Rabbi Rebecca Joseph is a conservative rabbi, a cultural anthropologist, and a Tuv Ha’Aretz member! Her blog, The Parve Baker is filled with delicious recipes and (equally delicious) words of Torah.
Like a lot of other people at Hazon’s third annual food conference, I found myself shopping at the Farmers’ Market on Sunday morning. I hadn’t really planned to do this, but when someone asked me to meet there – I can’t even remember for what – I had difficulty resisting the urge to pick up a few things. Alright, quite a few things. Chocolate, coffee, maple syrup, red cabbages, onions, garlic, kiwis, and Granny Smith apples. All organic and sold by or fairly sourced directly from the producers. In other words, perfectly virtuous foods.
Then there were the cookies. When I picked up two bags of faux-cream filled chocolate sandwiches at the table of overstock from the conference kitchen, the volunteer on the other side glanced over at me suspiciously. I explained that I’m a baker and would use them for pie crust sometime soon. That didn’t lead to further conversation, so I placed my donation in the honor box and moved on.
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This past weekend, I saw my first snowfall of the year. The plump flakes reminded me of the short, crisp days to come, of walks where a bright red berry or a still-green blade of grass will surprise me. As winter days wink by, flanked by longer and longer intervals of darkness, I’ll be more and more on the lookout for sparks of color and light.
The snowfall also got me looking forward to Hanukah, and thinking about finding a few mirrors to multiply the candle flames. Because if a set of singing sparks is lovely, why not bolster the chorus with two or three more?
I’ll also be looking for sparks for the table as the farmer’s market offerings in my area lean toward turnips and potatoes. I recently experimented my way to a salad that I think will offer a nice, bright compliment to beloved, oil-soaked latkes, roasted root vegetables, and other wintery dishes. It brings together several winter sparks. The base is the vibrant green of kale, which splashes its emerald leaves across the cold fields of the Mid-atlantic this time of year, which is studded with orange sections and glistening pomegranate seeds—imported sparks from warmer climes. (Of course, if you live in California or Florida, this scenario is a little different!)
Recipe after the jump…
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The folks over at Jewlicious have posted an awesome Israeli rap video that shows how Jewish rap differs culturally from its LA or NYC-based counterparts. Instead of bouncing low-riders or tons of bling, the video revolves around food - namely the preparation of the classic sephardic tomato and egg dish, shakshouka. The song does have some MTV-esque elements (bikini-clad dancers and an occasional English expletive) that might make this video slightly NSFW, but the skills on display (both musical and culinary) by the artist BooSkills definitely make this single worth a look.
Mark Bittman’s Saturday Article in the New York Times exposed fish farms as rife with unbalanced feed to food ratios, environmentally degrading practices and negative effects on biodiversity (not to mention palate diversity). He also says that farmed fish tastes bad. I guess it turns out that CAFOs and Fish Farms have more in common than a penchant for scandalous kashrut practices.
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Rabbi Rebecca Joseph is a conservative rabbi, a cultural anthropologist, and a Tuv Ha’Aretz member! Her blog, The Parve Baker is filled with delicious recipes and (equally delicious) words of Torah. This is her third installment of “Unboxed” - posts that demystify seasonal produce. See her first post on rhubarb and her second post on leeks.
The economy is surely suffering, but this season’s nuts are in at my local farmers’ market and I couldn’t be happier. Did I really spend twenty minutes poring over just one grower’s almonds today? Absolutely, but we were mostly talking. About almonds, of course.
Along with some of my other favorite culinary nuts like macadamias and cashews, almonds are not true nuts at all, but the edible seeds of stone fruits. They have more in
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