A group of Jewish food lovers, a spread of delectable dishes, and milkshakes made of laughter. If it were possible for one afternoon to be too good, this is where it would start.

A group of Jew & the Carrot writers, editors, and friends faced the risk—overflowing goodness and all—this past Sunday. Of course, it all started with the food. I arrived at host Avigail’s Clinton Hill, Brooklyn apartment to find hand-layered ratatouille swirling from the center of a clay baking dish, crusty homemade beer bread, a cake topped with the purple velvet of baked plums, aromatic rosemary bread, peach-basil salad, and made-from-scratch yogurt. That alone nearly tipped the scales to the side of the too good. Did I mention that we washed this down with homemade sparkling ginger-grapefruit juice? Spiked with gin?

When it comes to romantic relationships, I’m emotionally inept. Well, that’s probably not fair – it’s more like I’m expressively inept. Maybe it comes from the plenitude of lousy dates or the abundance of bad relationships that makes me hold my tongue when it comes to talking about my feelings. And it probably doesn’t help that my current boyfriend is really shy. Although we hold hands in public as if they were magnetic, he’ll put his arms around me if I’m cold, he is much coyer than I about stealing a kiss in a dark movie theatre or other apparent PDA while amongst polite company. In turn I am more likely to describe myself as “a women in love” to friends, strangers and blog readers than I am to drop the “L” word around him. But I’m fairly certain he knows how much I care from the meals we eat together.

So you’ve just opened your CSA box to an unfamiliar sight—a strange-looking bulb with long leaves sprouting every which way. After asking Google, your hippie aunt, two of your neighbors and a guy in line with you at Trader Joe’s, you finally figure out that the mystery plant is called kohlrabi. Great… now what do you do with the giant bag of it in your fridge?

Jared Koch, author.

Like any good narcissist, I’m a sucker for a self help book. Particularly those sweet tongue-in-cheek manuals sitting near the counter at B&N. Those slim volumes seem to promise a schematic for your life: how to dress, date, survive a bear attack, and of course, eat. Clean Plates N.Y.C. fits the bill neatly. But unlike those “Survival Guides,” this is a self help book with a mission: to help its readers eat healthy and yummy meals in NYC.

Thanks so much to Rachel Bergstein for this great cross-post from the Green Profit.  Since her summer camp counselor explained in detail to a 14-year-old Rachel how the dairy industry ravages the environment, she has been awkwardly obsessed with sustainable food.  Today, Rachel and dairy are in a complicated relationship, based on a simultaneous love of cheese and concern for sustainability and environmental justice.  Rachel is a 2009 graduate of the University of Maryland, a New Israel Fund 2009 Social Justice Fellow, and a contributor to Green Prophet.

Photos courtesy of Jamie R. Liu

Noah Dan has not forgotten the tastes of his childhood.  He remembers eating brara, the fruits and vegetables bursting with incredible flavor but too “ugly” to package for sale in the cities, on Kibbutz Givat Brenner, where he was born and raised.  He also remembers eating creamy, homemade gelato in Trieste, Italy where he spent summers with his Italian grandparents.

Now a resident of the Washington DC area, Noah is the founder and CEO of Pitango Gelato.  Pitango, whose namesake is a variety of cherry that grows wild in Israel, recently opened two new shops in Washington, DC and Reston, Virginia after a successful first run in Baltimore, Maryland.  In his attempt to reproduce the gelato of his childhood, Noah has found a way to build a business that is sustainable, conscientious, and produces a very high-end product without the use of chemicals or artificial additives.

Thanks so much to Rachel Harkham for this great Guest Post.  Rachel is a mother of three, wife of one, living in Rockland County, NY. She keeps a food blog that records her life, times and the dishes that went with it. Her articles on uncomplicated, tasty, and  health-conscious recipes can be found in the About Our Children insert in the Bergen County Jewish Standard.  Rachel’s alter ego Roxy Chocsmith, is responsible for the fanciful and outlandish chocolate creations found on RoxyChocSmith.com.  And in her spare time Rachel teaches cooking and baking for kids at the local day school and at the local JCC.

This morning I woke up to bright sunshine and fresh air.   Even before the usual morning go around with the kids, I was thinking of what to make for dinner.   As I prepared their breakfasts of cold cereal and cold milk, I regretted  this most important meal’s lack of warmth.  A vision of oven-baked sun- yellow corn muffins, flicked through my mind as I placed the white bowls of crunchy brown squares in front of them.

“I’m not going to the supermarket today” I remind myself later that morning as I take stock of the fridge.  Supermarket once a week, twice max- is my new resolution in order to save time, and, more importantly money.   I pause on a package of sliced nova. Then I look for the eggs- I know I bought a new carton the other day. Locate them, open up to find all twelve eggs -but curse the last two cracked ones.   A feeling of mild triumph, like fitting the right word into a crossword puzzle, alights when I know what I’m making for dinner tonight.  Monday-first day of the week, June 1st  the first day of the month. I want to begin fresh and light and cool with smoked salmon egg salad and corn muffins.

