These days, it seems everyone is talking about “going green.” Never has such a simple sounding term had so much meaning. For nonprofit overnight Jewish camps, their staff and lay leaders, this means changing old habits, teaching campers about how and why to make changes, and ensuring a vibrant future for their camps.
Many camps have begun to implement green practices, taking action to decrease their carbon footprint, and impart a positive environmental message to their campers. Steps have included forgoing paper, plastic, and Styrofoam in favor of using reusable tableware and reducing non-biodegradable waste, using solar power for heating, providing campers and staff with environmentally friendly water bottles, changing light bulbs to reduce carbon emissions, and more! Several camps have also planted gardens and are teaching their campers about healthy cooking and organics.
Cholent, for hundreds of years the traditional Sabbath-day meal for observant Jews in many countries, is a food for which there is no standard recipe; its ingredients are as diverse as the places where Jews have lived. A slow-cooked stew containing meat, vegetables, potatoes, beans and spices, it is one of the quintessential Jewish comfort foods and a dish that many look forward to from Sabbath to Sabbath.
Yeshiva University students will hold a “Cholent Cook-off” in Weissberg Commons on its Wilf Campus in Washington Heights, on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 2:45PM. Fifteen teams of four students at Yeshiva College, the men’s undergraduate school, will prepare their dishes the night before beginning at 10:30PM. The next afternoon, a panel of discriminating palates will crown the winner.
Huge mazal tov to Rabbi Eliav Bock, author of this guest post and Director of Ramah Outdoor Adventure, on the birth of his son last week!
Today is the first of periodic blog posts about food at Ramah Outdoor Adventure. Because the food we eat at camp will play such an integral part in supporting the overall mission of the camp, I thought it appropriate to focus some of the blog posts leading up to camp on the use of food.
For those who missed the announcement the other day, The First Lady, Michelle Obama, launched the “Let’s Move” campaign. She has correctly singled out childhood obesity as a major epidemic facing America. Her campaign aims to get kids off the couch, away from video games, and eating more wholesome food. For anyone who has been aware of the growing food movement in America these past few years, nothing that she said yesterday is too surprising. It is an indisputable fact that as a society, our children today are less healthy than they were a generation ago. Anywhere from 25%-30% of American children are overweight. As Mrs. Obama pointed out, today’s children are the first generation whose life expectancy is shorter than that of their parents.
Director, Jewish Greening Fellowship
Check out the newest installment of the Hazon Podcast by clicking the link below. Please forward to your friends and let me know any thoughts you have on it.
Also, NEW is that now you can SUBSCRIBE to HAZON Podcasts straight on iTunes. Just Search “Hazon” in your iTunes Store and SUBSCRIBE to our podcast. It is absolutely FREE!
New Podcast Episode with Jewish Greening Fellowship Director
Highlights of this episode:
- What is the Jewish Greening Fellowship?
- Sign up for Bay Area and NY Rides
- See Nigel in Colorado!
I’m fascinated when tradition gets tested by modern science and comes out standing. I’d cheered when acupuncture was shown to be effective for chronic pain. Now, I’ve learned that America’s Test Kitchen, which publishes Cook’s Illustrated, has subjected challah to its test kitchen experimentation. The results: pretty much what you’d learned from your mother and grandmother (or would, if you had one).
The best tasting challah is not too sweet, not too dense, not too fluffy and not from the commercial bakeries. Their results, from the Holiday Baking 2009 issue, included:
What is Jewish food? Avoiding shellfish and pork and never eating meat with dairy? Hummus? Kreplach? Whatever your Bubbe used to make?
What makes a cuisine Jewish? Other East Asian cultures have vegetarian diets, which by default wouldn’t be mixing meat with dairy. Hummus is wildly popular throughout the Middle East. And are kreplach so very different than Italian tortellini?
So what is Jewish food? It’s like what is asking what your comfort food is. Probably whatever your family makes. If you have an Eastern European background, brisket, matzoh ball soup and knishes may be the norm. A Sephardic background may involve more Mediterranean dishes.
But can this identification with food change? When I was in college, my comfort food was Macaroni and Cheese out of a box. As an adult, my go-to comfort dish is sautéed mushrooms and kale. So yes, I’m a believer that people can change. So can what we think of as Jewish cuisine change?
Fresh out of ‘The Vegetable Monologues: Jewish Women Farmers’ it is clear that Jewish women have no hesitation in leading this Jewish Food Movement. This session featured a panel of four Jewish women farmers. Abbe Turner, who yesterday led a session on Do-It-Yourself: Making Mozzarella Cheese, discussed her experiences as a Cheese Farmer in Ohio. Anna Hanau and Elizabeth Giancola of the ADAMAH Farm talked about their transformative experiences which led them out of the office and into the field. And finally, Conference chair, Emily Freed shared her experiences on Jacob’s Farm, which just finished its biggest harvest season yet!
