For all of the back and forth here about whether to shecht a goat at the upcoming Food Conference (which is certainly a noble and lively debate), very little space has been given to the what of shechting. Or the how, I suppose. While certainly secondary, the technical aspects of what goes/would go into slaughtering a goat at a Jewish retreat center in rural Connecticut with no facility set up for such a thing, and kosher are by no means simple. I was given the debatably enviable task (I loved it) of figuring out the answers to all the whats should we move ahead. Given that I’ve spent the better part of 18 months (2 years if you count my initial pangs of conscience) trying to get my ethical, kosher meat co-op off the ground, I figured I’d know all the pieces by heart and would just smooth them into place- heck, 1 little goat vs. dozens of cows? Piece of cake. Turns out that’s only half true.
Read more »
As the logistics (and debate) of schecting a goat at Hazon’s Food Conference next month continue, Alexander Lane over at Chow, describes how he decided to “kill Thanksgiving dinner.” Lane writes:
“Here I am in Maine, having relocated in April after spending my first 34 years around major cities like New York and San Francisco. Strange things happen here, such as wild turkeys wandering out of the woods behind your apartment complex. Even stranger, you develop the desire to shoot and eat them...”
Lane then goes on to describe his choice to forego the shrink-wrapped, store-bought turkey, to have a go at killing and preparing a real live animal.
His food story fits into the newly emerging “do it yourself” genre, which has Brooklyn families running full-scale farms in their backyards, and former supermarket goers jumping at the chance to kill their own animals for meat. These, “how I decided to get in touch with the food system by….” stories seem to be a hybrid of post-Omnivore’s Dilemma” ethics and American’s obsession with reality TV.
Whether DIY foodism will become a mainstay of how American’s source their food, or stay sparse enough to continue being story worthy, remains to be seen. For now, check out Lane’s article, “Gobble, Gobble, Bang,” here.
Walking down the streets of Brooklyn, you will inevitably run into some cobwebs - not the kind actually made by spiders (that’s asking a little much for our concrete jungle). Instead, you’ll find manufactured, cotton candy-like cobwebs that people drape on their bushes and pile on their stoops (along with winking pumpkins and smirking cardboard witches) for Halloween. Before too long, those pumpkins will be replaced by plastic Santas and reindeer dotted with little, white lights.
What does all this have to do with The Jew & The Carrot? It means the holidays (the “high” version) are over and the holiday (Chanukah) is not that far away. Don’t stress - Chanukah isn’t about gifts anyway - it’s about the lights and miracles and delicious fried foods. But, if you’re looking for 1. a great gift 2. that will benefit a great cause 3. and help you stay on track with all the Jewish holidays, look no further.
The Jewish Farm School has created an absolutely gorgeous 5768-5769 Jewish Farms Calendar that pairs food and farm photography with a 16-month (Sept 07-Dec 08) calendar.
The Jewish Farms Calendar features:
• All Jewish holidays
• Intimate photographs of freshly harvested produce and livestock that Jewish hands helped to cultivate (see attached preview)
• Dates for special Jewish food events (e.g. The Hazon Food Conference)
• Jewish/agricultural quotations
• 100% post-consumer recycled paper
How to purchase the calendar
The calendar is $18 dollars ($14 if you purchase 10 or more) and proceeds benefit the educational programs of the Jewish Farm School and Hazon. Each purchased calendar makes a huge difference! To purchase a calendar, email Robert Friedman or visit The Jewish Farm School’s website.
Leonard Felson, you’re our hero. Thank you for writing such a beautiful, thorough article about Hazon’s food work for The Jerusalem Report.
Print the full text here.
The Jerusalem Report
October 15, 2007
By: Leonard Felson
Tuv Ha’Aretz brings together 3,000 years of kashrut, food tradition and the environment.
Winter squash, broccoli, fall lettuce, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage - all the fall crops are being harvested or about to be these days at Garden of Eve, an organic farm at the eastern end of Long Island. The farm is also part of a new movement that links synagogues and Jewish community centers with a growing number of organic farms across the country.
In what’s believed to be the first project of its kind, Hazon, a New York-based Jewish environmental group, has shepherded the creation of 10 such partnerships in the United States and Israel this year, with plans for up to 18 next year and more in the years ahead Community Supported Agriculture partnerships, or CSAs, have been around for decades to encourage consumers to support local farms. Members or “shareholders” pay a fee at the start of a growing season to meet a farm’s operating expenses; in return, members receive a portion of the farm’s produce each week, throughout the season.
Hazon sponsors annual bike rides from Jerusalem to Eilat each May in order to publicize its mission: to build and create a healthy, sustainable Jewish community by sponsoring cutting-edge educational initiatives, according to Hazon officials. Three years ago, it broached the idea of sponsoring a Jewish CSA as another way of achieving this.
