Thanks to Rhea Kennedy of the You are Delicious blog, for this guest post and two delicious recipes. 

As yet another plate of lamb careened toward the table, the scene at my boyfriend’s aunt and uncle’s Shanghainese house started to feel very familiar.  I’d already discovered that latke-like potato cakes are a staple street food in Shanghai.  Now, as my boyfriend’s aunt’s chopsticks moved from serving plate to individual bowls, clunking down pieces of meat in front of the people she’d decided should eat them, I realized that eating Chinese food on Christmas is not the only thing that bonds Jewish folks with our friends in the Far East.

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Just a thought, but could the new food credo of “Eat food not too much, mostly plants,” be a threat to the Kashrut industry as we know it?

I just finished watching a promotional video from the OU. Targeted to the food industry, this video demonstrates the process by which a product receives certification. Using a fictional cake made by Drakes (of Seinfeld lore), the OU rabbi shows how, early in the process the ingredient list of the new cake is sent to the OU to ensure that all ingredients are kosher. Some of the ingredients are found to be problematic, the red sprinkles on top and the emulsifiers that in the words of Rabbi Moshe Elefant “make ingredients mix when they normally can’t.”

According to Rebbe Michael Pollan, food is defined as something your grandmother would recognize. I would bet a big bunch of kale that your grandmother didn’t use emulsifiers to make sure her cake was delicious.

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Lately the conversation amongst my foodie friends has gone something like this:

Friend 1: “Sustainable food is all the rage right now.  It’s amazing that so many people are talking and writing about it!”
Friend 2: “That’s true, but how long do you think it will last?  What if it’s just a fad?”

Whether Americans’ current obsession with all foods local and healthy will continue, dwindle, or change shape remains to be seen.  For now, we think 2008 is off to a great start with three  articles written about Hazon’s food work in the last week.

In Hadassah Magazine, Adeena Sussman writes about Tu B’shevat or (Tu Bishvat, as I’ve been scolded into writing even though it looks funny), Tuv Ha’Aretz and Community-Supported Agriculture, and organic kosher meat.  Read it here. 

The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles reports about how Tuv Ha’Aretz’s new LA location at Sinai Temple is bringing local, organic flavor to Southern California.  Read it here.

Houston’s Examiner News also spreads the Jewish CSA gospel with an article on Tuv Ha’Aretz happenings at the JCC in Houston.  Read it here.

So what do you predict?  Will sustainable food stay hot in 2008, or are we destined to be eating out of cans again by the end of the year?

Oh Jewschool, you all are so sweet! :)  We feel exactly the same way….

Jewschool’s Picks for Best of 2007
by Kol Ra’ash Gadol · Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

Best JBlog
Despite actually having been founded in 2006, we’re still giving our vote to The Jew and the Carrot. It’s really taken off this year and there have been so many themes they’ve covered that we wished we thought of, but now can leave it to he experts. Maybe we just love Hazon.

Topic of the Year: Food
From the schechting of the goat at the Hazon food conference, to the growing eco-kashrut movement, from increasing awareness of the necessity to eat local and organic to “kosher” being the most popular claim found on product labels in 2007, (beating out “All Natural” and “No Additives or Preservatives,”), and let’s not forget the triumphant return of the 2nd Ave Deli, yep, we Jews know what we like, and as usual, it was food

In honor of New Year’s, The Jew & The Carrot proudly presents The Year in Carrots: Best of 2007.  We’ve rounded up the posts that most inspired, outraged and tickled us (and you!) over the past year - not to mention the tastiest, most sustainable recipes from 2007.  Whether you’re new to The Jew & The Carrot or a long-time reader, we hope you find something delicious in the list below.

So, sit back (with a glass of champagne if you’d like) and dig in!

Happy New Year! Chag Sameach!

Our Top 10 Favorite Posts
1. The View from Your Fork: An Interview with Michael Pollan
2. They’re Kashering My Kitchen
3. Thoughts on Becomming a Shochet
4. Why I’m Not a Foodie
5. In Praise of Dinner Parties
6. I Just Couldn’t Do It
7. Growing Food?
8. A Blessing of Rain
9. Is it a Bris Without Bagels? 
10. Eating and Reading

Your Top Five Favorite Posts (Most Comments)
1. Schecting a Goat at The Hazon Food Conference
2. Thou Shall Snack - An Interview
3. Hazon Food Conference: The Goat
4. If Your Great Grandmother Wouldn’t Recognize It
5. Will They Wipe Your Chin Too?

