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!
Are Passover snacks the new bees? Chametz-free noshes seem to be disappearing everywhere without a trace. First, TamTams disappear from the shelves, and now, the NYTimes reports about a historic New York social club that recently lost its source for the perfect macaroon.
It seems that the bakery which supplied the Century club with macaroons for over half a century has gone out of business, and this article describes the remarkable search by its members for a suitable replacement. I have to say, even as someone who disdainfully associates macaroons with those awful, sticky, cloying, calorie-laden chunks that come in the vacuum-sealed can, I can’t help but admire the passion and discernment by which Century Club members are conducting their search. Here’s how they lovingly describe the perfect macaroon:
“They had just the right amount of texture. They weren’t too crispy. They weren’t too gooey. You know, they didn’t flake or break. They kind of pulled apart. I would say they sort of had a nice elasticity. They displayed a particular combination of crustiness and tensile strength.”
Mmmm…tensile strength. Good luck with that. So much for Macaroons. The cheese(cake) half of this post is after the jump… Read more »
Thanks to Elena Sigman for this guest post.
My Tante Toni (may her memory be a sweet blessing) made a dish for Purim, called noun, which I haven’t seen since the 70s. It was my favorite treat at her house: a plate of sweet, sticky pieces of noun cut in the shape of diamonds about one-and-a-half inches long. I guessed it was made of honey and chopped nuts and dates, but I was never sure of the recipe. It was dark brown and chewy and even though it was super-sweet it was also somehow tangy. The plate was passed around the table at the end of our Purim seudah, and it was quickly finished. The batches were never big.
Tante Toni had blue eyes that were two different colors because one was hers and the other was glass. The glass eye was bluer and bigger and her real eye was smaller and more hazel. At home in the evening, she wore a hairnet in order to preserve her coiffure from erev Shabbos, after she came home from the beauty parlor, until the next Friday morning when she’d get her hair done again. She was a smart, compact woman, barely taller than my child self, but she walked with a spine so straight no runway model could match it. She never tried to make chit chat with me. When I was a kid I would occasionally sleep over at her apartment on Friday night. After dinner she read the B’nai Brith Messenger cover to cover in her high-backed chair, and I read my book (Agatha Christie mysteries one year, Pearl S. Buck novels the next) on the couch until the Shabbos clock clicked off the light.
In this week’s Jerusalem Post, Dr. Richard Schwartz writes:
“Queen Esther, the heroine of the Purim story, was a vegetarian while she lived in the palace of King Achashverosh. She was thus able to avoid violating the kosher dietary laws while keeping her Jewish identity secret.”
Well, sort of. As a vegetarian and a woman, I find Dr. Schwartz’s line of logic tempting. Hooray! Queen Esther, the sassy savior of the Jewish people, loved tofu! But he has the midrash backwards.
There are actually conflicting opinions about what Esther chose to eat and refuse in the palace (one commentator suggests that she was actually served pork!). But the midrash that stuck is that she ate beans and legumes. If this was the case, then Queen Esther avoided meat so as to not violate the kosher laws in her non-Jewish surroundings. Her intention would not have been to eschew all flesh, as Dr. Schwartz suggests, just the non-kosher kind.
Even if she wasn’t a card-carrying PETA member, Queen Esther’s diaspora diet gives us a glimpse into the strength of her character. She maintained her sense of self, even within a palace that was undoubtedly filled with temptations. The lesson to take away is not that all Jews should be vegetarians (though many could benefit from eating less meat!), but that defending one’s core values is the deepest form of heroism.
In honor of Queen Esther, here’s a recipe for Persian Stuffed Peppers by Chef Gil Marks, author of a mind-bogglingly comprehensive book of vegetarian Jewish recipes, Olive Trees and Honey.
I initially posted this recipe as a comment on the giant falafel bundt, because the same week that they posted, I had made a real bundt cake of my very own. I shared this cake with a couple of people who I work with, including Hazon’s Executive Director, Nigel Savage, who insisted that this lowly banana cake get its very own post and photo.
Nigel actually tried the cake when we were on our way from Manhattan to Long Island to a Jewish wedding. In retrospect, I suppose I see how silly I was to bring provisions for an hour-long car ride on the way to a Jewish simcha, but hey, there can never be too much food! And six hungry Jews in a car in NY traffic - what did I know? I’ve never been to Long Island - things could have gotten ugly.
