This Article is Cross-Posted on KosherEye.com

As 5771 approaches, we look ahead with hope for a good and sweet year.  Honey has been part of tradition for thousands of years, as exemplified by the age-old custom of using a taste of honey to encourage and reward young children for learning.  What can be more delicious than dipping home-made breads, crackers or fruits into honey? And now honey has gotten even sweeter!

The Savannah Bee Company is redefining honey and educating the consumer as to the many ways to use and enjoy this golden nectar.  Just as there are numerous sources and types of coffee, Scotch and chocolate, raw honey, too, is sourced globally and is available in single varieties and blends, each with different characteristics, taste variations and flavors.

Here are some standouts as described by The Savannah Bee Company:

Tupelo is the “gold standard” by which all other honeys are measured. Harvested over two or three weeks in the early spring, Tupelo nectar is one of the rarest and most valuable liquid resources in the world…a thick, slow-moving river of liquid sunshine. Pour it into strong black tea, on to buttery toast, or over a piece of aged cheddar.

Acacia is known as “moonflower honey” and is produced in the Southern Italian Alps. This delicate organic honey has a clean, light vanilla taste.  It tastes delicious in coffee or tea or served drizzled over toast or over Parmigiana- Reggiano.  Elegant!

Winter White comes from the wildflowers of Lapland, Finland, near the North Pole. This exquisite honey has a creamy color and a smooth texture. Its pure, clean taste, with just a hint of fruit, is the ideal compliment to hot cocoa or warm scones.

Sourwood, an award-winning honey with hints of maple and spice, is made in small batches high in the southern Appalachians.

Raspberry is from the largest raspberry orchard in the U.S and is the purest raspberry honey on the market. This honey naturally crystallizes immediately after extracting it from the combs, making it the ideal dipping consistency. Spread on warm toast, biscuits, or scones.

Black Sage, a pale, cool, greenish-yellow honey rarely crystallizes, is extremely rare, and a treat on the palate. It is very different from any other American honey. The flavors are distinctive, with notes of apple, berry, and vanilla. Many prize this as a favorite with strong black tea.

Recently, Savannah Bee Company has introduced three new varietal honeys, specifically formulated for special uses:

Grill Honey—Pair with grilled foods and grilling marinades; this honey caramelizes well and makes your grill a BEE-B-QUE!

Cheese Honey—Drizzle on salty cheeses or sweeten a strong, creamy blue cheese.

Tea Honey—Stir effortlessly into teas, lemonades and, of course, mojitas

Products from Savannah Bee Company are KSA kosher certified.

Visit Savannah Bee Company to read about the ongoing endangerment of the honeybee population.

Trans fats,�an invention of the 20th century, permitted the development of such synthetic�food-like products as margarine and coffee whiteners.� Neither of these products�existed around the time my great-grandparents caught their first sight of the Statue of Liberty.� Nevertheless, as a result of focused, sustained, and wildly successful marketing campaigns to gain their recognition and acceptance,�they became an integral part of what is now considered �traditional� kosher cooking.� In 1912, for example, after Procter and Gamble of Cincinnati launched a nationwide campaign for Crisco, its new vegetable shortening,�it enlisted the support of American orthodox rabbis, notably Rabbi Moshe Zevulun Margolies (the �Ramaz�) of New York, to endorse Crisco as ritually pure.� P&G advertised that �the Hebrew Race had been waiting for 4,000 years� for a solution to its shortening problems.� Mazola worked with the Hebrew Ladies� Aid Society in Fargo, ND, to teach interested parties how to use their product, and made contributions to the local women�s burial society for every unit sold.� Other examples abound.

I went to my local supermarket to check out the ingredients in�pareve margarine and coffee whitener.� Mother�s lists �liquid and partially hydrogenated soybean oil� first. �Fleischmann�s lists partially hydrogenated soybean oil second, after liquid corn oil.��The first three ingredients in original Coffee-Rich are, in order,�water, corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil.� The first three ingredients in fat-free Coffee-Rich are, curiously, identical.� �Partially hydrogenated� means trans fats.

