I hope that all of you enjoy Fall Vegetables as much as I do. What’s fun about the change of seasons is that we are forced into creative ways to cook with the new bounty of the season. In this way, your food is never boring and you don’t get stuck eating the same foods day in and day out.

Here are 3 recipes and buying tips featuring some fall vegetables:  beets, parsnips and pumpkin.

Roasted Beet salad in Orange Dressing

A zero waste salad where every bit of an ingredient is used. Not only do I love the beets deep red hue, and their sweetness, but I really get a kick out of using the whole vegetable, root and the greens. In this salad the beets along with the greens are used and for the dressing, the orange zest along with the oranges are used as well.

You can forgo boiling beets by roasting them in foil and avoid the mess that comes with the red staining on the pots.

Buy beets that are firm with smooth skins and tops attached. They should have a deep, rich purple-red color. Choose small to medium beets as they are usually sweeter and more tender. Beet tops should be fresh looking and dark green, not wilted or slimy.

Adapted from Bon Appétit, January 2004

Ingredients

6 medium beets with beet greens attached
2 medium oranges
1 small red onion, finely diced
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
Sea salt to taste
Freshly ground pepper

1      Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut the greens from beets. Remove and discard stems. Chop the leaves coarsely and set them aside. Wrap each beet in foil. Place beets directly on oven rack and roast for about 1 hour, until tender when pierced with fork.

2      Let beets cool. Peel beets and then cut each into 8 wedges. Place beets in medium bowl.

3      Cook beet greens in large saucepan of boiling water just until tender, about 2 minutes. Drain and cool. When greens are at room temperature, squeeze them to remove excess moisture. Add greens to bowl with beets.

4      Zest the orange, then cut peel and white pith from oranges. Working over another bowl and using a paring knife, cut between membranes to release segments (this is called supreming).

5      Add orange segments and onion to bowl with beet mixture.

6      Whisk oil, garlic, orange zest in small bowl to blend; add to beet mixture and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour. Serve.

Maple Roasted Parsnips

The parsnip is a root vegetable that is a relative to the carrot, although much paler they do resemble each other. Typically parsnips are part of the main ingredient in a soup base or roasted for a richer flavor. For this dish the parsnips are roasted into a caramelized deliciously sticky texture, which makes them so moreish. You will not be able to resist them.

Choose parsnips that are firm, unblemished and small or medium in size (about 8 inches long). Large parsnips may have woody centers but, unlike carrots, broad tops are not an indication of woody cores. Parsnips range in color from pale yellow to creamy white. Avoid limp, shriveled or blemished parsnips with moist spots or a lot of tiny hairlike roots.

Ingredients

2 pounds parsnips, peeled and sliced

5 tablespoons olive oil

6 tablespoons maple syrup

2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard

Salt to taste

Serves 4

1       Preheat oven to Roast at 375F

2      Parboil parsnips in a stockpot under a medium high flame for 4 minutes.

3      Drain, then put in an ovenproof dish, and toss with olive oil and salt. Roast 45 minutes.

4      In a bowl, mix maple syrup and mustard together, and pour over parsnips when done. Roast for another 5 minutes more to set the taste.

Pumpkin Soup

The original recipe for this soup was made famous by the Jerusalem Ramada Renaissance Hotel, however I added more depth to this by adding some warming ingredients like cinnamon so that it would be more suitable for the Northeast climate.

Choose pumpkins that are heavy for their size and free of blemishes.

Ingredients

2 large yellow onions, diced

1 inch fresh ginger, grated

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

7 cups water

1 ½ pounds pumpkin, cubed or 1 ½ 15- ounce cans of pumpkins

1 medium white potato, peeled and cubed

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

½ cup apple sauce

3 tablespoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon vegetable soup mix (Gluten Free)

1 tablespoon salt

¼ teaspoon white pepper

½ cup half &half creamer

pine nuts for garnish, optional

Serves 10

1. In a stainless steel pot under medium high flame, sauté onions in oil until golden.   Then stir in ginger.

2. Add the water, pumpkin, potato, applesauce and sweet potatoes. Bring to a boil. Cover, lower heat, and simmer for about 35 minutes. Let it cool.