Read more »
Thanks to Tuv Ha’Aretz farmer and founder of the Shorashim:Roots program at Chava v’Adam farm in Modi’in, Israel, Yigal Deutscher, for this insider look at the shemita year).
22 days have passed from the moment we celebrated the New Year with the blowing of the shofar until yesterday, when, after hours of dancing, drinking, and singing, we rolled the Sefer Torah back to her beginning and read the story of creation.
This stretch of time has been a stretch out of time, a microcosm of creation itself, mirroring the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the 22 building blocks that God used in creating the world we live in.
Yesterday, we stepped back into time, into the Hebrew year 5767, the seventh year of the seven year cycles that guide the flow of time in the land of Israel. This year itself is an extended dimension out of time, one Shabbat stretching from now until next Rosh Hashana. We are already 22 days into Shemita but only now will we come face to face with this moment.
We cannot make this transition alone. We can only begin our year if the land begins with us. Our awakening, reemerging into the normal flow of time, is hand in hand with the earth itself. We have been in a cocoon, nursing from spiritual banks of forgotten reservoirs. The soil of Israel has been in a cocoon herself, deep in sleep after 5 months of hot sun and barren skies.
Read more »
Erev Yom Kippur / 20 / September 2007
Dear All,
I had one of the most astonishing and fascinating conversations of my life over Rosh Hashanah. It was about killing two goats, and I wanted briefly to share it with you ahead of Yom Kippur and Succot.
I spent Rosh Hashanah at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, and – after visiting the goats there – I sat down with Aitan Mizrahi, Freedman’s very own goatherd and the founder of the Adva Goat Dairy and Rachel Gaul, another goatherd friend of Aitan’s. This Yom Kippur will be exactly a month since I posted a piece on The Jew & The Carrot, titled Schechting a goat at the Hazon Food Conference? The conference will be at Freedman, and the key part of the conversation went roughly as follows:
-You know, of course, that if you want to schecht two goats at the Food Conference [in early December], you’ll have to pay to feed them from October till December.
-Why?
-Well, because otherwise they’ll be killed in October – that’s when bucks [male goats] get slaughtered.
-Why’s that?
-Well, goats give birth in the spring. The kids in due course give milk, so they live for a good number of years; but the bucks have no use, so they’re fed during the summer, when food is abundant, and then typically they’re killed in October, ahead of the winter.
-That’s unbelievable! That’s just incredible! You’re telling me that if we schecht two goats at the food conference, we’ll actually be extending their lives by two months – because otherwise they’d be killed in October?
-Yeah, Nige. You know – “no dairy without death.”
-NO DAIRY WITHOUT DEATH??!!
Read more »
The Jewish Week published an article this week that examines: The Yom Kippur tradition of kaporot, the Jewish ethical food movement. Hazon and The Jew & The Carrot both get significant shout-outs. Read the full article here (or below).
Swinging No More
Kaporos and the new eco-kosher movement.
Steve Lipman - Staff Writer
Growing up out of town, in a non-Orthodox household, I never knew from kaporos.
It’s a post-Talmudic, pre-Yom Kippur custom in some traditional circles that involves swinging a live chicken three times over your head, reciting some verses that symbolically transfer your sins to the fowl — a rooster for a man, a hen for a woman — then leaving it behind to be slaughtered, in a kosher manner of course, and given to a needy family.
Kaporos is Hebrew for “atonements.” The custom is supposed to teach sensitivity for God’s creatures and awareness of one’s own transgressions. Orthodox, but a rationalist, I wasn’t interested. Then Tami called.
“Do you want to do kaporos with me?” she asked.
Read more »
Hazon was recently featured in a podcast series by United Jewish Communities (UJC). The topic? Food, sustainability, and Jewish tradition - natch.
The podcast features: Moderator Nigel Savage, Hazon’s Founder and Director; Lisa Kleinman of UJC, ; Simon Feil, Founder of Kosher Conscience; natural foods chef (and The Jew & The Carrot blogger) Linda Lantos; and me as Editor-in-Chief of The Jew & The Carrot
Want a teaser?
Simon Feil on his shift from “vigorous carnivorism” to more compassionate meat-eating ways
Leah Koenig on growing up eating rampant treyf
Nigel Savage on the 5 brave people who travelled into the Agriprocessors factory
Lisa Kleinman on raising two amazing, foodie kids
Linda Lantos on how food connected her to Jewish tradition, and the natural world
Download the podcast from UJC’s website, or click directly to it here.
Wonderful wishes for a fun Labor Day from The Jew & The Carrot. The Hazon staff is finishing up our 7th Annual New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride.
(200 Riders | 100 Crew | 120 miles - Falls Village, CT to NYC!)
For more information about The NY Ride or Hazon, click here.