What’s wrong with trans fats?� The problems are numerous, diverse, and well established.� Trans fats cause heart disease.� They increase insulin resistance, which causes diabetes.� Trans fats decrease good cholesterol and increase bad cholesterol. �They suppress the immune response, interfere with reproduction, and decrease the nutritional quality of milk.� They alter the properties of cell membranes.� They enhance deposition of abdominal fat.� In a famous study of 85,000 women conducted by Harvard University,�individuals with heart disease were found to have eaten significantly higher amounts of trans fats.

Trans fats have been banned in other countries, and in several cities throughout the U.S., but they have yet to be banned across our nation.� What the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has mandated is that food containing less than � gram of trans fat per serving may be advertised as�”trans-fat free.”� That�s not good enough.� In the case of Coffee-Rich, a serving is 1 tablespoon.� This morning I felt like making my�coffee extra light, so I put 4 tablespoons, or � cup, of milk into�the mug.� If I had used Coffee-Rich, that would have added up to almost 2 grams of trans fat.� Just for the first cup.� So it would be easy, on any given day, to consume quite a bit of trans fat solely from trans-fat-free food.� That�s a problem.

What are our alternatives?� First and foremost, skip the coffee whitener.� Drink your coffee black, or choose tea with honey or lemon.� Try coconut, almond, soy, or rice milk if you�d like.� Bake pareve as our foremothers did for a thousand years, with coconut oil, which stays solid below 75 degrees Fahrenheit.� Decline to make�recipes that call for pareve margarine.� Don’t use it in place of butter; make different recipes.� We vote every time a bar code passes over a scanner, so don�t buy margarine or coffee whitener for your home, office, or synagogue.� There is no place for synthetic trans fats in a healthy community.

Photo courtesy of Kirk Anderson

It’s a resplendent Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles, that rare smog-free day. You decide to charbroil some burgers for lunch. You creek open the lid of your backyard grill and…bzzZZZzzzz!  A bee-hive! In ten seconds flat, you’ve hightailed it back into the house, slammed the door, and Googled “exterminator.”

Best to kill those sons-a-beeswax before they swarm, right? Wrong!

Slow your roll. Have a heart. And call Kirk Anderson at the Bee Rescue Hotline.

For a fee, Anderson, 61, a sort of bee Svengali in the City of Angels, will not only remove your unwanted bees, he’ll find them an adopted home through Backward Beekeepers, the organization of small-scale organic urban beekeepers that rely on sustainable, natural practices to keep their bees thriving.

“I’ve had people call me who’ve got bees in their dryer ducts,” said Anderson of the hotline, which receives up to 10 calls a day. “I’ve taken bees out of five-gallon paint cans, suitcases, chests of drawers, car glove boxes.”

At a recent Backward Beekeeper monthly meeting, Anderson held court like the Queen Bee—that is, if she sported Catfish Hunter’s mustache and wielded Yogi Berra’s wit.

Click here to see the rest of the article

…during the winter

…on a day other than Saturday

Those of us organic, sustainable foodies in Chicago are keenly aware of the famous Green City Market which stays open year-round by moving into the Nature Museum November-April.  But for us who observe Shabbat, the Saturday-only schedule they keep in the in winter months is sad news indeed.

So I finally kvetched – kvweeted? – to all the Chicago farmers market Tweeps I follow about how Jews are blocked from farmers market goodness in the winter.

The good people at The Local Beet promptly directed me to 2 markets, The Downtown Chicago Farmstand (open daily) and The Logan Square Farmers Market (Sundays 10am-1pm).  So I ran- ok I took 2 buses- to Logan Square last Sunday.  Tucked away in the Congress theatre at 2135 N. Milwaukee Avenue (just north of Armitage), here is what I found-

First I found none of the baked goods nor meats were kosher – so this won’t be your stop for Passover matzah, lamb, cheese, or macaroons if you adhere to rules of kashrut.  But the produce is fresh, organic, and local.  The baked goods are created using local ingredients.  Everything is grown, stirred, canned, and baked with love. So here we go…

First stop? Logan Square resident, Sarah Marino, from Oak Park’s Reform synagogue, B’nai Abraham Zion.  She stood behind a table directing shoppers where they could find each item for their seder.  Brilliant!

