t have to spend all day in the kitchen. We have gotten some truly amazing and delicious meals. Still, there have also been some pretty substantial bumps in the road.
Here are some tips to take into consideration if you’re called on to bring food to a family member or friend who’s ill, recovering from surgery, or dealing with a recent loss.
4 Comments »Yid.Dish: Zucchini Pancakes
Cookbooks, Cooking, Eco-Kashrut, Family & Kids, Featured, Food Writing, Health, Israel, Kosher, Recipes
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
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?
Joan Nathan’s The Foods of Israel Today (Win a Copy)
If America is the proverbial “melting pot,” then Israel is a close second - at least when it comes to Jewish food and Mediterranean cuisines. In her book The Foods of Israel Today
Today, in celebration of Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day), we’re raffling off a copy of The Foods of Israel Today
More and a recipe below the jump.
When Horseradish Attacks
Thanks to Alyssa Finn for this guest post. Alyssa is getting her Masters degree in Clinical Nutrition at NYU and is a Hazon volunteer on the New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride Exec.
Yesterday, I came home after a long bike ride in the New York sunshine. On my plate for the evening was a pile of reading in preparation for my chemistry exam the next day. I stared at the pile of books and papers. I looked longingly at my kitchen, the primary source of my procrastination.
Then I remembered: horseradish!
Join A CSA - If You Still Can
Community Agri., Farming, Featured, Grocery, Organic, Personal Story, Seasonality, Sustainability, Tuv Ha'Aretz, Vegetables
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 »
Getting Beyond the Bagel Platter
Last January, Hazon began an organizational soul-search to explore how we could model our values by sourcing and serving healthy and sustainable food at our meetings and events. Our ultimate goals are lofty - we want to serve food that is:
- sustainable to the highest extent possible (local, organic, fair trade, etc.)
- healthy (nourishing, whole foods)
- kosher (accessible to all participants across the kosher spectrum)
- delicious!
In other words, we want to nix the obligatory bagel, cream cheese and unseasonal fruit platter (like the one we served at January’s board meeting) in favor of something that looked more like the menu we served at our April board meeting…
The Rabbi’s Reject Shackle and Hoist Methods
Last week The Jew & The Carrot posted an article about the ”shackle and hoist” scheitah (kosher slaughter) methods used to produce much of the kosher meat imported to Israel. Yesterday, YNet reported the response from The Israeli Chief Rabbinate and OU Chairman. Thanks to The Jew & The Carrot reader, Joshua, for bringing this article to our attention.
Rabbinate: Import Meat Only if ‘Morally Slaughtered’
YNet - 2.20.08
By: Neta Sela
PETA and the Torah? Following the lead of The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to animals, which has long protested against cruel “lift and bind” slaughter techniques practiced in many United States and South American slaughterhouses, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has also decided to work to eliminate such techniques.
At a recent conference involving the Chief Rabbitate’s Kashrut Committee as well as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, a decision was made to only sanction meat imported to Israel as having undergone a kosher shechita (ritual slaughter) if the animal was killed utilizing the relatively more humane “boxing” technique.
The Jew and The Pig - On Kibbutz
Animal Care, Farming, Featured, Food Safety, Food Writing, Health, Israel, Kosher, Meat, Neat Projects, Personal Story, Vegetarian
The Jew & The Carrot blogger, Jeff Yoskowitz, has been on hiatus from the blog for a little while - but he has a darn good excuse. He is currently living on a kibbutz in Israel. On the one hand, like many kibbutzim, internet access is spotty so posting frequently is a challenge. But Jeff’s situation is a little different. Jeff is currently researching the (painfully ironic) pork industry in Israel. His kibbutz happens to house an industrial pork feed-lot, which means he’s spending most of his time hanging out with animals he’d never personally eat.
The little bit of time Jeff’s not researching pigs, he’s logging in his experience at his personal blog The Wet Sprocket. And while we understand his need to prioritize his web time, his stories are just too interesting not to share. To find out more about Jeff’s extraordinary daily experiences check out his blog, and read a few key (and quite graphic) excerpts below:
Free Food?
Last summer, the British rock band Radiohead made waves by selling their new album, In Rainbows, on a pay what you can basis.
Now, a vegetarian restauranteur is taking this model to the food world, selling meat-free, globally-inspired cuisine to customers - for whatever they think is “fair” - at his non-profit eatery, Lentil as Anything, and a local college cafe.
Some customers are completely thrown by the concept, and continue to ask for prices at the counter, but others see it as a chance to give back to their community. Owner Shanaka Fernando said the most a customer ever paid for a lentil burger was $50. “There must have been something in it that I didn’t see,” he said.
What do you think - is this an inspired idea, or totally nuts? I’m not sure yet, but I do already have a name in mind for the potential kosher, vegetarian spinoff: Abraham’s Tent.
Read the full article about the restaurant and school eatery here.
The Kosher Fish Scandal
This week, the Winnipeg Free Press reported yet another scandal in the kosher food industry - this time focusing on the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp. According to the article, the company sold kosher-certified fish products that had sloppy-at-best supervision throughout the 1990s:
“The FFMC is the largest North American supplier of fish minced to produce kosher fish called “gefilte fish…” To be OU certified, the FFMC employed a rabbi to supervise the processing and cleaning required for the kosher certification…But according to information obtained from employees at FFMC, the rabbi was often derelict in his duties and management knew it.While he was required to observe the production line at all times, he spent a great deal of time in an office on a computer, or was simply absent….He was obliged to make sure that only fish with fins and scales were being processed, that species like burbot and catfish were not in the mix. Allowing a catfish into the mix would be as offensive to Jews as dropping pork into ground beef would be to Muslims.
The rabbi inspector was in the employ of the FFMC from the late 1980s until 2000. But for at least the last five of those years, he lived in Kenora and commuted to Winnipeg once every couple of weeks to pick up his Government of Canada paycheque.”
Honestly, as I read about this latest transgression - I felt anything but shocked.
Read it and Eat: A (Jewish) Review of In Defense of Food
Books, Community Agri., D'var Torah, Farmer's Markets, Farming, Featured, Food Safety, Food Writing, Health, Jewish Culture, Meat, Obesity, Organic, Participate!, Prayer, Seasonality, Shabbos Meals, Spirituality, Supermarkets, Synagogues, Vegetarian
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
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?
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.
Is Milk or Meat from a Cloned Animal Kosher?
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.
Bravo for liberated day school teacher: “Bacon’s delish”
Throw it all off. Flee the restrictions. Leave it all behind — bacon is tasty. Or so says the pseudonym “Sarah” in Time Out New York’s article No religion, who purports to be an Orthodox-raised day school teacher in Manhattan.
So one Saturday morning, I went to the Botanical Gardens with my sister who doesn’t keep Shabbes. It was a beautiful day in May. And I remember thinking, Wow, Saturday is another whole day! You don’t only have to go to shul or sleep late and stay at home—you can do other stuff! And that was a huge epiphany. I went to California that summer. And that summer, I had a nonkosher steak taco on the side of the highway.
That was different—I was very nervous, and I ordered very nervously. And I sat at this picnic table on the side of the highway, and the guy to my right was eating a steak taco, and the guy to my left was eating the same thing, and I thought, I am a person. I am a regular human being. I am no longer a “Jew.” And it was so liberating.