I didn’t think there was a Jewish connection to my banana cake, but when doing a bit of research on the Wikipedia I found this:
“The Bundt pan (a registered trademark) was created in 1950 by H. David Dalquist, founder of Nordic Ware, at the request of members of the Hadassah Society’s chapter in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They were interested in a pan that could be used to make bundkuchen (sometimes called kugelhopf or Gugelhupf), a popular German and Austrian coffee cake. The old-world pans, made of delicate ceramic or heavy cast iron, were difficult to use. He modified some existing Scandinavian pan designs by introducing folds in the outer edge, and fashioned the pan out of aluminum.”
So that you never have to risk being hungry on the way to your next simcha, here’s the recipe for banana cake.
New Yorkers visiting a certain patch of real estate in the East 20s known affectionately as Curry Hill know the secrets of kosher vegetarian Indian food - in fact, you can hardly throw a dosa without hitting Madras Mahal, Chennai Garden, or another Indian restaurant serving hecshered, meat-free fare.
Now, Israeli-born, vegetarian actress Natalie Portman will star in Mira Nair’s new movie, “Kosher Vegetarian” - exploring the interfaith romance between a Gujarati guy (actor, Ifran Khan) and Jewish girl (Portman).
Like Nair’s last movie (The Namesake), the love between these two characters will undoubtedly be fraught with disapproving parents and inter-cultural conflict. But at very least, the couple will know where to eat.
(cross-posted at Jewcy)
This challah recipe is spiced bread more than anything else. There’s no egg in it, which is what makes challah challah in my opinion, but we do braid it, so I call it faux-challah. The dough is pretty sweet so we added lots of salt to make it a savory loaf, but it’s just as easy to make sweet by adding cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and raisins.
There are two sets of directions below - one from a Chabad rebbetzin, and one for those of you who might like something slightly more step-by-step.
Did you ever wish that you could create an energy bar with just the right nutritional ingredients, that tasted great, and was (mostly) kosher and organic? How about if the company that made them gave a percentage of their profits to a local foodbank? How about if the company was a mother and son who started out in the kitchen of their synagogue?
Check out this great story in the NYTimes, and head over to youbars.com if you feel like creating (and naming!) your very own Powerbar.
Animal Care, Blessings, Community Agri., Family & Kids, Food Conference, Hazon, Holidays, Jewish Learning, Judaism, Kosher, Meat, Milk, Personal Story, Spirituality, WomenThanks to Maria Russakoff for this guest post, originally printed in the Arizona Jewish Post. It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything about Hazon’s Food Conference or the controversial goat schecting, but this piece is worth sharing.
The handwritten sign over the shiny percolator reads: “Chai tea - made lovingly with raw goat and cow milk, brewster honey, sadeh hot peppers, blackstrap molasses, black tea and ginger.” I haven’t the faintest idea where brewster honey comes from or what makes hot peppers “sadeh,” but I know from the first sip that I have come to a place that will nurture my stomach, mind and soul for the next three days. I breathe a contented sigh of relief, happy to have made it in one piece from sunny Arizona to the Connecticut Berkshires in the dead of winter, happy to be back at the Hazon Jewish Food Conference in its second year.
(x-posted at Lilith)
I’ve been doing a lot of cooking lately. In comparison to the stereotypical “I use my oven as an extra shoe closet” New Yorker, I’ve always cooked a lot for this city. But since I started freelance writing two days a week last summer, and especially since the New Year when I renewed my commitment to preparing my own meals, I’ve found myself spending much more time in the kitchen.
I’ve also discovered that there’s lots of time to think when one cooks - even if NPR is playing in the background. As I’ve tinkered with various types of cookies and tried out new recipes from my favorite Chanukah present, Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook
Yes, there are the old standbys - Chicken soup with matzah balls, fresh challah, pastrami on rye. And then there are the mysterious, and often severely unappetizing foods that you find in the “kosher food” section at the supermarket - gefilte fish, pickles, Manischewitz, and Tam Tam crackers. Honestly, I can only imagine what folks who aren’t familiar with Jewish eating must think when they see a supermarket shelf of glass jars filled with gelatinous objects suspended in a bunch of different colored murky liquids.