Favorite Holiday Posts
1. Seder Con Salsa
2. The Great Matzah Tasting
3. Dip The Apple In The Maple Syrup
4. How Juice Saved My Yom Kippur
5. Canola and Grapeseed and Olive, Oh My! How To Fry This Hanukkah

Tastiest Recipes
1. Bone Warming Winter’s Meal - Peter Berley’s Recipes
2. Heeeeeeeeres Herman!
3. Latke Time
4. Happy Birthday to Us - Chocolate Cake
5. Move Over Rachel Ray
6. In Search of the Perfect Pomegranate Chicken (and Seitan!)
 

Thanks to The Jew & The Carrot contributor, Jeffrey Yoskowitz, for his great article “Thinking Outside the Bun,” in The New Jersey Jewish News.  Read the article here and see the full text below.

Also - check out The Jew & The Carrot’s new “Jcarrot in the News” page.

Thinking Outside the Bun
By: Jeffrey Yoskowitz
New Jersey Jewish Week
12.20.07

I just ate a kosher Whopper from Burger King in Tel Aviv on a soggy, white sesame seed bun that oozed with mayonnaise, tasteless pickles, subpar mustard, and wilted lettuce. I made sure to add an extra packet of ketchup to enhance the flavors of the meat patty.

Israel was ahead in terms of kosher fast food, but the United States is catching up. A kosher Subway has opened in Livingston, one of 15 kosher Subways expected to open this year throughout the United States.

When large corporations take an interest in kosher food, the Jewish community responds with jubilation, a sense of triumph, and an opening of their wallets. More exciting than the typical Jewish products (read: anything made by Manischewitz or Streits) are American products that go kosher.

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5-Spoke Creamery - As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, 5-Spoke Creamery is the place to look if you’re looking for raw milk, artisanal, amazingly delicious, and kosher certified (Kof-K) cheese.  Now, it seems event the New York Times agrees.  Hazon was blessed to have Alan, Barbara, and their kids serving up samples of their delicious cheese - including their recently released, Tumbleweed variety (see left) - at the Food Conference.  Click here, to find out where you can get your hands on some.

Lantern Books Essay Contest - Lantern Books - publishers of books on animal advocacy, religion, social justice, and environmentalism announced its 2007 essay competition. The aim of the competition is to allow new thinking to emerge on the key subjects of Lantern’s publishing program and to encourage new voices to step forward to shape the debate for the future.

The first prize is $1000. There is no entry fee. Essays should be no longer than 1500 words. The deadline is December 31, 2007.  For complete guidelines, as well as prior years’ winning essays, click here.

When Jane Goldman founded Chow in 2004, she envisioned a new kind of food magazine: one that eschewed the stodgy, elitest air that typifies the world of gourmet food, and embraced the sense of adventure and joy that can be found baking a pie from scratch, or throwing your first dinner party.

With no formal culinary training herself (but plenty of experience in magazines and media), Goldman knew what her audience of home cooks were looking for: entertaining features, friendly culinary advice, instructional videos, regional restaurant recommendations, and a community board (originally the independent Chowhound) where they could chat with one another about their favorite pastime.

Three years, later, Chow - which more recently converted to an online format - is earning a reputation as the go-to spot for enthusiastic - or simply curious - do-it-yourself foodies.

I spoke with Goldman (who was recently named one of Heeb’s 100 most innovative Jews) about the fun side of food, the emerging community of DIY cooks, and, when it comes to “good chow” - why a good poppyseed hamentashen always trumps a latke.

Read the interview below the jump…

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Margaret Hathaway’s new book, The Year of the Goat, tells the story of the 40,000 miles she and her partner (now husband), Karl Schatz, traveled in search of the perfect goat cheese - and a new way of life.

Before embarking on their year-long journey, Hathaway was a freelance writer who managed Magnolia Bakery in New York City, and Schatz worked as a photo editor for Time Magazine’s website. Together, they lived in Brooklyn, shopped at the Greenmarkets, and generally enjoyed city life - but they craved something more than the five boroughs could offer. So, they set off on a year-long journey to discover if farming - and particularly working with goats - held the secrets of the next chapter of their lives.

