Many years ago, I escorted some at-risk urban youth to a park. Blinged and tattooed, these kids’ gestures stiffened into armor and their faces hardened into leather expressions of defiance and danger. Then they spotted the recently picked apples that had been brought along for a snack. They lunged, giggling and pushing to get their hands on those apples first.  When a butterfly passed overhead the boys tore into a chase, yelling, “A butterfly! A butterfly!”.  They held onto their bitten-into apples as they ran.  Can urban lives be changed one piece of fruit or vegetable at a time? Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s urban food movement is counting on it.

Americans waste more than more than 100 billion pounds of food every year, at every stage of production from field to store to plate. That number doesn’t include the produce thrown out or left to rot by the millions of home or community gardeners. Wouldn’t it be great if all those leftover tomatoes and cucumbers in your backyard could be linked with local food pantries and shelters?

Gary Oppenheimer had just that inspiration. He’s the founder of Ample Harvest, a project aiming to help home gardeners donate their unwanted produce to food pantries. Gary is a master gardener and the head of the West Milford Community Garden. I spoke with him about Ample Harvest and how home gardeners can make a difference.

Thanks so much to Chef Shaya Klechevsky for this great guest cross-post from his blog At Your Palate.  Shaya is a combination gourmet chef, food nerd and food writer. Shaya grew up in a home rich in diverse cultures; his mother, an Egyptian native, and his father, a Polish native, brought an interesting mix of food and flavor to every meal. After attending Brooklyn College, Shaya found his way to the French Culinary Institute at the International Center for Culinary Arts. Shaya uses his passion for good food and a healthy lifestyle to bring healthy, kosher, gourmet cuisine to his clients.

In a previously mentioned article, Attention Locavores: Community Supported Agriculture (aka CSA), I discussed the latest trend in local sustainability – the Community Supported Agriculture movement – where communities band together in support of a farm (or two) and are provided with a schedule of delivered seasonal produce. As such, I recently had the wonderful pleasure of getting to know Hilla Abel, a native Californian who made the trek to our cosmopolitan New York City.

Hilla Abel trained at New York’s Natural Gourmet Institute and now works as a personal chef, cooking instructor, and apparently the pioneer of establishing Jewish CSA programs in NYC! She was responsible for co-founding the first ever Jewish CSA in Queens with the Forest Hills Jewish Center. Below, is the riveting conversation I had with her:

Reverend Robert Jackson is the co-founder of the Brooklyn Rescue Mission, an innovative food program based in Bed-Stuy that combines a food pantry, an urban farm, and a farmer’s market to create a healthy, sustainable food system for people in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Urban farming becomes the starting point for empowerment and self-reliance, giving people in the neighborhood the chance to become physically and spiritually healthier.

Rev. Jackson sees three parts to the mission of BRM: creating fresh food, establishing the distribution of fresh food, and helping those who are impoverished by supplying them with emergency food. BRM was a major partner of the Brooklyn Food Conference.

I spoke with Rev. Jackson about his drive to bring fresh food to his community.

Shmuly Yanklowitz at Cafe Nana, the first restaurant to receive the Tav HaYosher

One year after the federal raid of the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, Uri L’tzedek (Awaken to Justice), an orthodox social action group,  has responded by establishing an ethical seal, Tav HaYosher, for all kosher eating establishments. “After seeing the pain and suffering inflicted by our own kosher industry on the stranger and the poor, the very people the Torah demands we protect, we realized we needed to be proactive and make a change,” said Shmuly Yanklowitz, founder and co-director of Uri L’Tzedek.

I  had the opportunity to speak with Rachel Rosenthal, an active member of Uri L’Tzedek and the Tav HaYosher campaign, and has taught about ethical kashrut in communities across the Upper West Side.

The Tav YaHosher campaign launches today with a public event 6:30 -8:30 pm at Cafe Nina, 505 W.115th St., 2nd floor, in New York City.  My interview with Rachel is after the jump.

Cross-posted from Heeb’n'Vegan.  With the one year anniversary of the May 12, 2008 raid on the AgriProcessor’s plant in Postville Iowa at hand Michael’s interview of Shmarya Rosenberg is very timely.  To see the Jew and the Carrot’s coverage of Agriprocessors click here.

Shmarya Rosenberg’s blog Failed Messiah has become a one-stop hub for news and commentary about scandals and all-around unpleasantness in the kosher meat industry, among other foibles in the Orthodox community. With muckraking reporting and critical commentary, Rosenberg has held the feet of many in the Jewish community to the fire while providing readers with invaluable information.

Failed Messiah has been a leading force in the Jewish blogosphere since 2004, but the May 12, 2008, raid at AgriProcessors in Postville, Iowa, was the beginning of a new era. One year ago, government agencies staged the largest single-site immigration raid in U.S. history, arresting hundreds of illegal immigrant workers and uncovering such diverse problems as child labor and a “meth lab.” Rosenberg claims that Failed Messiah broke the story (although technical difficulties meant that The Des Moines Register posted it online more or less simultaneously). He has stayed in touch with people on the ground in Postville to report about what’s going on from many perspectives, Failed Messiah’s readership jumped to about 15,000 page views on some days, and he became somewhat of a hero when he unveiled the questionable practices of AgriProcessors’ PR company, 5WPR.

Below are excerpts of an interview I conducted with Rosenberg on Friday.

Back in March, I got an email inviting me to take part in the ChefKosher.com cooking contest. I eventually submitted a recipe (for Chunky Borscht, which may look familiar to the Jew and the Carrot readers), and of course had to snoop around the site.

