Here are two tasty bites from the foodie blogosphere. B’tai Avon.

Separation of Church and Toast? Not for Food for Life, a company that makes a line of products called Ezekiel 4:9 - organic, sprouted, whole grain, kosher certified bread and cereals. (All labels come with passages of text for no extra charge.) Last week, Jewcy interviewed the makers of these biblical foodstuffs, which New York Magazine deemed “righteously tasty.” Read the interview here.

Crying over Spilled Eco-Milk. Picture a glass milk bottle. Now picture a plastic milk jug. Finally, picture a bottle of laundry detergent. That is kind of what the “new milk jug” design - the one adopted by Wal-Mart and Costco, and that are designed to pack and ship easily, while saving money and fuel. Turns out, like many new “eco-products” (e.g. compostable plastic, environmentally friendly dish soap), the new design unfortunately does not quite work as well as the original. While there are some immediate converts, The New York Times reported that the jugs supposedly “spill everywhere” and are “very hard for kids to pour.” Read the article here.

One of Hazon’s staff members had a baby last week (our first baby Hazonik!), which left us wondering, what do you get for a Jewish foodie baby?  We thought this “Eat, Bless, & Be Satisfied” onesie from our Cafe Press account was just right.  Get one for the foodie baby in your life here.

And below the jump: aprons, t-shirts, tote bags, note cards and more!

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Thanks to Hannah Lee for this guest post.

There are cities with a holy stature (like Jerusalem), and there are cities with cultural eminence (like New York) - but my family just came home from a vacation to a place that holds my nomination for Paradise on Earth: Berkeley, California.

I already knew that Berkeley residents are required to collect their food waste for composting (with weekly pick-ups), but to see it operation, with ordinary citizens scraping their plates (and all food-related paper) into their home-sized composting bins was truly inspiring.

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Long time readers of The Jew & The Carrot might remember Margaret Hathaway and Karl Schatz as the couple who left their urban apartment in Brooklyn and traveled 40,000 miles around the country in search of a new lifestyle as goat farmers. (Margaret wrote a book about their experience called The Year of the Goat).

These days, Karl and Margaret live on a farm outside of Portland with their two children, Charlotte and Beatrice, and their dairy goats.  And I had the opportunity to write about their lives and how they merge their sustainable lifestyle and Jewish tradition for Jewish Living Magazine (think an eco-friendly, Martha Stewart Living with a Jewish twist!)

Read an excerpt of the article below the jump. Read more »

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.

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Hazon’s friends Devora Kimelman-Block, founder of Kol Foods (a kosher, organic, grass-fed meat company) and Rabbi Morris Allen, Director of Hekhsher Tzedek, joined American University Radio to discuss the situation at Agriprocessors and explore the questions:

“If food meets the strict rules elaborated in religious texts, does it matter how food arrives at our plates? And where do workers’ rights and other ethical considerations factor into kosher food production?”

Listen here.

On the same page, you can also find a segment featuring Jennifer 8 Lee, author of the Fortune Cookie Chronicles which was reviewed on The Jew & The Carrot.

Thanks to Moshe Cohen for this guest post. Moshe is participating in Hillel’s Sustainable Agriculture Alternative Break at Kayam Farm in Maryland and sending in “reports from the field.” The alternative break is being led by the Jewish Farm School.

“I had a convo with my chi,” said Alison Fields, recently of Indiana University, leaning on her shovel during a work break in the shade.  After our first full day at Hillel and The Jewish Farm School’s Alternative Break at Kayam Farm, we have already taken a complete tour of the grounds, dined on white mulberries right off the tree, sampled new vegetables out of the garden like garlic scapes and kohlrabi and participated in a morning Chi Gong session (hence Alison’s “chi conversation”).

Every day we have three work blocks where we split into teams to tackle a variety of assignments, working and learning together with farm staff and trip organizers. The first major project we undertook was constructing a fence to keep the deer out of the lettuce, reminding us that our food cycle intersects with other living things, as well. Some of us picked leafy greens from the garden and snuck away from the hot sun to “kasher the harvest” in the kitchen.

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So, we were on a conference call the other day. When I say “we,” I mean those of us who have the gargantuan task of menu-planning for Hazon’s 2008 Food Conference.

I am chairing this committee, along with Sue Carson, one of the co-chairs of the conference.  On this call, one person casually suggested a lox and bagels brunch. Lox and bagels were served last year at the conference. No surprise, as lox and bagels are often a staple at Jewish events.

But we most likely will have a lox-less conference.

Gasp. How could we take lox off the menu? Isn’t having a conference celebrating Jewish food without bagels and lox like holding a Japanese cultural celebration without sushi?

Exactly.

It’s sad to say, but both of these are cultural practices that need to be reconsidered.

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The JTA reported today that after last month’s raid on Agriprocessors, production has “slowed to a crawl” and kosher meat is in short supply across the country. The frenzy of media coverage has slowed down some too, though the issue is still very much on the minds of Jewish individuals and organizations struggling to grasp what lasting impact a raid of this proportion might have on the Jewish community.