Along the way, Hathaway and Schatz met what they call, a “vivid cast of characters,” including a myriad of goat cheese and meat enthusiasts, a Texas-born Muslim living in Maine and helping the local Somali community in Lewiston acquire fitting goats for their religious festivals, and a Messianic Jew who keeps Shabbat as well as a herd of goats.

I spoke with Margaret and Karl last week about goats (naturally), their adventures in homesteading, the connection between farming and Jewish tradition, and their upcoming event in NYC, the Goatstravaganza (Nov. 8).

Interview continues below the jump…

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Melanie Dunea’s new book - My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals- combines Americans’ ever-growing obsession with food and celebrity chefs, with our voyeuristic desire to glimpse into the lives of famous people.

The book features goregous, coffee table-quality portraits of renowned chefs, along with interviews and - of course - their own description of their ideal “last meal.” It is truly remarkable to notice the number of chefs who chose shellfish and pork products (particularly suckling pig) as their deathbed delicacy.

New York-based chef and organic foods enthusiast, Jonathan Waxman’s final meal comes slightly closer to The Jew & The Carrot’s style:

“a bountiful and varied selection: handmade tortilla chips with guacamole made from organic tree-ripened avocados, spit-roasted lamb from the Sonoma Valley, served with potatoes cooked in ashes, followed by ice cream sandwiches made from shortbread, served with wild strawberries.”

So nu, what would your (God, forbid!)  last meal include?

Purchase My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals here

Last week, my coworker Judith came into the office, excited about a seasonal food discovery she’d made.  “I was trying to figure out what to do with all the potatoes I got in my CSA,” she said.  “And I realized - December’s not that far away and potatoes store well…no wonder latkes are a traditional Chanukah food!”

Judith’s epiphany links her back to the kitchens of our collective Ashkenazi Jewish ancestors, who made food from inexpensive, readily-available ingredients.  What better way to have a delicious, filling meal, than to fry up a bunch of winter root veggies like potatoes? 

And, I thought with a swell of “it all makes sense!” elation, what better to top them with than a sauce made of the only fruit that stores as well as potatoes in the winter - apples!  Remembering the Hebrew connection put me in even more in a tizzy.  (One of the first things that every Hebrew school student learns is that tapuach means apple and tapuach adamah means “apple of the earth” - potato.)

It was high time, I thought, to make some applesauce.  (Recipe below the jump…)

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Further proof (from the NY Times no less) that kale is the best food ever.  Melissa Clark writes in “If it Sounds Bad, it’s Got to be Good:

“Nonetheless, I ordered the [raw kale] salad. It arrived as a shadowy green mountain under a blizzard of grated pecorino Rossellino cheese (a nutty Italian sheep’s milk cheese with a ruddy rind) and bread crumbs, flavored with lemon and chili. Tangy, spicy, slick with good oil and crunchy from the earthy-flavored kale, it was as pungent and rich as it was fresh and clean tasting; a veritable raw foods epiphany. The minute I left the restaurant I craved another.”

Jessica Seinfeld (Jerry’s wife) recently published a book, Deceptively Delicious, which offered sneaky recipes that slip vegetables into kid-friendly food - only to find out that the book had already been written - i.e. Missy Chase Lapine’s The Sneaky Chef.  I wonder what Mrs. Seinfeld would think of the idea that - prepared well - maybe vegetables like kale and spinach don’t need to be pureed into brownies after all.

Laura Frankel is not your typical kosher chef. For those of who have been reading her recent posts, she has little tolerance for fake foods and refuses to kowtow to clients who demand kosher versions of otherwise unkosher food. I recently had the opportunity to sit and chat with her about her thoughts on food and the nature of food in Jewish society.

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Michael Pollan is at it again, and that’s a good thing. 

After a brief hiatus following his bestselling book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan is nearly ready to release his next work titled, 
In Defense of Food: The Myth of Nutrition and the Pleasures of Eating.

Pollan says that the work grew out of questions he received about The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  In a recent interview with Grist’s Tom Philpott, he said: once I’ve ”looked into the heart of the food system and been into the belly of the beast” what should I eat, and what should I buy, and if I’m concerned about health, what should I be eating?  The short answer?  “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”  To get the more nuanced response, you’ll have to pick up the book which will be out in January, 2008.

We know what’s up on Pollan’s plate - what’s next for you?
- Preorder your copy of In Defense of Food here. 
- Read Philpott’s full interview (highly recommended) here.
- Read The Jew & The Carrot’s interview with Pollan here.