"kosher" news and stories

In my capacity as a personal finance writer, I often get a chance to write about Bernie Madoff. As a food writer, however, I haven't been able to do much with him. This is particularly ironic, as one of my cousins worked as a personal chef for the Madoffs. Unfortunately, she didn't have any crazy or disturbing stories to tell.

Recently, however, the ever-elusive Madoff/food connection finally emerged. Ruth Madoff, the scammer's wife, managed to weasel her way onto the cover of a cookbook. The Great Chefs of America Cook Kosher, a 1996 tome that offered Kosher haute cuisine recipes to the masses, appears to have been "executive edited" by Madoff and her friend Idee Schoenheimer. However, according to the "editor," Karen MacNeil, neither Madoff nor Schoenheimer actually did any work for the book. MacNeil, a food and wine expert, claims that the book was something of a vanity project for Madoff, who "was interested in having her name on something that would allow for some sort of fun."

The moral of the story? The family that cheats together eats together!

This Sunday's New York Times magazine is entirely dedicated to food. Here's the rundown:

Michael Pollan tells the next president what he needs to do to change America's relationship with food and food sources.

A new kosher movement seeks to bring social justice and sustainability to the slaughterhouse.

Will tipping in America ever go out of fashion? It already has at one San Francisco restaurant.

Is Vietnamese catfish a real thing?

Eat at Shopsin's, where the food is seasoned with expletive-laden tirades and a dash of verbal abuse.

A wanna-be sustainable gardener learns about Mother Nature's wrath the hard way.

A slideshow of young leaders of the new food movement.

Source

As of now, it's Pomegranate located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. The 20,000 square feet of shopping space includes aisles full kosher gourmet foods. An article from New York magazine calls Pomegranate a "kosher gourmet megastore." The supermarket seems to be a cross between Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

Unlike other specialty markets, Pomegranate caters to the thousands of Orthodox Jewish families living in New York City. The store has three kitchens: dairy, meat, and parve (fish, vegetables, fruit and grains). Each has its own on-duty full-time rabbi. Customers can choose from a rich selection of freshly baked challah and homemade cheeses to aged prime beef-rib steaks to an olive bar and sushi bar. The gourmet food market is an obvious business trend. Is the kosher version of Whole Foods the new trend?

I live in Brooklyn, not far from Pomegranate, and I see several smaller gourmet kosher markets on Kings Highway. The prices are not cheap. So, I do not think that Pomegranate will have a hard time competing with existing stores. You can now visit the supermarket that's located on Coney Island Avenue at the corner of Avenue L.

I have definitely noticed a trend lately with food-based humor t-shirts. Last year, my boyfriend bought me a shirt with a pig, rabbit, and cow that says, "Don't eat us. We are cute animals." Recently, I found out about this kosher ham t-shirt.

This campy shirt was featured in Us Weekly and in Heeb Magazine. If you want one, you can purchase it online.

Even though I don't know very much about Kosher law, I do know that one who keeps Kosher can only eat certain animal proteins. Now you can add giraffe to that list.

Recently at the Safari Park, Israel's largest zoo, vets took some milk from a female giraffe and sent it to some Rabbis to see if it was Kosher. Turns out it is. The Rabbis said that the milk formed curds correctly, and since giraffes "belong to the family of grazing animals that have cloven hooves and chew the cud" they should be considered Kosher.

What I don't get is why, if the vets were treating the female for something, did they send its milk to Rabbis for Kosher consideration? That point wasn't really addressed in the Telegraph Online article. Oh well, I guess there's now one more option for those who keep Kosher!