Oh, I do love the daily show...

Watch this video. It's ridiculously funny, yet at the saw time extremely scary. It's pretty bamboozling. The Jew and the Carrot blog had a post about this video which was shown on the 14th of May. It's titled "The Food Court Jew". It's about the food lobby spokesman, Jeff Stier, who Samantha Bee "interviews" for her piece. He wears a kippah in the piece. I must say great pun, Ben Murane of the JCarrot, but, seriously, I think you went a little too far in your post. It's interesting that he wears a kippah, but can we say he reflects Orthodox jews? ...No. Should we feel shame?...No. Will others see the kippah and make judgements about the entire Jewish people?...I highly doubt it. So really, stop being so serious, it's comedy. And Jews can be idiots just like everyone else. This is one case we don't have to worry about that one idiot Jew (Bernie Maydoff might have been a different story though.) Thank you John Stewart (now thats one's great Jew).

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Out into the Great Gastronomical Unknown

I’m used to eating in Jewish restaurants. By that I don’t mean kosher restaurants although some of the restaurants I refer to or kosher or kosher-style (a term that really doesn’t mean anything but that it’s deli). I was born and raised in Pikesville, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore which has a large Jewish population. A place where the Chinese restaurants are packed on Sunday nights and Christian holidays.  A place where you see a bunch of Jewish people you know in the restaurants. And of course there’s all that Jewish food and kosher places, et cetera—bagels, shmeer, lox, knish, knaidalach, and all those other Jew fancies. When I say Jewish restaurants, I don’t mean everyone is Jewish there (although its likely) or that they don’t serve non-Jews. There’s just this feeling to them of Jewish Baltimore and I know that this is where I come from.

            So I just have to say I find it really weird when I go and eat places where there's a small Jewish population. The question always comes to my mind “Are me and my family the only Jewish people in this restaurant?” This is always the case when my family goes to Friendly Farms, which is an old  “family style restaurant” out on a ex-farm in Cowtown Upperco, Maryland. We usually go at least once a year for someone’s birthday in the summer (and this past Sunday was that day for my uncles birthday dinner).  The drive there is just stunning—rolling verdant fields, sheep, horses, cows, an abundance of burnt red farmhouses. I love that long ride over. Then you get to the restaurant which is a large restored farmhouse. The air smells like manure as we exit the car. My sister and I go into the gift shop attached to the restaurant. It’s cramped with old candies, jams, honeys, cheap knick-knacks. Oh, and lots of angels, more crosses than I’ve ever seen in one place, and even a gifts for children called “prayer bags” where kids can have fun picking out little prayers from an ugly bag (is it a game?)

Then we go into the restaurant and wait in the large, loud, waiting rooms crowded with families. And there that feeling comes. We go into the dining hall, a terrifically kitschy room with large long tables covered in plastic, red, plain tablecloths. The paper place mats on the table have a photo of the restaurant with writing on it. It says “Feel free to say a blessing over your food in your faith”. There are three blessings or graces: the catholic grace, the protestant grace, and underneath ‘Blessed are you Lord our God, King of the world who brings forth bread from the ground” is written “Hebrew”. Sure they called me a Hebrew, but at least they remembered me. This makes me laugh and that question of “Are we the only Jews?” stops pestering me. I move onto the food. The tables are covered with bowls when we get there—canned peaches, fried sugar rolls, applesauce, cottage cheese,  apple butter, pickles (hey! There’s something I know!)—and we pass them around. The entrees and sides come—Maryland crab cakes, fried chicken, fried shrimp, green beans, sweet corn, T-bone steaks (yeah, my family doesn't keep kosher)—and we do more passing. I don’t eat non-kosher meat and seafood so I just eat the cold foods. I go to take some string beans and I find there are a few pieces of juicy pork in it (I still don’t know if that was an accident or was purposeful) which gives me quite a shock. I decide I’ll pass on the hot foods. I used to come here when I wasn’t kosher (about a year or so ago) and would gladly enjoy a crab-cake, and it wasn’t exactly so strange here in treife land.

Yet, despite all that I’m eating is canned peaches and ice cream. I start to get comfortable at the table and enjoy myself in this foreign foodland. There’s something really nice about this place. I love the family feel. It reminds me a little of the same feeling I get when I go into kosher restaurants which are usually family orientated, but different. I like passing the food around and being able to talk loudly. I like seeing the beautiful scenery of the window. After the dinner, my siblings and cousins go out to the lake next to the restaurant with some “free duck food” we picked up from the gift shop (dried corn and bird seeds in an ice cream cone) and start feeding the geese. Despite all the treifeness, this place will always be one of my favorite restaurants to go to with my family. I have a secret dream of starting my own Jewish farmhouse family-style restaurant one day in the country. Until that time, I’ll settle for canned peaches and ice cream at Friendly Farms.

Cuz I Ain't no Challah-Back Girl

This past semester at University of Maryland, College Park, I got the chance to become involved with an amazing new student group on campus called Challah for Hunger. It combines two of my great loves: tzedakah (charity) and baking challah bread (only one of my favorite foods in the world!) We’ve successfully baked and sold challahs about ten times throughout this semester. Our group was taught by the Challah for Hunger organization founder, Eli Winkleman, how to make the perfect dough, braid it, and bake it early on this semester. This picture I have of her is actually from about a week ago when she came by on a Thursday to help us in the braiding and baking process at the College Park Hillel. She’s really quite amazing. She created the group while she was at Scripp’s College and it really took off, now there are 21 Challah for Hunger chapters at various campuses over the United States and that number is sure to grow. Eli created it to raise awareness and money for the genocide victims of Darfur. Half of the profits from challah sales go to American Jewish World Service’s Sudan Relief and Advocacy Fund. The different chapters decide where the other 50% of profits go. Our Maryland chapter decided to give 10% of sales money to Hillel since they are generous enough to support us with a kitchen and ingredients (that is until we become self-sufficient) and the other 40% goes to a non-profit chosen by our advocacy group for the semester. So far this semester we have given to nonprofits such as House of Ruth, Maryland Special Olympics, Vassar Uganda Project, Horton’s Kids, and Yad Eliezar in Israel. I have learned a lot from working with this group this past semester and I greatly encourage everyone interested to learn more. I think it’s so outstanding when food can be made and sold for a higher purpose such as with Challah for Hunger.

Me and Eli

volunteers and members braiding

Also, check out this video of Bill Clinton talking about Eli! I was blown away when I saw it. Shows you everyone has the power to make a difference!

Oh yeah, and our challahs really did taste freakin’ amazing. Ever in College Park on a Friday, you have to come by Maryland Hillel and pick one up!

Give your blessings

If you are amazed at how it is possible to speak, hear, smell, touch, see, understand, and feel—tell your soul that all living things collectively confer upon you the fullness of your experience. Not the least speck of existence is superfluous, everything is needed, and everything serves its purpose. “You” are present within everything that is beneath you, and your being is bound up with all that transcends you.—Rav. Kook, Orot ha-Kodesh

 

I recently heard this quotation at a Jewish sustainability conference I attended in Baltimore, and I really loved it. I don’t know why the wise Rav. Kook did not add eating to that list, but I think every time one eats, its vital to remember that that food came from a process which involved all of God’s creation.  Even if one doesn’t say a blessing before eating, just take a moment to think about how that food was grown, how it was transported and made to get from farm to your table—was the process sustainable? Was it ethical? do you honor and respect that process? Understand the fullness of your experience. It’s my wish that I can do the same and not live and eat ignorantly as it’s so easy to do.