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Star Anise Foods debuts the world's first and only Vietnamese pho noodle soups made from 100% brown rice with a touch of organic green tea, HAPPY PHO. You will totally love our pho! HAPPY PHO is created from an authentic Vietnamese family recipe dated back to the 1920s. We combine nutritious, low sodium noodles with an all natural, savory spice packet soup base. Unlike some of the pho soup that you find at restaurants & currently on the shelves, HAPPY PHO is made from 100% brown rice noodles & has no MSG. It tastes absolutely delicious! A healthy, easy meal made by simply adding fresh ingredients. Traditionally, the broth can take up to 8 hours to perfect. We however, condensed hours of broth making into a simple spice packet, added a nutritional twist to the noodles and made it quick and easy to prepare. Now you can make GLUTEN FREE, tasty Vietnamese brown rice pho noodle soup meals in 15 minutes in the comfort of your own home. HAPPY PHO has 2 components in each box: brown rice noodles with organic green tea and a soup packet of organic and all natural spices. Pho (pronounced "fuh"), a bowl of noodles in steaming hot broth with subtle spices and fresh herbs, is considered the Vietnamese soul food.Price: $35.90
High quality embroidered cotton/poly blend apron. Make a statement at your next dinner party. Show your wild side. This unique apron is sure to be a conversation piece at any gathering. Perfect for the home entertainer or adventurous gourmet. One for every personality! Fully adjustable to accomodate both larger and smaller builds.Price: $29.99
The Handy Pantry Sprouting Lid fits most wide mouth mason jars. It's made of a durable food-grade plastic with mesh holes big enough to drain well but small enough to hold in tiny seeds such as alfalfa! Order more than one and rotate your crops every 3-4 days to make sure that you always have a steady supply of your favorite sprouts.Price: $4.95
Good Eats with Alton Brown is the most fun you can have watching TV while still learning something. It's cooking meets chemistry meets science class meets recess. Mix in his quirky personality and random jabs at pop culture, and you have great TV. Or, as Alton would say, Good Eats.Disc 1: See where it all began with the first five episodes of Good Eats. "Steak Your Claim," "This Spud's For You," "The Egg-Files," "Salad Daze" and "A Bird in the Pan" begin the first season of classics episodes that educate and inspire. Plus, bonus videos from Alton!
Disc 2: Wrap up the first season of Good Eats with the final nine episodes. You'll never look at cooking in quite the same way after watching these: "Churn Baby Churn," "The Dough Also Rises," "Gravy Confidential," "Romancing the Bird (A Good Eats Thanksgiving)," "A Bowl of Onion," "Hook, Line, and Dinner," "Pantry Raid (Part I): Use Your Noodle," "Power to the Pilaf" and "The Art of Darkness."
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Splenda No Calorie Sweetener Packets are individual portions found in the familiar yellow packets. They are a great way to sweeten beverages and sprinkle on cereal, fresh fruit, and more. Each packet of Splenda No Calorie Sweetener provides the sweetness of two teaspoons of sugar; 24 packets of Splenda No Calorie Sweetener provide the sweetness of one cup of sugar. Each packet of Splenda No Calorie Sweetener has no calories and no carbohydrates per serving. (For cooking and baking, you may find Splenda No Calorie Sweetener, Granular a more convenient option.Price: $20.44
The Ozeri Pro Digital Kitchen Scale is designed for the culinary perfectionist who desires the superior accuracy in function and elegance in form. This multifunction Kitchen Scale incorporates oversized buttons that generate an audible click confirmation for the fast-paced cook, and an automatic Tare button that quickly calculates the net weight of your ingredients by subtracting the container weight, whether the container is a bowl, tray, plate or anything else. The scale is finished in elegant chrome, and has a capacity range from a mere 0.05 ounces to 11 lbs. The scale also displays results in both the US and international metric systems (grams | ounces | pounds | kilograms). The large screen features a new bright LCD with an improved viewing angle for the on-the-go cook. The Pro Digital Kitchen Scale Kitchen Scale also includes a 3 minute automatic turn-off that preserves battery life while giving you time to confirm each measurement (batteries included). 100% Satisfaction Guarantee.Price: $25.00
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Bon Appetit 4" x 6" recipe cards come 40 cards per package and fit either the Recipe File box or the Pocket Page Recipe Book. Refill Pocket Page Sheets available separately.Price: $27.00
Have you ever been stumped on converting grams to ounces or figuring out how much chicken you need to triple the serving size of your recipe? A recipe conversion calculator will solve these problems and become an indispensable tool for menu planning and estimating, whether you're a caterer, professional chef, or home cook. The KitchenCalc calculates portion sizes so you can scale recipes either up or down to accommodate a changing guest list. A memory function saves recipe sizes for future use. If you often cook dishes from foreign cookbooks, the recipe calculator offers over 146 measurement conversions to help you convert between U.S. and foreign weights and measures in either fraction or decimal values. Additionally, you can convert temperatures from Centigrade to Fahrenheit and vice versa. This handy calculator also has a digital timer built in that displays hours, minutes, and seconds and that has a programmable alarm to alert you when your baking is finished. The unit also works as a standard math calculator and can perform calculations while the timer is running. Small enough to store in a drawer, the KitchenCalc comes in a hinged, hard case and has a soft plastic cover to protect the calculator's keys from food spills. The KitchenCalc runs on one lithium battery and is covered by a one-year limited warranty. --Cristina VaamondePrice: $29.99
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This VHS gives easy step by step instructions for healthy recipes for your dog.Price:
Good Eats with Alton Brown is the most fun you can have watching TV while still learning something. It's cooking meets chemistry meets science class meets recess. Mix in his quirky personality and random jabs at pop culture, and you have great TV. Or, as Alton would say, Good Eats.Disc 1: Season Two starts off with five great episodes: "It's A Wonderful Cake," "For Whom the Cheese Melts," "Apple Family Values," "Crust Never Sleeps" and "Down & Out In Paradise" mix science and sustenance to create a generous helping of Good Eats. Plus, bonus videos from Alton!