3. With a hand blender, puree vegetables until smooth.

4. Add soup mix, salt, cinnamon, pepper and maple syrup and continue simmering for an additional ten minutes.

5. Stir in creamer and remove from heat. Serve sprinkled with pine nuts.

Originally from The Wall Street Journal, by Ben Worthen

Michael Pollan, author of “Omnivore’s Dilemma” and other popular books, has become a figurehead for the local-food movement, which advocates buying in-season produce from nearby farms.

Proponents say such food is healthier and that the way it is grown and shipped is better for the environment. But it often is more expensive. Mr. Pollan says the real problem is that subsidies keep the prices of some, largely mass-produced foods artificially low.

Still, he tries to strike a middle ground between advocate and realist. In his Berkeley living room, the 55-year-old Mr. Pollan discussed where he shops for food and why paying $8 for a dozen eggs is a good thing:

Mr. Pollan: The food movement really began on the West Coast, and you can make an argument it began in the Bay Area. There is a much higher level of consciousness here about where food comes from, about eating seasonally and locally, than there is in the rest of the country.WSJ: Do Bay Area residents eat and shop for food differently from people elsewhere?

But we have certain advantages that few other places in the country have. We can eat from the farmer’s market 50 weeks of the year—the only reason they close is to get a break Christmas and New Year’s.

WSJ: What do you attribute the greater enthusiasm to?

Mr. Pollan: A consumer who is willing to pay more for better food. That’s a matter of consciousness and a palate that has been educated by the chefs locally. Paying $3.90 for a Frog Hollow Peach, there are a lot of people here willing to do it. I don’t know if you can find a more expensive peach in America. My little rule, “Pay more, eat less,” is followed by a lot of people in the Bay area.

WSJ: Where do you shop for food?

Mr. Pollan: I shop at the farmer’s market on Thursdays. I shop at Monterey Market, and I shop at Berkley Bowl. Those are the big three, and then I’ll get household cleaning products, cereal, things like that at Safeway.

WSJ: How do you suggest people in New York or other places with a long winter eat seasonally?

In much of the country eating seasonally in winter is challenging, though there are options people overlook. A salad of grated root vegetables, for example, is a refreshing change from lettuce, and far more nutritious. But it all depends on how hard-core you want to be. It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition.

WSJ: Do you only buy certain things from certain places?

Mr. Pollan: No. I’m pretty flexible. I’m not a zealot, contrary to what people may think. I’ve told stories about being busted at Berkeley Bowl buying sugary cereals for my son when he was younger.

WSJ: Are there rules for shopping that people interested in eating better should follow?

Mr. Pollan: The most important is to buy things that are in season.

It’s nice to skip [things] until they are in season when they are so much better and cheaper. It becomes something of an occasion when the tomatoes come into the market, or the strawberries, or the asparagus.

WSJ: Does eating local, sustainable food have to be a lifestyle priority, or can people do it casually?

Mr. Pollan: People can do it casually. There are people who go [to a farmer's market] every week, and there are people who go when the mood strikes them. To eat well takes a little bit more time and effort and money. But so does reading well; so does watching television well. Doing anything with attention to quality takes effort. It’s either rewarding to you or it’s not. It happens to be very rewarding to me. But I understand people who can’t be bothered, and they’re going to eat with less care.

WSJ: Is eating well just an indulgence for people who can afford it?

Mr. Pollan: If you’re in the supermarket buying organic versus not buying organic, you are going to spend more. But buying food at the farmer’s market, if you compare it to the prices at Safeway for stuff that’s in season, it actually beats the prices in my experience. People shouldn’t assume that they are going to go broke at the farmer’s market.