Next? Mushrooms! wow- beautiful, healthy, gorgeous mushrooms compliments of River Valley Ranch.

Across the way, the incomparable Paula Jeremias of Tiny Greens is juicing wheat grass and clipping fresh sprouts- sunflower, broccoli, arugula (yum!), onion, alfalfa… any of these turn a bowl of mixed greens into a gourmet entree.  Not to mention sprucing up that seder plate – something other than parsley would be a nice change, no?

Moving on…past the artisan cheeses, french baguettes, herbal teas, macaroons (more on these later)… Apples! Baskets and baskets and baskets of beautiful, apples from Hillside Orchards in Michigan.

Next stop? Free Range eggs from chickens fed organic greens while living at Tempel Farms.

Across the way, is the lovely Anne Kostroski of Crumb with her homemade matzah made with eggs and honey from this market!  Sadly it is not kosher for Pesach – she explained to me this is something she’s made for her family seders for years, and finally this year she decided to bring it to the market.  It’s the BEST matzah you’ll ever eat, I promise. 1/2 dozen pieces are $4, Dozen is $8.  If you’d like to learn more about Anne and her matzah, check out Brad Moldofsky’s article This is NOT your Mother’s Bread of Affliction.

Next to Anne is the Elgin-based, Dennanne Farms.  They have the most extraordinary soaps- seriously, get your clean on at with Denny & Anne Bukala while grabbing yummy honey to make your own homemade matzah.

After the sweet, is the savory of Herbally Yours.  I picked up a bottle of their Rosemary Garlic vinegar and have enjoyed the best salads all week.  Their Basil Oregano Vinegar is ridiculous (and award-winning).  And, of course, these herbs and more can be purchased from them sans vinegar.  Just ask.  He LOVES his product and the herbs and will insist you taste everything he’s got.  And it’s all amazing.

So that’s all that’s safe for Passover – not counting the matzah – but I wonder if the love and care put into this matzah could possibly be considered worthy of kosher status – just minus the official man officially supervising the love and care…so I had to mention it.

One more worth mentioning, but not kosher for Pesach, Macaron Chicago – Beth Jacob handcrafts these little lovelies and ohhhhh that Mayan Chocolate one is out of this world delight.  When shopping Sunday morning, stop by, grab a box or two (or 5), to munch on while cleaning and prepping Sunday night and Monday afternoon.  You will be so happy you did!

So this was late posting- sometime technology gets the better of me (like spilling soda on my dear little mac – thank goodness for the computer fix-it saints in that basement shop around the corner from me).  Hopefully you’re reading this as you sip your morning coffee Sunday thinking “gosh I wish I could go to a farmers market this morning instead of Whole Foods”.  Go! Enjoy!

Lovers of local honey and urban beekeepers rejoice!  This morning the New York City Board of Health lifted the ban on beekeeping in the City!  Lots of good folks like Just Food and the New York City Beekeepers Association have been putting a lot of great effort into making this happen!

The ordinance will now say:

(12) All venomous insects, including, but not limited to, [bee,] bees other than non-aggressive honey bees (Apis mellifera), hornet and wasp. Persons keeping honey bees shall file a notice with the Department, on a form provided or approved by the Department, containing the beekeeper’s name, address, telephone, e-mail and fax numbers, emergency contact information, and location of the hive, and they shall notify the Department within ten business days of any changes to such information. Beekeepers shall adhere to appropriate beekeeping practices including maintaining bee colonies in moveable-frame hives that are kept in sound and usable condition; providing a constant and adequate water source; locating hives so that the movement of bees does not become an animal nuisance, as defined in §161.02 of this Article; and shall be able to respond immediately to control bee swarms and to remediate nuisance conditions.

Avi Rubel is the North American Director of Masa Israel Journey, the umbrella organization for immersion programs in Israel for young adults (18-30). When not sending people to Israel, Avi can be found making cheese, bread, kombucha or fermenting or pickling all kinds of goodies in his Brooklyn apartment and recording his adventures on his food blog, Make Cheese Not War. In the weeks after the Hazon Food Conference, he shared some of his thoughts about his experience with Hazon in California.