(x-posted from Lilith)
We’ve made it to the final stretch of the “holiday season” (read: the inclusive euphemism for Christmas and New Year’s Eve). Despite Nigel’s insistence that, “no one says Merry Christmas in America” (he’s from England where supposedly everyone says Merry Christmas as if they have a tic), the holidays – and particularly Christmas – can literally be felt, regardless of one’s religious beliefs.
This phenomenon holds particularly true with food. No matter that Chanukah celebrations peaked half a month ago - holiday food is ubiquitous. From late November through New Year’s Eve, red-and-green wrapped chocolates seem to pop up out of nowhere. Alcohol, cookies, pie, and heavily salted snacks also take on “how-did-that-get-into-my-hand?” properties. And whether you spent Christmas dinner with friends or celebrated the “Jewish way” with Chinese food and a movie, holiday foods have a tendency to find their way, often in excess, into our mouths.
(x-posted at Lilith)
* To clear up any confusion - the picture at left is not me! See below for details…
So, my boyfriend came to Chicago with me for Thanksgiving dinner. Although he’s met my parents before, this was the first time he’d ever visited the town where I spent the first 18 years of my life. Overall, the trip and meal went smoothly, but as expected there were some sticky moments. Like when my boyfriend and parents agreed it would be just the most wonderful idea to watch my bat-mitzvah video!
We gathered around the television and watched as visions of my painfully pre-teen self flashed across the screen. On the one hand, I enjoyed this trip down Jewish milestone lane. Although I’d love to forget the braces, the awkward limbs, and bad hair-cut of my adolescense, I was also proud. I enjoyed the opportunity to root for this miniature version of myself and imagine that the “little Leah” could sense the loving presence of her future self, watching as she chanted the haftorah. I also loved the way the video made my parents smile and my boyfriend say, “wow, you were really great!”
On the other hand, it turns out there’s nothing like a little backward glance to shake the foundation of your current reality.
Jewish Grandmas are known for their special gift for feeding - and over feeding - their loved ones. But for Jill Ginsberg (second from right), her Grandma Rose not only filled her belly with chicken soup, rugelach, and blintzes - she also sparked Jill’s entrepreneurial spirit.
In 2005, Ginsberg founded Thou Shall Snack - a line of kosher snacks products that recreate traditional Jewish recipes, while giving them a decidedly contemporary twist (they’re kosher as well as baked, free of trans fats and genetically modified ingredients, and made with 70% organic ingredients). Read an interview with Jill below and answer this question for a chance to win a special gift basket from Thou Shall Snack: What is your all-time favorite Jewish comfort food? The gift basket contains an assortment of Latke Crisps and Babka Bites from Thou Shall Snack, a custom apron and/or T-shirt, and a beautiful latke serving platter.
LK: How did you come up with the original idea for Thou Shall Snack?
JG: The first time I got the idea for Latke Crisps was after I heard of my friend’s Jewish beer company, HeBrew Beer. I thought, someone better make some latke crisps to go with that beer! It was really more of a lark in the moment, but it ended up becoming our first product.
[I also realized] there were a lot of other ethnic-inspired snack foods out there, which got me thinking about the Jewish foods I grew up eating. I began to wonder why no one had done something like this before.
When Jane Goldman founded Chow in 2004, she envisioned a new kind of food magazine: one that eschewed the stodgy, elitest air that typifies the world of gourmet food, and embraced the sense of adventure and joy that can be found baking a pie from scratch, or throwing your first dinner party.
With no formal culinary training herself (but plenty of experience in magazines and media), Goldman knew what her audience of home cooks were looking for: entertaining features, friendly culinary advice, instructional videos, regional restaurant recommendations, and a community board (originally the independent Chowhound) where they could chat with one another about their favorite pastime.
Three years, later, Chow - which more recently converted to an online format - is earning a reputation as the go-to spot for enthusiastic - or simply curious - do-it-yourself foodies.
I spoke with Goldman (who was recently named one of Heeb’s 100 most innovative Jews) about the fun side of food, the emerging community of DIY cooks, and, when it comes to “good chow” - why a good poppyseed hamentashen always trumps a latke.
Read the interview below the jump…