WSJ: What do you wish people here understood about their food that they don’t now?

Mr. Pollan: We’ve been conditioned by artificially cheap food to be shocked when a box of strawberries costs $3.

But it’s important to know that farmers aren’t getting wealthy. When you see strawberries being sold for $1 a box, picture the kind of labor it takes to pick those strawberries and the kind of chemicals it takes to produce those kinds of strawberries without hand weeding.

Eight dollars for a dozen eggs sounds outrageous, but when you think that you can make a delicious meal from two eggs, that’s $1.50. It’s really not that much when we think of how we waste money in our lives.

This is cross-posted at The Fink Farms Dirt.

A cabbage harvest in July?

In California, it works. (We planted late in a mild winter.)

That means just in time for outdoor Shabbes dinners, we have the basic ingredient for coleslaw.

But with this gem-like vegetable sitting on my kitchen counter, I couldn’t bear the thought of traditional coleslaw: cabbage shreds drowned in mayonnaise and sugar. I decided to celebrate the color.  The following recipe is adapted from several sources.

1 head of red cabbage, thinly shredded

1 small bunch of cilantro, chopped

1/4 large red onion, finely sliced

1 red bell pepper, seeds removed, thinly sliced

1 cup thinly sliced celery (preferably from the leafy tops)

2 large cloves garlic

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (a hot, honey mustard would work as well)

2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons of sugar, honey or agave syrup (optional)

Blend or whisk together the mustard, vinegar, mayonnaise, sugar, chopped cilantro and chopped garlic in a bowl.

In a large bowl, toss together the shredded cabbage, red pepper, red onion and celery. Pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss again. This slaw tastes best if it is allowed to chill in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

If served at a dairy dinner, a half cup of crumbled blue cheese can be added. It tastes great as a salad or as a garnish spooned inside a sandwich.

The dressing isn’t heavy, so the vegetables have a starring role.  The cabbage tastes peppery, so I didn’t add ground pepper or salt. It’s an explosion of color on a plate.

A long-time reader of The Jew and the Carrot, it’s easy for me to see the importance and power of conversations within the Jewish community regarding eating, nutrition, food politics, and sustainability. However, the Jewish imperative for justice does not allow us to stop at environmental or personal levels. Rather, we have to continue our pursuit of justice to ensure that everyone has access to fresh, seasonal produce, healthy food options, and the skills to prepare healthy meals. The Nourishing Kitchen of New York City is an organization working to do just that for the East Harlem community.

Founded in 2008 as a “healthy soup kitchen,” The Kitchen is the only emergency food organization providing nutritionally balanced food for immune-compromised individuals struggling with diabetes, obesity, and malnutrition. East Harlem has one of the highest rates of hunger as well as the highest rate of obesity in New York City, with 62% of the population reported overweight or obese. The East Harlem community also has the densest concentration of diabetes in any borough. These apparent contrasts can be explained by the heavy presence of affordably-priced yet nutritionally void fast food and the scarcity of affordable fruits and vegetables.

The Nourishing Kitchen has expanded its mission in an effort to incorporate healthy eating into clients’ everyday lives. In addition to a hot meal service, The Kitchen offers a food pantry, produce distribution, nutrition classes, and yoga classes – all free and open to the community.

A foundation stone of The Kitchen is not just providing food for low-income clients, but connecting an otherwise marginalized and underserved community with the green movement. As the only certified green soup kitchen in the country, The Kitchen does this primarily through the use of a number of community garden plots. The produce harvested in these plots is served in our hot meals and distributed in our Urban Free Produce program. The Kitchen also runs educational programs and events that expose the community to recycling, composting, seasonal eating, and growing their own produce at home.