One of the first things I noticed was the stunning food photos. These enticing shots mark the portals to recipes for beef, poultry, fish, soups and stews, dairy dishes, breads, desserts and sweets, and more.

The next element to strike me was the sample recipe titles, tantalizing from the sidelines. The juxtapositions also gave me a giggle. On a recent visit, I found links to Moroccan Style Matzo Ball Soup, Barbecued Beef Ribs, and Pennsylvania Shoofly Pie. Now there’s a kosher meal to remember! (Just be sure to use a parve butter alternative for the pie!)

Of course, the mustachioed chef gazing amicably from the header also caught my eye. He looks like an Old Country version of The Muppet Show’s Swedish Chef.

I wish I had the nerve to be Lagusta Yearwood. Most days though, I perpetrate numerous small betrayals against my ideal self (calling myself “flexitarian” when I’m really too lazy to go full vegetarian; recycling only when it’s convenient; etc.). Perhaps I haven’t fully grown into the Radical Me. Or perhaps it’s the opposite: the Radical Me is like my skinny jeans, an identity that I’ve outgrown, as I’ve been fattened and jaded by age… (your thoughts? Have you radicalized or softened with time?).

So, “what’s a Lagusta?” you might ask. She is equal parts vegan chef, political activist and spunky feminist. Oh, and Jewish to boot. I conducted an email interview with her. My questions are in bold, her responses follow. Join us, below the jump.

A few months back on The Jew & The Carrot, we posted about an amazing Israeli social justice organization called Bema’aglei Tzedek, which created an ethical seal for restaurants called Tav Chevrati (social seal).  The seal ensures that the restaurant provides basic rights to workers and also basic accessibility to customers with physical disabilities.  Started only a few years ago, the Tav Chevrati seal is now on a third of all restaurants in Jerusalem, and is expanding to Tel Aviv and other cities.

I recently had a chance to speak with Bema’aglei Tzedek’s Executive Director, Dyonna Ginsburg (pictured at left) and here her thoughts on the socio-economic gaps in Israeli society, the power of public pressure on the Israeli government, and why she only eats in restaurants with the Tav Chevrati seal.

Enjoy the interview, below the jump!

Rabbi Gordon Tucker is the Senior Rabbi at the Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York. He served as the Dean of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTA) from 1984 until 1992, and on the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly from 1982 to 2007. His most recent published work, Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations is a translation with commentary of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s three volume work in Hebrew.

Right before Thanksgiving, I had the chance to speak with Rabbi Tucker about his thoughts on Hekhsher Tzedek, how food and social justice connect, and where change comes from in Conservative Judaism (hint, read the title of this post)

Read all about it below the jump (plus – a special, candid photo of Rabbi Tucker on Hazon’s New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride!)…

Rabbi Julian Sinclair is an author, educator, and economist. He is also the co-founder and Director of Education for Jewish Climate Initiative, a Jerusalem based NGO that is articulating and mobilizing a Jewish response to climate change.  Before starting JCI, Julian worked as an economist advising the UK Government and for a British political think tank.  Meanwhile, he authored the book Lets Schmooze: Jewish Words Today and is working on completing a Phd in the mystical thought of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.  Phew!

Sinclair lives in Jerusalem and has been featured on NPR and interviewed for the New York Times by our own Leah Koenig.  Hazon is delighted to invite Rabbi Sinclair as a presenter at this year’s Hazon Food Conference, December 25-28, 2008.

Get a sneak peek at what Julian has to say below the jump.  And find out more/ register for Hazon’s Food Conference, here!

A farmer, an educator and an activist, Michael Ableman is also a photographer and a writer. His three books include his latest, Fields of Plenty: A farmer’s journey in search of real food and the people who grow it, for which Ableman traveled North America chronicling the passion and prowess of the new generation of American farmers. He currently farms in British Columbia with his wife and two sons, and will be joining us as a presenter at the Hazon Food Conference in December, 2008. (Click here to find out more and register for Hazon’s Food Conference.)

I talked to Ableman about his hopes for the sustainable agriculture movement, his many hats, and Judaism’s connection to the cycle of the seasons.

Find the full interview below the jump.

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.

New York Times book critic Janet Maslin recently picked Adam Gollner’s new book, The Fruit Hunters (Scribner: 2008), as a top summer read—and it’s easy to see why. Gollner writes mellifluously about his extraordinary (writ extraterrestrial) experiences traveling the world in search of fruits and the wacky people who devote their lives to this quest.

In the Seychelles, Gollner—or perhaps Adam is his best suited moniker—manages to get his hands on the uncannily female-looking coco-de-mer, or ‘lady fruit,’ whose “innards are translucent, almost like a silicon gel implant but with a softer, shaky-pudding texture” with “a mild citruslike quality, refreshing and sweet with earthy, spunky notes…like coconut flesh, only sexier.”

He then visits the jungles of Borneo to taste the intensely odoriferous “nutty, almondlike,” and “fully constructed dessert” of fresh durians, where the “juicy white cubes of flesh fuse a custard’s richness with a cakelike powderiness… topped with “vanilla-spruce frosting”—a far cry from the false gas leak alarm-spawning durians he got in Manhattan’s Chinatown, where they tasted of “undercooked peanut butter-mint omelets in body-odor sauce.” In Hawaii he tempts us with his description of the dusky brown chicos tasting of “maple syrup pudding,” and a host of other Neverland varietals such as bignays, gourkas, sapotes, mombins, langsats.

Over fruit smoothies one recent morning in Montreal, I met with Adam to discuss his new book and the sweet allure of the infinite world of fertilized flowers.

Below the jump: Win a copy of Adam Gollner’s The Fruit Hunters!