Sitting in sessions all day long, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Asilomar is located right on the Pacific Ocean. However, there was no way to forget that when the entire community walked down the boardwalk to the beach so that we could all say the blessing upon seeing the ocean for the first time. The text goes:
Barukh Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melekh haOlam Sheh-Asah Et HaYam HaGadol
Which translates to Blessed are you our God, King o the Universe, who made the Great (or Big) Ocean.
The Friday morning session entitled “Food Justice: Tools to Help Organize and Lobby More Effectively” featured Scott Minkow and Eric Schockman. Minkow discussed the amazing work that he has been leading through the LA community Jewish Federation. One project that was really taking off is called “Fed Up With Hunger,” which approaches local city officials such as the County Board of Supervisors, the City Council, and others to incorporate healthy eating and living into neighborhoods around the city. In LA fashion the project enlisted the help of a celebrity person, Debra Messing, though it has also been tweeted by the famoulous Alyssa Milano. As the other panelist, Eric Schockman put it, “Fed Up With Hunger is an example of how a federation turns a battleship around” to make change.
Holiday accommodations span far wider than hotels and motels.
Whether a host, guest, family member, friend, neighbor, colleague, or otherwise, the holidays are a time when we are all brought together under many circumstances, and required to deal with each other in ways unlike most other days. It brings out the best and worst in everyone. For me, it often feels like these decisions define me. I have always struggled in balancing truth with tact, and tend to be either far too blunt and direct or completely spineless. And of course I also struggle with wanting so very much to accommodate without compromising my principles or even identity.
An example from my own experience. One Passover, a couple showed up, stoned, and presented me with a cake. Not exactly the Elijah I was expecting. And this was a real, Italian bakery, flour and butter laden, gorgeous cake. I had no idea what to do. Part of me was humiliated, because they know I am observant. Part of me was terrified not to be a gracious host, or to spoil the otherwise wonderful occasion. Part of me (a really big part of me) wanted to slap them silly. So what did I do? I put it out on a non-Passover plate and kicked myself for the rest of the holiday. Not my greatest moment.
Thanks so much to Rachel Cohen for this great guest post. Rachel is the Senior Legislative Assistant for energy and environmental issues at the Religious Action Center, the Washington office of the Union for Reform Judaism. Rachel works on sustainability and greening issues for the Reform Movement. She holds a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Washington University, and is an avid bike rider and farmers’ marketer. Rachel is staffing the new URJ Shulchan Yarok, Shulchan Tzedek (Green Table, Just Table) Initiative, and can be reached at rbcohen@rac.org or 202-387-2800.
As Jews, we have always cared about the food that we eat. Some of us choose to embrace traditional notions of kashrut – and many of us do not – but we can all agree that our food, and how we get it, plays an important part in our lives.
That’s why Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, opened one section of his 2009 Biennial Shabbat sermon with these words: “Jewish history begins with a Jew – a new Jew, the first Jew – saying to others: come, eat with me. And ever since this first Jewish meal, Jews have believed that eating matters.”
Calling all New Yorkers! If you’re around on Sunday, December 13th at 2pm, join me at this fun Jewish food event!
CULTURE IN THE CUCINA
How Rome’s Jews are Cooking up the Past and Future
While Jews have lived in Italy since the 2nd century BCE and are credited with popularizing staple ingredients like eggplant, fennel and pumpkin, the notion of an “Italian Jewish cuisine” is difficult to define. Still, a handful of traditional dishes – like Carciofi alla Guidia (deep fried artichokes) and Pizza Ebraica (a fruit cake-like dessert) – have managed to endure over time.
Food writer, Leah Koenig, will discuss how certain traditional recipes have attained iconic status in Italy’s oldest and largest Jewish center, Rome. She will also explore how today’s urban Jews relate to their culinary heritage. New York’s Jews have their bagels, knish and egg creams. What dishes do Italians turn to when they need a nosh, and how do these foods connect them to their past and their future? *Bonus! Italian Jewish Chanukah recipes and tips on where to find Jewish Italian food in NYC.
EVENT DETAILS and more photos of Rome’s delicious food culture below the jump…
I often get asked if there is such thing as Jewish food. After all, Jews are not the only ones to smoke meat, eat couscous or make fish into little balls. So when I was asked to put together a short description of Jewish food to sit on the tables at the upcoming HAZON conference I was excited to try and answer the question. The topic is a big one but here on one foot is a good succinct overview.
What is Jewish Food?
America, Community Agriculture, Family & Kids, Gardening, Global Warming, Jewish Culture, Jewish Learning, Jewish Organizations, Judaism, Spirituality, Sustainability