One of The Kitchen’s most important projects is the Junior Chef program, a summer program that takes kids ages six to thirteen and gives them hands-on culinary and nutrition workshops. This program was created to connect underserved and undernourished youth to the culinary arts while educating participants and their families on issues of nutrition and wellness. In addition to direct training, participants receive ingredients and recipes to prepare meals at home with their families, plus a local gym membership to engage in physical activity. Through this curriculum, participants learn how to protect themselves and their families from the threat of diabetes and obesity raging in their neighborhood while having fun and gaining comfort in the kitchen.

I’m writing about this organization today because The Nourishing Kitchen (specifically the Junior Chef program) needs your help. The Kitchen is currently a finalist in the national Post Grant for Good Health for $25,000 to support and expand the Junior Chef program. The catch is that it all depends on votes. Each person can vote once per day until July 12 and the winner will be announced on July 22. It takes less than a minute of ‘e-volunteering’ a day, just one click and you are on your way to pursuing food justice for all. Click here once a day to help.

I eat in a pretty healthy manner. I cook most of my own meals, and even when I eat out or at other people’s homes I’m careful what and how much I eat. [I also keep kosher, so I guess by definition I think a lot about what I eat or don't eat, but it's rote by now--I've been doing it most of my life.]

Over the past few years, I’ve developed a host of food intolerances/allergies (still not sure which they are yet, still working on that part) and in addition to making sure I eat healthily, I also have to make sure I don’t eat things that make me sick.

I’ve gone through fits and spurts of eating organic, cage-free, preservative free, artificial flavors & ingredients free, home-grown…you get the idea. It’s not that I don’t care about environmental sustainability, or even the fact that organic, cage-free, or local produce is more expensive or not as accessible; honestly, for better or worse, it’s just not in my frame of reference. I buy things without thinking how far my bananas have traveled to get to me, or how the field workers who picked my grapes were treated.

Having food allergies has made me infinitely more mindful about what I’m putting in my body because of the ill effects certain things can have on me. But it has also made me think a lot more about food sustainability and food ethics in general, and how the choices I make about food impact others. Sure, I’m only one person, and what kind of environmental impact am I really having by buying bananas that have been shipped from Chile? What point does it make if I buy ethically raised meat? But if everyone thinks like that, then everyone is contributing to problems rather than helping to solve them.

At this point in my life (and budget), I can’t commit to completely changing the way I shop and eat; I know it wouldn’t stick. But I’m taking small steps to buy more local produce, ethically raised meat, and free trade items, and hope to incrementally adapt my habits in the long term.

Food allergies have made my life complicated, but they’ve also opened my eyes to how the choices I make about food can have a significant impact on more than just me. Silver lining, I guess?

Do you have food allergies or intolerances? How have they impacted your life?

Gluten or dairy free? Check out my food blog for some recipes!

The affects of our crazy winter weather are not passed us yet. Generally, we think of bad weather as leading to increases in the prices of food.  Examples include, damaged oranges when the temperatures drop below freezing or farmers having to charge more since, they had to remove 3 feet of snow from their potato crops. But this time, the cold winter is going to make your produce cheaper.

Florida’s cold weather caused a delay in the harvest date for Florida’s strawberries. The delay caused Florida and California to strawberries to hit the markets at the same time. Last week, 80 million pounds of strawberries were picked – a new record for this time of year. In 2009, a pound of strawberries cost $3.49, while this year strawberries will go for $1.25 per pound.

I don’t have any go to strawberry recipes, but since the high is over 90 degrees in Washington, D.C. today, I have been researching frozen fruit cup recipes. I think I am going to make this one from Cooks Recipes.

1 (6-ounce) can frozen concentrated lemonade
1 (6-ounce) can frozen concentrated orange juice
2 1/2 cups water
1 cup granulated sugar
8 ounces fresh or frozen strawberries
3 bananas, peeled and sliced
1 (8-ounce) can pineapple chunks

Combine lemonade, orange juice, water and sugar in a large bowl. Add strawberries, bananas and pineapple.
Spoon into individual serving dishes.
Freeze for at least 1 hour before serving.