There is a cheesecake sitting in my (boyfriend’s) refrigerator right now. At some point late last week I got it in my head that with Shavuot just around the corner I should make a cheesecake. Since I’m doing a time-share with my boyfriend’s kitchen, permission had to be granted by the relevant roommates, which was how I found myself late last night remembering how much I disliked baking.

But I’m terribly sentimental about food and of course my cheesecake comes with a story…

Thanks so much to Jessica Miller for this great cross-post from Jewcy.  Jessica is a former Jewcy Editorial Intern. She currently studies religion and English at Barnard College, right now spending most of her time working on her senior thesis, which involves Sufi saints, Muslim tombs, and the prophet Daniel.

Living close to San Mateo, CA, the artichoke producing capital of the US, I am lucky. For months, the delicious, complicated, decadent vegetables have appeared faithfully at my nearby farmer’s market. I usually steam them and eat the leaves plain, or possibly dipped in butter-garlic sauce. Or, if my fiance mixes up a dipping sauce of mayo and mustard, I may dip a few in there. But mostly I just eat them plain, enjoying the complex green vegetable taste.

Then I read Out of the Kitchen Adventures of a Food Writer by Jeannette Ferrary.

Thanks to our good friends at Jewcy.com for this great tip and cross-post. Lilit Marcus, the author of the post was pretty uncertain about pastrami burritos, so let her know what you think.

Cinco de Mayo may be a holiday about Mexican Independence, but that doesn’t stop Americans from celebrating it as an ode to tacos, pinatas, and copious drinking. Well, if you live in New York, an establishment called Tequilaville (I’d make a Jimmy Buffett joke, but not enough Southerners are on this website to find it funny) on Vanderbilt Avenue between 42nd and 43rd streets is giving away pastrami burritos and kosher tequila. The tequila, Agave 99, is produced in Mexico under the supervision of a rabbi.

Photo by Julian Darwall. Illustration by Nick Shepard.

Attention Jewish Foodies! Check out this article, “Culture Clash in the New Jewish Food Movement”, published recently in New Voices, describing the question of elitism in the New Jewish Food Movement.  The piece is meant to start a conversation about the multiplicity of entry points and priorities in the Movement, and I hope you find it interesting. As an active member in the New Jewish Food Movement and a reporter on this piece, I found myself in some fascinating conversations that I hope will continue with all of you.

Happy Yom Ha’Atzmaut! Thanks to your comments on my St. Patrick’s Day post I decided to set a challenge for myself. To try and recreate the blue icing cupcakes of my youth with natural food dye. You must understand that I do not have an extensive test kitchen and loads of time and energy so I tried one option… extracting blue coloring from blueberry jam.

I must say I think I failed miserably and so I created a tried and true second batch using good o’l fashioned food coloring. The test will be completed tonight when I see which platter is done first. I’ll let you know.

Thanks to Avi Rubel for this great guest post cross-posted from his site Zen and the Art of Cheese-Making.  Avi makes home-made cheese and bread in Brooklyn, NY. When not performing culinary experiments in his kitchen, Avi spends a lot of time managing MASA Israel Journey’s North American operation which takes him around the country and world getting more Jewish young adults to spend quality time in Israel.

I’ve become a home cheesemaker!

I’d been running my mouth for the past few years about how I’d like to have a goat farm one day where I would milk my goats and make my own cheese. But, I live in Brooklyn NY. It would be hard to fit a goat here in my little NY apartment. Alas, I decided a few months ago that at least I could learn how to make cheese while I’m here in NY. I bought a home cheesemaking guide book and have begun a great adventure making a new cheese every weekend.

So far, I’ve made some tasty farmer’s cheese, a great mozarella (see below), a nice ricotta, a curd-y cottage cheese, the best yogurt I’ve ever had, and finally went for some hard cheese and made what looks to be a fine Cheddar which is aging on my counter as I type.

AJWS is pleased to announce that we are accepting applications for the Dvar Tzedek Lisa Goldberg Memorial Writers’ Fellowship for 5770 / 2009-2010. AJWS Dvar Tzedek Fellows receive a modest stipend and write weekly Torah commentaries relating to the Jewish imperative for social justice. The Dvar Tzedek currently reaches over 4,000 people a week over e-mail.

To see examples of the work of this year’s Dvar Tzedek Fellows, and to download the application for the fellowship, please click here.

We invite you to apply for the fellowship and to circulate information about the fellowship to anyone else you think would be interested. For more information, please contact Lisa Exler at lexler@ajws.org