Check back tomorrow for regularly scheduled progamming :)
Since Tuv Ha’Aretz started here in Berkeley, I’ve gotten to know Adam Edell quite well. We sit and chat while waiting for members to pick up their boxes of produce. We talk, we schmooze, we inspect the zucchini and tomatoes. I’ve even met his dad. But I can’t say I’ve ever seen him “grinning grubbily.”
That’s how Adam was described in this article called “Sustainable Synagogue,” published this week one of the area’s free weeklies, the East Bay Express.
I’m sorry, I’m a journalist too, so I know how tempting it can be to put in that perfect alliterative phrase, even when it doesn’t fully apply. I’m not even sure what a grubbily-looking grin looks like. But after reading this otherwise very complimentary article about us, I couldn’t help but fixate on that one line. Then again, maybe it’s only natural to grin grubbily when talking about composting.
As Hazon’s New York Ride approaches, everyone here at Adamah is excited. For one, we’ve been training for the Ride and it so happens that our program culminates with the awesome shabbaton followed by the Ride itself. That means Anna’s in the kitchen baking bread to help us load up on carbs this week and we’re all making pancakes with goat’s milk every morning. We’re also doing last minute maintenance and repairs on our bikes and scrounging around for extra bike shorts. In two days we look forward to welcoming hundreds of riders to our community and showing off our three months of work. Can’t wait for you all to get here.
Isabella Freedman is also gearing up for the 400+ people who will help make the New York ride the largest retreat to be held at the center. We’ve stocked up on new items, such as silverware, plates, wine glasses, as well as new pots and pans. In order for these items to be used in our kosher kitchen, we need to do a whole lot of toiveling. Toiveling is the practice of dipping kitchen accessories in a mikveh (ritual bath) to purify them and make them kosher before permanent cooking use. Read more »
Last year, American Jewish Life Magazine identified Hazon as one of the “Hottest” Jewish organizations out there (natch).
This month, our food work is all over their new Green Issue!
- Learn AJL’s take on kosher, organic meat (and check out that green cow) here.
- Read about Tuv Ha’Aretz, Hazon’s Community Supported Agriculture Program here.
- Find out how sexy Jewish farmers are (note The Jew and the Carrot shoutout!) here.
Even without the copious Hazon coverage, AJL’s smart, witty writing makes it a new favorite. Check them out at http://www.ajlmagazine.com/
The other day it occurred to me that my relationship with food is an ever changing one. The foods that delighted me as a child have lost some of their mystic in my adult years. Lollipops are nothing more than a sticky mess waiting to happen, while bags of Chips Ahoy cookies have lost their luster in the wake of
homemade coconut biscotti or beignets. Looking back I realize these changes began when I moved into my first apartment and, faced with an barren kitchen and an empty stomach, began my love affair with cooking and baking. Little by little pre-packaged foods became a thing of the past, and I happily hovered in this state of from-scratch-eating until this past May, when I began working at Hazon. Since that momentous first day in Hazon’s office - not to mention
our Cleanse experience - my relationship with food has changed once again. I still cook and bake, but I’ve also become a vegetarian by default - by which I mean that I still love my steaks and relish a good burger, but will only eat ethically raised/slaughtered meat, which is woefully difficult to come by in today’s commercial market. Our produce is organic now too, as is our milk, and the resulting rise in our weekly grocery bill made me marvel at how
all the discounts you get with a ‘grocery store card’ are for cheap, processed food.
In a recent interview with chef and author Rick Bayless I had the opportunity to explore this developing relationship with sustainable, seasonal foods. When I wasn’t admiring his awareness of the environment, and our relationship to it through food, I was imagining the delectable dishes that must grace the tables of his restaurants as a result. He gave me much food for thought, sharing his views about farming while discussing his Frontera Farmer’s Foundation: Read more »
Hazon’s mission is to foster a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community as a step towards a healthier and more sustainable world for all. Our programs are focused around two pillars: bikes (and physical health more broadly) and food.
So I was very excited to find out about two upcoming bicycle rides that are focused entirely around food:
Tour de Blintz: Visit Greater Vancouver’s Jewish restaurants, delis and bakeries - by bicycle! Guided tours available Aug 12, 19, and 26. A self-guided version will be available Aug 31. The August 12 and 19 tours will be all kosher. More info / register here.
Tour d’Organics: Ride from one organic, family farm to the next, enjoying the beautiful scenery and delicious fresh produce along the way. (What could be better than riding 25 miles to be greeted at a rest stop by a fresh, juicy peach?) Rides include: Santa Cruz, Aug 25, Sebastopol, CA, Sept 16, and Portland, OR, Oct 6. More info / register here.
If you know of any other food focused bike rides, comment below or send them to tips@jcarrot.org