So you promised your boss you would go to work 1/2 day Monday, but you haven’t finished your shopping for the big night.  It’s Chicago.  It’s winter.  OK technically it’s Spring, but we’re all still wearing parkas and fantasizing about the sun returning.  And most importantly, the farmers’ market season in Chicago doesn’t really being until April.

Or does it?

A little-known gem is thriving right under your L stop in downtown Chicago!  Chicago’s Downtown Farmstand, located at 66 E. Randolph Street, is practically under the Randolph/Wabash stop, across from the Millenium Metra Train station, and open 6 days a week ALL YEAR.

I had to move back to my hometown after living in Santa Monica, CA for 9 years and the first culture shock was the absence of farmers’ markets from November-April.  In my sluething, I was directed here.  However “here” was embarrassingly difficult to find.  Meaning- when I finally found it, I gave myself the requisite thump on the head because it’s not terribly hidden – but I’ve since learned I’m not the only one who spent many weeks driving/walking past it without noticing it.  It’s part of a larger structure of community galleries, meeting rooms, etc.  So stick to your guns and remember “66 E. Randolph” and you’ll notice the lovely neon sign calling you into the little magical wonderland inside…

The mission here is to carry produce, meat, and baked goods grown, raised, baked within 250 miles of Chicago.  And it works.  I can get a full week’s worth of groceries here due to the variety offered.  And being vegetarian, I’m excluding some of the vendors.

So- what’s good for Passover?  Each week I get BEAUTIFUL greens for salads from Living Water Farms.  Add on onions, mushrooms, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes – the expansive vendor list can be seen online here: CDF Vendor List

Need vanilla?  How about some coffee extract? Rose Water?  You can find a solid variety of vanillas, sugars, extracts from the incomparable Waukegan-based, Kosher, Nielsen-Massey Vanillas.  They even have stacks of recipes at their display in case you are looking for an excuse to buy that Rose Water but have no clue what to do with it (like me).

More kosher yummy can be found in the front refrigerated section – top shelf – Futters Nut Butters. I can’t stop raving about their amazing chocolate nut butters – wow.

Some of my favorite items at this farmstand come from Nicole’s Divine Crackers.  Not kosher, but healthy, unleavened, organic and – wow – I just met her last week (more on that later) – this woman and her business partner “Little Grace” have a lot of chutzpah starting a new bakery/career when they were in their late 50′s (Nikki is now approaching 85).  Get some of Nicole’s “In Your Wildest Dreams” crackers (cranberry & pepper!) to munch on before sundown and then come back next week for more!

So – stop by this hidden year-round farmer’s market during your lunch break or on your way home Monday.  I’m sure you’ll find goodies to add local, organic love to your seder.  And if you need any help, the staff there is friendly, knowledgeable, and passionate about their farmers, their produce, and you.

Zachary Agopian is a chef in Portland, OR and an intern working with an exciting project called Food-Hub: food-hub.org/. This project promotes the use of local foods by directly connecting local farmers and ranchers with local buyers. Thanks, Zachary, for sharing this project with us!

If you’re like me you’re always on the prowl for the freshest ingredients to nourish your body. Now, this may involve an assortment of ridiculous activities; from a full inspection of your milk aisle for the freshest carton, or the heated family “discussion” over your highly guarded mushroom foraging stash. My personal favorite, over-dosing on peaches until you can’t stand the sight of one until next summer, as to not give-in to the temptation, in the long winter months, of a well traveled piece of fruit.

But Wait, Locavores! We now have technology on our side. No, I am not speaking of bioengineered, modified, high yield, “enhanced” vegetables. (Who really wants all of their food to look and taste exactly the same?) I’m talking about FoodHub.

FoodHub. www.food-hub.org.