Click below to read his posts:

• Preserved Lemons from Joan Nathan
• The Food Conference

Other posts of interest, especially to Brooklynites like me might include:

• Kombucha the Brooklyn Way
• The Bees and the Bees
• Women in Cheese in NYC

Enjoy! and thanks, Avi, for sharing.

Do you love your CSA (or Tuv Ha’Haretz) but also want sustainable products that are not found locally where you live?  Things like olive oil and dates are local to the Mediterranean Sea – not New England.  But for folks in the greater New York area committed to sustainable agriculture, some of our CSAs have recently partnered with a new company that supports small-scale farming and economic development in the Negev Region of Israel.

Negev Nectars, a new business that launched last week, will be bringing gourmet, sustainably produced foods to CSAs (and Tuv Ha’Haretz) to the United States.  Negev Nectars members will be sent olive oil, jams, chutneys, honey, dried herbs and other unique products (check them out here) three times a year just before Hanukkah, Passover and Rosh Hashanah.  Negev Nectars can be shipped all over the U.S., although your share can be picked up at participating sites.  Currently Negev Nectars can be picked up at the Tuv Ha’Haretz in White Plains, NY and Forest Hills, NY with additional sites coming soon in New York and New Jersey.

A Negev Nectars membership is more than just an investment in Israeli farms employing responsible growing practices; it is also an investment in the future of the country and the region. Farmers such as Doron Akiva, the olive grower, and those at the highly regarded organic kibbutz, Neot Smadar, irrigate their fields and orchards with brackish (salty) well water when the plants can handle it, and employ the most up-to-date water saving technology for desert conditions.

The ethos behind Negev Nectars is akin to what’s going on in the sustainable food world in the US “For those of us not living in California, local organic olive oil is impossible to find,” said Jeffrey Yoskowitz, Director of Operations and Marketing. “Many of our products are specific to the Mediterranean and the desert, and supplement the fresh produce from farmers markets and CSAs very nicely.” He added that no matter the distance, you should get to know your farmer.

The Delicious Pie, Sans First Slice

On Sunday night as my mother and I stood outside and began the slow, sad process of dismantling our Sukkah, I started to think about autumn and more specifically, why it ranks as my favorite time of the year. The end of the fall holidays always hit me hard, perhaps even harder than the thought of returning to my daily routine. And yet there I was, shivering in my pajamas and thanking Hashem Almighty that it was fall in New York.

Considering my deep loathing of the snow and my firm belief that the winter should be spent hibernating (with only rare breaks for hot chocolate and cookies), I’m always surprised by my love of its seasonal predecessor. But then I remember that the fall is the start of a brand new year for us Jews. Everything is open before us, and we haven’t had much chance to mess up yet. My favorite flavors come into the Farmers’ Markets: apples, butternut squash, fresh figs, and best of all, pumpkins. And for me, the fall comes with a wonderful combination of those two notions.

Since the next day was Columbus Day (or as I like to call it, the most arbitrary day off of the year), my mother, two of my

close friends, their grandma and I decided to indulge in the autumnal wonders and leave the city for an afternoon of apple and pumpkin picking. Monday turned out bright and brisk and the leaves were colorful, as if all of New York State had decided to flaunt its fall-ness for our benefit. I couldn’t have been happier.

And the apples couldn’t have been bigger or juicier or more plentiful. We shivered in the cold, lugged the ever-heavier bags of produce and ate way more apples than should ever be allowed, but by the time we returned to our own Queens, we felt as though some of our end-of-holiday rut had been patched up with fine produce.

That’s the remarkable thing about the fall. It is essentially nature’s last hurrah before it goes to cold slumber for a few months. Poets have lamented its impermanence and schoolchildren dread its arrival (heck, us college kids do too). But to quote the amazing and genius Calvin and Hobbes, “It’s nature’s own fireworks display.” The colors, the feel of the air and the tastes of the fruit are incomparable. Even after our apple-induced sugar highs wore off, I was newly elated and ready to face the everyday routine to come, because I had something I hadn’t the day before: an unnecessary bushel-sized surplus of apples. And a surplus of apples could only mean one thing: pie.

