Check out these great excerpts from a photo essay entitled, What the World Eats, from the book, Hungry Planet, by photographer (and fellow tribesman?) Peter Menzel.
And if you’re ever confused about what blessing to say when encountering a new food, you can use this new handy gadget, from The Jewish Learning Group!
I just finished reading this article in today’s Chronicle, and immediately had to post it. What a great idea to get urban kids interested not only in sustainable agriculture, but how they should be feeding themselves. Check it out.
There are many food-related things one can count while counting the omer– food miles, money spent on food each day/week….what else can folks think of?
Next week, Eat Local Challenge and the Locavores are sponsoring a Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge, from April 23 to 29. Many people are under the impression that eating local (like organic), requires a large food budget. The point of the Penny-Wise challenge is to eat local, as defined by a 100-mile radius, on what some consider a small budget.
The Penny-Wise challenge uses numbers from the Department of Labor’s Consumer Expenditures, which allots $68/week for a one-person household or $144/week for a household of 2+ with 2 wage earners.
The coolest home science experiment ever — no, really EVER — is the home cheesemaking kit. I am just dumbstruck at how nifty this is: A gallon of warm milk, citric acid, a rennet tablet (OU hecshered vegetarian rennet, actually) and poof! Cheese. Stringy gooey mozzarella. Or milky, creamy ricotta.
And it’s so ludicrously easy: perfect for kids since nothing gets warmer than tepid bathwater. They get to stretch and pull the mozzarella to make bocconcini or string cheese. It’s so much fun to play with your food. Milk magic in your kitchen.
Of all the foods that play an important role in Jewish ritual life, perhaps the most overlooked in terms of its transformative symbolism is the lowly breadcrumb. Each Rosh Hashanah we loft these penitential panko into flowing waters, then stand at the ready with spoon, feather and candle as they mysteriously wash ashore six months later inside our toaster, behind our fridge, or surreptitiously planted, like the murder weapon from a bad episode of Law and Order, in an easy-to-reach corner of our home, waiting to be swept up, pronounced null and void, and burnt to a (inedible) crisp. Normally sitting innocently atop our mac & cheese, or (not so innocently) in our clams casino, why were these crumbs chosen to represent our most hidden sins, or (as the chasidim teach), our haughtiest arrogance? Why must we Jews endure this twice-yearly crouton crucible? Read more »
Many of us have often marveled at the onion-like layers of packaging around our smallest deli sandwiches. But unlike onion skins, we know we they won’t really biodegrade. In fact:
Family & Kids, Food Safety, Health, Neat Projects, On The Web, Participate!, Personal Story, School Food
Fed up with school food? This just in from a great site called ‘Two Angry Moms’
“Amy was stewing for years, packing her kids lunches from home and trying to get her community to pay attention to what kids are eating in school. An award-winning documentary filmmaker, Amy decided to take the fight to film. She spent 18 months searching for another mom willing to take on this mission.
Here’s the second audio installment of my still unfinished CD, ‘Eat Like A Rainbow’.
Click here to hear a rough version of ‘Strong Bones’ (click the player below). This song promotes healthy foods, exercise, cutting down on salt and junk food, and the radical idea that milk is not the only source of calcium. It also talks about bones being flexible as well as strong. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that bones have piezoelectric and other crystalline properties, and enjoy talking with kids about making friends with their skeletons… I’d love to hear comments on the song!
This month I head off to five regional conferences of the NY State School Nutrition Association where I’ll be a presenter, and where I’ll meet with farmers, school food managers, and teachers, to promote these songs, the upcoming album, and my assembly concerts. (More on those and other concerts, and more songs to listen to here on my website, http://jaymankita.com)
I’m a homeschooling teenager in Boston. I’ve been using the freedom of homeschooling to explore a special social studies topic this year – the history of food. I’m reading a lot of books and articles and recently visited the Radcliffe Library, to see their cookbook collection. I’ve also been doing a lot of cooking and eating.
One of my current projects is studying the history of the tuna melt. I got the idea after reading an article in the newspaper where the journalist traced the history of tiramisu, which in the 1700s was called tipsy cake, and before that, rum bread. This article was trying to prove the point that not all “modern” foods, such as tiramisu, are so modern. I’m trying to do the something similar with the tuna melt.
I would like my posts on the Jew and the Carrot to chronicle my tuna melt project and my other food-related projects. I plan to post interesting facts and stories that I find while researching, and also sometimes post about my own experience researching this topic as a teenager. I’d love to hear your comments and suggestions as I go along.
Eco-Kashrut, Events, Holidays, Jewish Culture, Judaism, Neat Projects, Sustainability, Synagogues, Uncategorized(xposted by Lenny on jspot.org)
Related to thoughts about fruit platters, wedding foods, and such, jspot.org recently highlighted a program in Washington DC called Ethical Smahot.
Ethical Smahot is a project initiated by Rabbi Alana Suskin and Rabbi Joshua Ginsberg as an attempt to control the excesses of some Jewish lifecycle celebrations and infuse them with an ethical, meaningful spirit. The project took inspiration from an earlier statement by some Orthodox rabbis in New York City regarding the necessity to control conspicuous consumption during lifecycle celebrations.
In its current incarnation, Ethical Smachot centers on a statement of seven principled elements that should be reflected in every Jewish lifecycle celebration: Tzniut (modesty), Kavod HaBriot (respect for one’s fellow human beings), Talmud Torah (study and learning), Seudah (festive meal), Tzedakah (charity), Tzedek (righteousness and justice), and Shomrei Adamah (guarding the Earth).
