I don’t know about you all, but spring is here in Brooklyn, and I’m psyched. Walking in the park near my apartment yesterday, the trees were popping, the air smelled fresh and flowery, and it seemed like the whole neighborhood was outside soaking in the spring-ness.

It’s this combination of seasonal renewal and the giddy energy that comes with it that makes Passover one of my favorite holidays - there’s just such an optimism and joy this time of year. I also love how Passover offers a perfect opportunity to combine the wisdom of a traditional Jewish holiday with my desire to live healthily and sustainable in our world.

On that note, I’m pleased to announce the return of The Jew & The Carrot’s Healthy Sustainable Passover Resources! Find tips and tricks to shake off the winter (and the chametz), green your seder table, and celebrate the holiday in sustainable style.

Last Thursday, Hazon’s Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA at the 14th Street Y in Manhattan hosted a “Meet Your Farmer” night, conjuring up the age-old question: can Papaya Dog and fresh, local vegetables co-exist?

Hat tip to ZT at Jewschool for this story, a friend of the family Shira Kamm starts her own farm, joining the ranks of so many other women starting farms. Check this article in the Philly Inquirer about Kamm’s endeavor below the fold, and check the photo essay. Somebody invite this woman to the Food Conference!

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What would you say if someone offered you a box of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables delivered to your home every week? Ella Heeks is willing to wager you might be interested.

Heeks is the Managing Director of Abel & Cole, an Organic Delivery Service in England. Through Abel & Cole, customers order a weekly bounty of pesticide-free produce and schedule its delivery to fit into their busy lives. It’s convenience and ethical eating, waiting patiently on the porch.

While you can find Organic Delivery Services in most American cities, Brits have taken a particular liking to their weekly veg box - and also to ODS pioneer Abel & Cole. 30-year old Heeks spoke with The Jew & The Carrot about working with an idealistic company, soaking up farmer wisdom, and Able & Cole’s response to some customer’s requests that they boycott Israeli-grown produce. Read more »

The most recent issue of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture includes an article I wrote called “Reaping the Faith.”

The article profiles Zaid and Haifa Kurdieh, two religious Muslims who combine their faith and farming (sounds familiar somehow…). It focuses on the concept of Tayyib, which some Muslims view as a mandate to eat sustainably and healthily, and compares Tayyib with the significantly more widespread Muslim eating mandate, Halal. It traces the history of faith and farming throughout other religious traditions including Judaism and Christianity. Additionally, it touches upon Zaid and Haifa’s struggles to secure visas for Muslim farm workers from Jordan and Egypt to work as apprentices on their farm. And, naturally, it gives a healthy shout out to Hazon’s Tuv Ha’Aretz program.

The extra exciting news is - the folks at Gastronomica are planning an evening of discussion around the article on Tuesday, May 13 at the beautiful new Astor Center in in NYC - check back here in the next couple of weeks for more information about the event.

Here are the first two paragraphs as a teaser (the article is unfortunately not available online). To purchase a copy or subscription, check out Gastronomica’s website.

Reaping the Faith
By: Leah Koenig
Gastronomica - Winter 2008

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The Jew & The Carrot {hearts} Aitan and Adva Dairy. Thanks to Nextbook for producing a wonderful podcast and feature one of our favorite Jewish goat farmers - yes, there’s more than one!

“Goat Days”
Nextbook 2.25.08
By: Jesse Graham
(Listen to the podcast)

There’s a growing movement among environmentally conscious observant Jews to rethink kashrut. Its adherents place less emphasis on the official kosher stamp, and more on where their food comes from. They want locally and organically grown produce, and if they are meat-eaters, they want to know that the meat they’re eating comes from farms that treat animals humanely.

One devotee of this movement is an unassuming thirty-year-old named Aitan Mizrachi, founder of the AVDA Dairy, a small-scale goat dairy farm in northwestern Connecticut that produces organic, kosher raw milk yogurt and cheeses.

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(Comic: “You’re passionate about salad, aren’t you Miss Allen? Ballard Street)

For all of you worried about where your salad comes from, and what you should or shouldn’t put in it, and how often you should eat it, and if you should eat cold salad in the winter, and where you might get your vitamins if you don’t eat cold salad in the winter, and what kind of dressing goes on it and whether to splurge on that avocado or not (and granted, I fall into just about all of these categories) -

RELAX! It’s Adar - a joyful month! It’s all going to be okay.