A new online directory and marketplace which connects some of the region’s most passionate farmers, ranchers, and food producers with regional buyers. What is so amazing about FoodHub is that it can benefit everyone. If you’re a school district looking to purchase 500 lbs of organic carrots, or a local grocery store wanting to stock your shelves with local products, or just throwing a dinner party and want to find locally raised chickens; FoodHub is your tool!
FoodHub is a not-for-profit, there is a membership fee of $100 per year and is open to food buyers and sellers of all kinds throughout OR, WA, AK, ID, MT, and CA. Members create online profiles that include contact info, products they buy or sell, preferred methods for doing business, and many other useful details. Sophisticated search capabilities allow buyers to instantly discover ready suppliers with a few clicks of their computer keyboard. Conversely, sellers can use FoodHub search features to identify new buyer leads and build targeted customer databases. With over 3,000 items in FoodHub’s pantry, the search options are endless.

My favorite tool on FoodHub is the Marketplace function which is a kind of Craig’s List for food. Buyers and sellers post immediate needs and opportunities in FoodHub’s Marketplace. Consider the following posts recently placed on FoodHub:

• Artisan Cheese Coming out of the Caves: Our newest blue cheese – Caveman Blue will be ready to release from our caves within the next two weeks. Contact us now for information about ordering.
• Local Baker Looking for Rhubarb: We are in search of local rhubarb for pie season. We prefer once a week deliveries to our North Portland Bakery. We need 250 – 350 pounds per week while in season (April – July). Please email through FoodHub to provide us with more information.
• Do Your Products Need a Ride? We deliver ice cream in our freezer truck from Bellingham to Seattle/Eastside, San Juan Islands, Skagit Valley, Port Townsend to Port Angeles. We would be willing to deliver your frozen goods along our regular routes for a nominal trip charge.

Give FoodHub a tour; this is a tool that is going to reshape our nutritional landscape.

Here in Portland we’re fortunate to have a year-round farmer’s market, and I’m always on the lookout for interesting, tasty, off-the-beaten-path things to make for Pesach. I love serving fresh asparagus at my seder, but it’s not in season yet, so I was looking for an alternative. Our local mushroom purveyor, Springwater Farm, offers a great variety of mushrooms, but they also sell other wild/foragable foods, including fiddlehead ferns and bags of stinging nettles. Here’s a link to some fiddlehead fern recipes.

The fiddleheads can be served in lieu of asparagus; just blanch them in boiling water and saute in garlic with a little salt.

Despite their sting, nettles are a great thing to eat (once you cook them, the sting goes away). Nettles have been a staple of traditional medicines for centuries, but they’re also amazingly (for a vegetable) high in protein, and a delicious way to get some greens in your diet during the winter. Here’s a great recipe for nettle mushroom soup (it might be good with matzah balls, you never know), posted with permission from its creator, chef Kathryn Yeomans:

Nettle Mushroom Soup

1/2 lb young nettles
2 oz. butter, or olive oil
1 lb. potatoes
a pinch of chile flake
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
1 lb mixed wild and cultivated mushrooms
2 qt good quality meat, chicken or vegetable stock
sea salt & black pepper to taste

Bring a pot of water to a boil.  Carefully add the nettles and cook until the stingers have softened, about a minute or two.  Drain the nettles, refresh them under cold water until cool enough to handle.  Squeeze them slightly to remove some of the water and chop them.  Set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot over a medium flame.  Add the sliced potato and cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes have started to take on some color (10-15 minutes).  Add the chile flake and sliced garlic.  Cook for 1 more minute, break up potatoes slightly with a potato masher or wooden spoon, and then add the stock.  Bring to a boil.  Meanwhile, saute the mushrooms in additional oil.  Add them to the soup.  Season with salt and pepper.  Simmer the soup for 20 minutes, then add the nettles.  Warm through and serve.