Disc 2: The second season of Good Eats comes to its conclusion with ten great episodes: "Citizen Cane," "Urban Preservation I: Jam Session," "Crustacean Nation," "True Brew," "Ear Apparent," "Fry Hard," "Daily Grind," "Seeing Red," "The Fungal Gourmet" and "A Rib for All Seasons."
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This deluxe recipe binder is sized to conveniently organize and store recipe cards, clippings, and print-outs. The refillable three-ring binder has pocket pages which each hold 2 5"×7" recipe cards, full-sheet protector pages for newspaper or magazine clippings, and a tie-clasp storage envelope for small items. The red faux leather cover has a cut-out with a raised plate/fork/knife/spoon.Price: $32.00
Does your family love venison?They will if you cook it right!
Certified Chef "Dixie" Dave Minar takes you through simple cooking steps that create gourmet wildgame results! Amaze your friends and family while enjoying your fall harvest!
This video includes:
- 8 secret recipes from the Old Dixie Inn
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- Close-up video of cooking techniques!
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C.R. Gibson's line of recipe holders have always been the best, and the Blue Plate Special collection is no exception. Featuring a metallic blue faux-leather cover with a miniature plate and utensils in a die-cut window, this binder is adds a touch of 1950's charm to your kitchen. The Recipe Card Organizer comes with 12 tabbed dividers to help you group your recipes by category and 20 recipe card protectors (each holds 2 cards) to keep your recipes clean and ready to use. Forty 4 by 6 inch recipe cards are included, and extra cards and recipe protectors are also available. The organizer measures 9 1/4 by 8 1/4 by 1 3/4 inches overall.Price: $20.00
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Track listing:
1. Everything - Get Ready
2. Three 6 Mafia - Poppin' My Collar
3. The Romantics - What I Like About You
4. Johnny Cash - I Walk The Line
5. Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Want To Have Fun
6. Rosemary Clooney - Mambo Italiano
7. Run-DMC (with Aerosmith) - Walk This Way
8. Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes
9. Santana - Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen
10. The Hooters - And We Danced
11. Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
12. Gavin DeGraw - I Don't Want To Be
13. Daryl Hall & John Oates - Sara Smile
14. Elvis Crespo - Suavemente
15. The Five Stairsteps - O-o-h Child
16. Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy
17. Kelis - Milkshake
Price: $10.49
In Eating Well for Optimum Health, one of Amazon's bestselling health books of 2000, alternative-medicine maverick Andrew Weil revealed his version of the ideal diet (and backed it up with scientific proof): a variety of unprocessed, or "whole" foods; just-picked, organic vegetables; whole grains; "good" fats, such as the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and nuts; fresh herbs and spices instead of heavy sauces; and a minimum of meat and dairy products. Eating this responsibly is certainly an admirable pursuit, but home cooking of this caliber can be intimidating, requiring much more energy than it would to pull up to the drive-through and order a burger and fries. In The Healthy Kitchen, Weil successfully teams up with Rosie Daley, formerly chef at the ritzy Cal-a-Vie Spa, to show how to cook with confidence within these dietary guidelines, creating dishes that are not only good for you, but are also fun to prepare, beautiful to look at, and delectable.For those of you predicting a tofu-fest, have no fear: Weil stresses he's "unwilling to eat food that is boring, artless, and devoid of pleasure even if it's somebody else's idea of healthful." Indeed, the gorgeous color photography in The Healthy Kitchen will get you drooling over healthy entrées like Warm Chicken and Asparagus Salad and desserts like Lemon Yogurt Sorbet. You can be proud to serve these recipes to your family and friends--many of the appetizers and entrées are perfect party foods, sized to feed a dozen. Some recipes are notably more complicated than others--Cold Vegetable Pasta Primavera involves grilling five different veggies; baked Vegetable Wontons are time-consuming if you're not familiar with the folding process. However, Daley and Weil advise working your way up to these more complex dishes.