In the midst of a confusing time, I had the chance to speak with Zalman Rothschild - a former mashgiach (kosher supervisor) at Agriprocessors. Rothschild represented an insider’s voice - someone who worked in the plant, spent Shabbat meals at the Rubashkins’, and could offer a perspective on the raid that I had not yet read. I was excited - and also terrified by the opportunity. Would he be incredibly defensive or hostile? Would he embody the mythic “Agriprocessors monster” that has been uncovered (or created, depending on one’s perspective) by the media? And most importantly, could he impact my views - a progressive, vegetarian Jew who is wary of industrial food in general and the kosher industry in particular - on the situation in Postville?

The short answers are no, no and yes, respectively. For the complete version, check out the full interview below the jump.

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Every kid remembers a time when their parents urged them to “Eat your vegetables.” But what about “Eat your ice cream or you’re not leaving the table?”

Vegetable ice cream. I know it’s a radical concept, but I proved recently to my dinner guests that this unexpected combination of fresh spring peas and sweet cream actually tastes amazing together. I am a huge fan of green pea soup, puree, anything to do with peas. As a child, I would sneak a handful of frozen peas while my mom was making dinner, and I still love popping them in my mouth whenever I’m cooking with them. If you are lucky enough to have fresh peas, then by all means, use them, but frozen peas will definitely do the job here.

As usual, I turned to my trusty ice cream cookbook, David Liebovitz’s Perfect Scoop, for inspiration (remember the indulgent rice gelato I tried during Purim?). From there, I let my improvisation run wild. This ice cream screams spring, and with a fresh burst of mint, you will be sure to impress your friends and family. They may even demand second helpings of their veggies!

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Thanks to Rebecca Bloomfield for this guest post. Rebecca is an alumni of the Adamah program and a garden teacher at The Edible Schoolyard, a program of the Chez Panisse Foundation and founded by Alice Waters.

The highlight of my week this week involved watching two of my students fight. Dodging the carefully-cultivated garden beds, one student ran after another. I hurdled over the strawberry patch to intercept the pursuer and was met by a stern pout that melted into a grin with the words, “she stole my snow peas.” I heard giggling and crunching behind me as the winded friend approached us both, handing us the peas. We snacked and returned to harvesting.

The Edible Schoolyard, in Berkeley, CA, is a force of healing and transformation for middle school students. As children turn soil, plant seeds, harvest produce, and build compost piles, they deepen their connection to food. As the garden transforms, so do the students. It is a space for things to change from that which is to that which can be: seed to sprout, compost to fertile soil, flower to fruit. Like the Mishkan that the Jews were commanded to build during the Exodus, the garden is a sacred space where a divine presence dwells. School gardens the nation over provide space for children to learn that they have choices when it comes to their food, their bodies, and their environment: things do not have to be the way they currently are.

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World leaders attending the UN Food Summit in Italy will be met with modest meal choices come lunchtime. Well, sort of.

According British paper, Times Online, officials at the Food and Agriculture Organization are keen on avoiding claims of hypocrisy for serving lobster and foie gras while discussing global starvation. Said one official, “At the last summit in 2002 we did not give enough thought to the menu and were open - unfairly, in our view - to the charge of hypocrisy.”

As someone who has planned many events for a Jewish environmental non-profit, I know how challenging it can be to model an organization’s values at its events. Somehow, even with the most careful planning, there’s always an overlooked detail - disposable cups where there could be real glass, kosher food but not Chalav Yisroel dairy, or garbage cans where there could be a compost bin. So I sympathize with the FAO organizers who probably spent so much time planning the Summit sessions that they forgot how much every meal is a micro-session in itself. Then I looked at the menu.

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When was the last time you ate a banana? This morning, sliced on your cereal? As a quick snack on the way to shul to tide you over until kiddush? According to an article in Plenty Magazine, finding a banana to eat might soon become a lot more difficult:

“Back in 2003, the magazine New Scientist ran a cover story declaring that the banana was on the brink of extinction. The problem, the article explained, was that commercial bananas were genetically bankrupt: sterile, seedless clones with no genetic diversity and no resistance to a new wave of virulent fungal diseases…Scientists say, the outlook is still pretty bleak for the banana. Commercial growers remain wedded to a single variety known as the Cavendish, the bright yellow fruit found on US supermarket shelves; meanwhile, a lethal and fungicide-resistant infection called Panama Disease has decimated plantations across Southeast Asia and is widely expected to spread into plantations in Latin America and Africa.”

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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. Over the summer, she will spearhead The Jew & The Carrot’s “Unboxed” segment - periodic posts that aim to demystify summer’s most seasonal produce.

A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting my cousin who lives year-round in a largely rural, but fast-developing part of Bucks County in southeastern Pennsylvania. Beth is a great cook and friendly with several local farmers. We stopped by Jim and Kathy Lyons’ Blue Moon Acres for organic micro-greens and spent a morning in the lavender fields at Carousel Farm with another organic grower, Niko Christou. At None Such Farm Market, which sells produce grown across the road and on other nearby farms, we acquired asparagus and rhubarb, the true harbingers of harvests-to-come in the Northeast.

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