Last summer, during the height of tomato season, The Jew & The Carrot blogger, Alix gave us this recipe for shakshuka.  Unless you live in Mexico, the tomatoes are nowhere near in season these days - but we can dream.  Thanks to the folks at Jewlicious for sharing their version of Shakshuka, from a bonafide Moroccan Mama.  We love the complete disregard for measurments and clear instructions this recipe has.  We also love the mere thought of perfect, ripe tomatoes - this receipe has us drooling for summer already…

Recipe for Jewlicious Shakshuka below the jump…

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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.

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 I lived in Oregon for two years (the defunct hippie enclave of Eugene to be exact), so before any of you west coast readers get all up in arms over what I’m about to say, just remember I’m a sympathetic member of the tribe.

It’s just that, since moving to New York, I’ve fully realized to extent to which the east coast, and NYC in particular, sets the cultural tone for the rest of the American Jewish community. Seinfeld - New York. Woody Allen - New York. Manischewitz…okay, Cincinnati and then New Jersey, but close enough.

Considering the cultural monopoly east coast Jews have on most things Jewish, it seems to follow that the majority of successful Jewish food entrepreneurs would hail from the more neurotic side of the Mississippi. So I was utterly taken aback when Lois Leveen proved me wrong on her blog MacaroniManiac.

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Many people complain that it’s difficult to find a synagogue to join in New York City. There are just so many options, that none of them feel exactly right - you might call it The Shul-Goers Dilemma. These days, however, I’m feeling pretty good at Temple Bet Pollan.

Michael Pollan gets his fair share of love on this blog, and his new book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto has already joined its predecessor, The Omnivore’s Dilemma as a New York Times Best Seller. Pollan is in the middle of his second whirlwind book tour in two years (I guess he sleeps on the plane) – and I hear the same account every where he goes. Huge venue, sold out show, knockout performance.

Like any effective leader - Martin Luther King included - he’s charismatic and big on the big ideas that change the way we think - or in this case how we eat. But as I devoured (pun intented) Pollan’s new book on my subway commute, I wondered what, if anything, does his worldview offer to the Jewish community? And, perhaps more interestingly, what wisdom does the tribe have to offer back to him?

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Last Sunday Hazon hosted our annual BIG board meeting.  The board itself meets four times a year, but January’s meeting is the only time when the staff is invited and everyone is in the same place.  It’s kind of a big deal around here.

As with every business meeting these days, serving food is essential - Michael Pollan writes in In Defense of Food, “It is apparently considered gauche at a business meeting or conference if a spread of bagels, muffins, pastries and soft drinks is not provided at frequent intervals.” 

What Pollan doesn’t say is that, of all the aspects of a given meeting, food is probably the thing that attendees grumble about most.  Maybe the bagels were too hard, the muffins too sticky, and would it have killed them to have herbal tea with the coffee?  In the end, it seems getting the food “right” is almost as important as the meeting agenda. 

Unfortunately, finding the right food when your organization is committed to health, sustainability and inclusive Jewish community is not particularly straight forward. 

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We’re all familiar with the saying, “you are what you eat.” But two recent articles got me thinking that perhaps this old adage would be better stated, “you are what you think you eat.”

The first is a unnecessarily hateful article called “Extreme Eating” by Joel Stein in this week’s Time magazine. Stein decides to stick it to the “luddite” locavores, by making a meal strictly with ingredients grown 3,000 miles from his Los Angeles home and purchased at Whole Foods. (He must mistakenly believe that locavores revere Whole Foods as some sort of local food Mecca.) Stein writes:

“I want the world to come to me, to see it shrink so small it fits on my plate. I want Maine lobster in broth flavored with Spanish saffron. I want Alaskan salmon, truffles from Europe, a bottle of Beaujolais, a damn pineapple. And I want them much more than I want that carrot you grew in your garden. Because I know you’re going to talk to me for 20 minutes about your carrot.”

I’m not about to fight to the death for locavores or stop supplementing my CSA share with the occasional avocado or grapefruit. And as I’ve said before, there’s bound to be some backlash against sustainable food this year. But Stein’s “distavore” meal is little more than a petulant and obvious attack on a movement that has caused a lot of people to consider more carefully the impact of their food choices.

In his article, Stein likens his meal to one fit for a “European king.” Well, he’s right. European kings were known for cutting off people’s heads to get what they wanted, and in a sense, that’s exactly what his meal (ahem, publicity stunt) accomplished. Read more »

It’s winter in Vancouver — wet wet winter. Yet after just finishing a plateful of jerusalem artichokes, harvested this afternoon from my mom’s vegetable garden, sauteed with garlic from Stephen Gallagher (the amazing farmer who’s working with the Tuv Ha’Aretz site at Har El in North Vancouver) — I realized this isn’t the first meal I’ve had this winter where the food was fresh-picked.
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