The month Nisan begins tonight and with it, so many associations. Last year, I wrote about the practice of refraining from eating Matzah from Rosh Hodesh Nisan (i.e. tonight) until Passover. Most people make, if any, the association of dreaded Pesach cleaning and preparation. I’ll be writing some about that in a few days or next week, God willing, but for now, let’s stick to things connected specifically to Rosh Hodesh Nisan.

One association fewer people make is that Birkat haIlanot, the blessing over blooming trees, is typically said in the month of Nisan:

ברוך אתה ה” אלוהינו מלך העולם שלא חיסר בעולמו כלום וברא בו בריות טובות ואילנות טובות ליהנות בהם בני אדם

Barukh Atah Adonai Eloheynu Melekh haOlam, sh’lo hisar b’Olamo kloom, uvara vo b’riyot tovot v’eelanot tovot lehanot ba-hem b’ney adahm

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, for nothing is lacking in His universe, and He created good creatures and good trees in it so that people can enjoy them.

( * There are a few variations of the blessing. This is the way it appears in the Shulhan Arukh. I suppose if you’re learning this for the first time, you’re learning it from me; say it the way you were taught it.)

The occurrence and wording of the blessing make sense: we tend to bless God for those things that benefit us and happen at specific times (think holidays.) We also make blessings on anything enjoyable (Birkhot haNehenin.) But there is more to this practice than simply making the blessing. First, you have to see the tree. It is not enough to know that this is when it will happen or to hear that someone else saw it. Second, it is the blossom or flower of the tree that you must see. Third, we say the blessing only when we see this happen to/on a tree that produces edible fruit. Finally, each person says this blessing only once per year, upon seeing such a bloom for the first time.

Among the purpose of blessings is to compel us to see the beautiful in the ordinary and in the extraordinary and to appreciate these as gifts from God. Birkat haIlanot has a particularly beautiful way of doing this. “One who goes out,” says the Shulhan Arukh, “in the days of Nisan and sees trees from which a flower is blossoming, says [the above blessing.]” (OH 226:1) Truthfully, the later scholars tell us, the blessing is not connected only to this month, but that this is the time when trees typically bloom in warmer countries (the Shulhan Arukh was probably compiled in Tz’fat and was based on material “the Mehaber” previously compiled there and in Adrianople, Turkey.)

This blessing fits into a category known as Birkhot haRe’iyah, blessings of seeing, made when seeing things: rainbows, lightning, certain people, oceans and, of course, trees in bloom. Sometimes it is hard to look at something in nature and see a spark of God in it, have a spiritual experience from it. How much harder it is to look at people, especially the ones you don’t like, and see God in them. All the soft-spoken rabbi talk about “the image of God” in the world won’t make that easy. These blessings help. Notice that the rule isn’t that one should go out looking for such a tree. When you go out, starting around now, it says, you have to observe everything around you; don’t necessarily look for a tree, but when you spot one–which means you have to observe everything around you–say this blessing.

Of course, the timing of the blessing makes sense because people mark Rosh Hodesh Nisan and it’s around now that trees start to bloom in many parts of the world (at least in the northern hemisphere.) But I posit that there is another reason. We start paying attention to blossoming trees tomorrow because in a certain way, that’s what tomorrow is all about. Rosh Hodesh Nisan is a time to remember that redemption is on its way. Just as we must do with trees, beginning tomorrow, if not all the time, we have to start looking around. Miracles can (Nisan from Nes, miracle) happen at any time anywhere. Maimonides even defines a miracle this way: when something unusual but within the limits of the natural order happens at precisely the right time. Usually we don’t notice miracles until after they’ve happened. Most scholars hold that you can’t say Birkat haIlanot after the actual fruit comes out; the whole point of the blessing is to thank God for potential. Right now (Rosh Hodesh begins in a few minutes here on the East Coast) is a particularly auspicious time to be thinking about potential. Our redemption as a people and as individuals is as close and as evident as the blossoming trees. Only by remembering to bless it will we remember–and merit–to see it.

Hodesh Tov!