Now my apple pie with its cheddar cheese crust is baking in the oven, filling the house with a warm, sweet-and-salty smell. The homemade crust for pumpkin pudding pie is settling in the fridge, waiting to be rolled and baked into my favorite of all desserts everywhere. All in all, not too bad. Bring it on, cold weather.

Here’s my recipe for apple-cheddar pie:

You can use a store bought crust if you wish, but I prefer to make it at home.

Crust:

2 ½ cups white flour (or 1 ½ cup white flour & 1 cup whole-wheat flour)

1 tablespoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, cut into ½ inch pieces

1 cup extra sharp cheddar cheese, finely grated

½ cup water

Filling:

7 cups apples (peeled, cored and sliced)

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons corn or potato starch

2 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine

Cinnamon, nutmeg, powdered cloves to taste

1 teaspoon honey

Topping:

2 tablespoons finely grated cheddar cheese

For the crust:

Mix the dry ingredients, then put them into a food processor with the butter/margarine. (My food processor is too small to fit it all, so I do this in shifts. A little dry mix, a little butter, mix, then again). Pulse until the mixture is yellowish and crumbly.

Place mixture in a bowl. Add the cheese and mix well.

Use your fingers to sprinkle a little bit of the water at a time onto the dry ingredients, then knead them together. Continue until you have a thick (but not sticky) dough. Divide the dough in two, shape the halves into balls and flatten into disks. Then wrap them in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least an hour.

After the hour, on a well floured surface, use a heavy rolling pin to flatten one of the dough disks into a circle about a foot in diameter. Place this into a 9 ½ inch pie dish and sculpt the edges so that they are higher than the rim. Place this into the refrigerator.

For the filling:

Put the apples into a large bowl, add most of the sugar. Mix together, and then put it aside for ten minutes to juice.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Add lemon juice to the apples. Mix the remaining sugar, corn or potato starch and spices together and add to the apples. Mix well and pour into the prepared shell.

Drizzle honey on top of the apples and dot here and there with pieces of butter. Take the remaining half of the dough and roll into a circle about 11 inch circle. Place this on top of the apples. Moisten the edges and press the top and bottom pastries together at the edges.

Don’t forget to cut ventilation holes in the top crust! Very important! Poke several of them or slice a few longer slits, like I did. Then take remaining grated cheese and spread on top of the crust. Put in the oven! (Make sure there’s a pan or cookie sheet below the pie to catch drippings or you’ll have some real oven scrubbing to do).

Bake for 30 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 375 degrees and continue to bake for 40 minutes.

Take it out, serve warm, and yum! Savor!

Date Honey from the Galilee

Here in the Galilee, a modest but auspicious ease in the heat is rousing us out of our summer torpor.  That and the impending preparations for Rosh Hashana – with the questions that are on everyone’s lips: who is eating where and preparing what?

Our holiday table, like most, will be graced with a plate of sliced apples, and a bowl of honey to dip them in – to remind our tongues and the pleasure centers of our brains how sweet life can and hopefully will be in the coming year. This year, however, the honey we’ll be dipping into will have a darker hue and more complex flavor than usual.

The research I’ve been doing on the origins and history of the seven species of the Land of Israel (wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, olives and honey) has changed the way I understand this last and sweetest of the seven.

Nogah Reuveni, one of the pioneering scholars of Israel’s biblical agricultural landscape, astutely observed that, of all the seven species, there is only one which is not a plant or plant product (guess which).  While today, we think of honey as what comes out of a beehive, in ancient times, it referred to any sweet syrup made out of boiled-down fruit.

Reuveni, like the Talmudic sages, was convinced that the seventh specimen had to be honey made from dates – that would make it consistent with the rest of the list, with pollination by wind being the common denominator.   Makes sense, no?

And by the way, the expanded notion of honey isn’t just an antique culinary curiosity – there are Palestinians here in the Galilee who still produce “dibis” or honey made out of carob or grapes (note the linguistic similarity between “dibis” and “dvash” – Hebrew for honey).

So, if you want to add an authentic flavor to that which makes life sweet, this holiday, try honey made from dates – in stores here in Israel, it’s marketed as “Silan”.