For folks who do not get The Jewish Week in New York, I wanted to share this cute article that was written about me and Hazon. It also gives a bit of insight into the ever-emerging new Jewish food movement. I’m a bit afraid/embarrassed that my obsession over not serving strawberries at my November wedding might seem weird to some people – but I know readers of this blog will understand!
She is What She Eats
By: Randi Sherman
12/17/08
At Leah Koenig’s wedding last month, the details had to be just right. The groom, musician Yoshie Fruchter, understandably insisted the music be good, easy enough. And Koenig wanted the menu to be good, a more difficult task considering her strict stipulations.
“I couldn’t find a caterer who could make food kosher enough for me, my husband and our guests, and who cared about the food being organic and seasonal,” said Koenig. One caterer who fit the criteria couldn’t handle the size of the party. The caterer for the JCC in Manhattan, who Koenig was excited to work with, suggested strawberry shortcake, but the berries were out of season and wouldn’t be locally grown.
To get the caterers to work with her, Koenig suggested apple crisp with vanilla ice cream instead. Anna Stevenson, a friend and former colleague, provided butternut squash, beets and potatoes for the meal from the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Connecticut. Guests, some dressed as carrots and peas to honor Koenig’s tradition of sometimes dressing up in carrot costume for coworkers’ weddings, praised the food served at the meal. Koenig calls it her “crowning glory.”
While a fruit’s seasonality might not be a factor for most brides, to 26-year-old Koenig, serving strawberries in mid-to-late fall is nearly sacrilege.
If ever there was a day for foodies to curl up with a mug of fair trade coffee and the newspaper, today’s the day. The New York Times Magazine’s (first ever, I believe) Food Issue hit stands this morning, so if you haven’t already scanned the whole thing online, find yourself a comfortable chair and a couple of hours to savor it the way papers were originally intended to be read.There’s a LOT of good stuff inside – enough to be slightly overwhelming. So before you dig in, take a look at The Jew & The Carrot’s recommendations on what to read, skim, and skip. Get the most out of the magazine and still have some daylight left to play. Below the jump!
Yes, that’s right. We Californians are blessed in many ways to get locally-grown food easily, but wheat does not usually fall into that category. But Eatwell Farm, which provides Berkeley’s Tuv Ha’Aretz chapter, is now offering wheat berries at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market in San Francisco. Consumers can actually grind their own berries to make flour. Check it out here.
A quick food round up from the Jewy blogosphere:
I don’t mean join a CSA. I actually mean, hire someone to do it for you. In San Francisco, that someone is a business called MyFarm, whose employees will come over, design a garden in your backyard, and then do maintainence for it on weekly visits. You can read about it here.
I have to admit I am torn by this idea. By growing a garden in your own yard, of course you are much more connected to your food. But by paying others to maintain it for you, you introduce yet another middle-person.
A few days ago, I wondered whether my family was adventurous enough to try fennel matzoh balls.
Today’s lead story in the food section of the San Francisco Chronicle features young Jews who have no qualms about tweaking original Passover favorites, with what sound like delicious results. You can read the story here.
j. Weekly, the Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, features Hazon’s own Zelig Golden and Emily Freed in its cover story about young Jewish environmentalists.
Golden is an alumni of the Adamah program and serving as co-chair for Hazon’s Food Conference in 2008. (According to the article, he also makes a mean pickle martini — okay, I confess, I was the one who told that to the reporter, after Zelig made me one at my birthday Shabbos dinner earlier this year). Freed (whom, the article says, had her first candy bar at the age of 12!) is on the executive committee of the 2008 food conference, working to obtain food from local farms. And Jon Rosenfield, who is also featured in the article, will no doubt be at the Food Conference, we just don’t know what he’ll be doing yet.
Here’s the newest article about kosher, ethical meat…this one I wrote for American Jewish Life (Those of you who read this blog religiously might already be well-versed on the subject – but for the non ethical food-obsessed Jews out there, it’s definitely still hot news.)
Conscious Carving
American Jewish Life
By: Leah Koenig
February 25, 2008
Early on a Friday morning this past December, 70 Jews gathered in a frost-covered field in rural Connecticut. Some of them huddled in small groups, talking in hushed tones and blowing on their frozen fingers. Others stood at a distance, quiet with thought. They were all there for one reason — to witness three goats being slaughtered for meat, in accordance with Jewish law.
No, these people were not part of some underground Jewish cult. They were attendees of a food conference hosted by the New York-based non-profit, Hazon (which, for full disclosure, is my employer). The purpose of the ritual slaughtering, was to “enable people to have a more direct understanding of where kosher meat comes from,” said Hazon’s Executive Director, Nigel Savage. In this case, it would be the same meat that many of the participants would eat that night for dinner.
From this week’s New York Jewish Week:
Can You Be A Kosher Locavore?
by Sandee Brawarsky
Published on: Feb 5, 2008
‘Locavore” is 2007’s Word of the Year, as anointed by the Oxford American Dictionary. The word refers to someone who makes an effort to use locally grown ingredients. More than a word, it’s a collaborative movement, encouraging people to buy their food from farmers’ markets or grow their own, with the aim of eating healthier, supporting local farmers and avoiding the great costs of fuel in shipping foods long distance.
Locavores — some of whom set a 100-mile radius to define local — may be environmentalists, food lovers who appreciate a challenge, health conscious cooks, novice and veteran farmers, for those with a spiritual bent who want to be aware of what they’re eating and where it comes from. But locavores who are both urban and kosher face particular challenges, especially in New York City in mid-winter.
An article in the San Francisco magazine this month discusses “eco-worriers” – people who can hardly make it through the day because the polar bears are drowning. In fact, there are now eco-therapists who specialize in dealing with people who feel guilty and anxious—simply for doing things they have to do to live in a city, like turn on lights. For some, it’s just never enough. One woman, who walks to work and buys local produce,
“still gets plenty of ribbing when someone learns that she eats meat (once a month) or drives a car (a Toyota that gets 37 miles per gallon). “People get really pissed off and tell me I’m not going far enough. I want to say, ‘What do you mean, far enough? Do you want me to kill myself so I don’t produce any greenhouse gas, except for the methane I produce when I decompose?’”
The article suggests that in San Francisco, where people are so ecologically minded (ie — check out this article about supermarkets in today’s Chronicle), it’s almost a question of theological faith: when you worship the earth, and draw strength and meaning from your relationship to it, what do you do when your god, your earth mother, is sick – under siege – dying?
Perhaps the deepest reason for our distress is that we don’t just love Mother Nature—we worship her. In places like the Bible Belt, where the End of Days is not necessarily viewed as a bad thing, some might see the coming apocalypse—if they even believe it’s coming—as God’s will, and they take comfort in that. To them, our existential panic about snowless winters and 120-degree summers must seem almost meaningless. Yet in the Bay Area, where environmentalism is practically its own religion, global warming isn’t just killing the world, it’s also killing the thing we look to for inspiration and solace—in effect, our God. What are we supposed to do with that? What is the outlet for all our fury and sadness and fear?
Not too long ago, I posted here asking what Michael Pollan would do in a given situation. Today’s Chronicle asks the same question. It’s the lead article in the food section, complete with *huge* photos of Pollan and his son Isaac cooking, and then eating, lunch.
Among the interesting tidbits: that his next article is about orchid sex, and that he’s a little bit tired of talking about food.
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.
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.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s dining section has been doing an occasional series called “Food Conscious” that has addressed many of the same issues found here on “The Jew and the Carrot.”
Today’s installment is about the numerous studies that are beginning to prove what proponents of organics have hoped for (or known) all along, that the food is often more nutritious. Read the article here.