Sprinkled throughout the book are witty and wise health tips from Weil and cooking shortcuts from Daley. The two admit they don't agree on all cooking matters; Weil would substitute cashew milk for coconut milk and adds his two cents on making the Thai Shrimp and Papaya Salad spicier, for example. The Healthy Kitchen seems to be influenced a bit by Martha Stewart's Healthy Quick Cook, with Weil's text shaded in that unmistakably Martha sage-green, and Daley's in what Stewart might call bisque. Both books emphasize seasonal fresh foods and boast sumptuous photography and tempting menu suggestions. However, Weil and Daley outdo her with calorie and nutritional breakdowns for each dish, shopping guides for easy meal planning, and tips on encouraging children to help out in the kitchen (and develop lifelong healthy eating habits in the process). --Erica Jorgensen
Price: $24.95
Contains two 3-disc sets:Price:
Get Ready: The Next Food Network Star includes 17 songs plus exclusive recipes from Food Network kitchens.Track listing:
1. Everything - Get Ready
2. Three 6 Mafia - Poppin' My Collar
3. The Romantics - What I Like About You
4. Johnny Cash - I Walk The Line
5. Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Want To Have Fun
6. Rosemary Clooney - Mambo Italiano
7. Run-DMC (with Aerosmith) - Walk This Way
8. Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes
9. Santana - Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen
10. The Hooters - And We Danced
11. Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
12. Gavin DeGraw - I Don't Want To Be
13. Daryl Hall & John Oates - Sara Smile
14. Elvis Crespo - Suavemente
15. The Five Stairsteps - O-o-h Child
16. Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy
17. Kelis - Milkshake
Price: $19.95
Contains two 3-disc sets:Price:
This set of 12 rubber duckys are just adorable. You'll receive a combination of the four designs shown for a total of 12 ducks. Each ducky measures approx. 2" x 2" x 2-1/2"H. They do not squeak but do have a hole in their beak for squirting water. They do not float upright. These make great little party favors or gifts for your favorite cook. *Please note that sometimes these bulk packaged ducks will have slight paint rubs or scratches.*Price:
Perfect sweetner option for Vegans & Vegetarians.
Agave Nectar is the perfect sweetener choice for vegans, vegetarians and raw / living food diets. It can be used in place of honey, corn syrup & maple syrup. It can be substituted for sugar in most recipes. Agave is sweeter than sugar, so generally 2/3 cups of agave replace 1 cup of sugar. Experiment to taste. It is certified organic, 100% pure and contains no animal products of any kind.
Made from the Agave Salmiana (not the Blue Agave) that grows in the high desert regions of central Mexico. Agave nectar has a low glycemic index of 32. Compare to 58 for honey and 64 for table sugar. Agave has the same calories as honey, but as most folks find it to be sweeter less is needed. In such a case, less calories are consumed.
Price: $39.95
The Ozeri Ultra Thin Digital Kitchen Scale is designed for the culinary perfectionist who desires superior accuracy in function and sleekness in form. Updated with the latest generation in sensor technology, it provides precise results in graduations of 1g or 0.1oz. The Ozeri Ultra Thin Digital Kitchen Scale is also less than half an inch in thickness. It is one of the lightest kitchen scales on the market and offers easy portability. It also boasts an elegant stainless steel surface. The Ozeri Ultra Thin Digital Kitchen Scale comes equipped with 2 Lithium removable batteries for long life. It also features oversized buttons that generate an audible click confirmation for the fast-paced cook, and an automatic Tare button that quickly calculates the net weight of your ingredients by subtracting the container weight, whether the container is a bowl, tray, plate or anything else. The Ozeri Ultra Thin Digital Kitchen Scale has a capacity range from a mere 0.1 ounces to 11 lbs. The scale also displays results in both the US and international metric systems (grams | ounces | pounds | kilograms). The large screen features a new bright LCD with an improved viewing angle for the on-the-move chef. The Ozeri Ultra Thin Digital Kitchen Scale also includes a 1 minute automatic turn-off that preserves battery life while giving you time to confirm each measurement (batteries included).
Get Ready: The Next Food Network Star
includes 17 songs plus exclusive recipes from Food Network kitchens.
The Ozeri Ultra Thin Digital Kitchen Scale is designed for the culinary perfectionist who desires superior accuracy in function and sleekness in form. Updated with the latest generation in sensor technology, it provides precise results in graduations of 1g or 0.1oz. The Ozeri Ultra Thin Digital Kitchen Scale is also less than half an inch in thickness. It is one of the lightest kitchen scales on the market and offers easy portability. It also boasts an elegant stainless steel surface. The Ozeri Ultra Thin Digital Kitchen Scale comes equipped with 2 Lithium removable batteries for long life. It also features oversized buttons that generate an audible click confirmation for the fast-paced cook, and an automatic Tare button that quickly calculates the net weight of your ingredients by subtracting the container weight, whether the container is a bowl, tray, plate or anything else. The Ozeri Ultra Thin Digital Kitchen Scale has a capacity range from a mere 0.1 ounces to 11 lbs. The scale also displays results in both the US and international metric systems (grams | ounces | pounds | kilograms). The large screen features a new bright LCD with an improved viewing angle for the on-the-move chef. The Ozeri Ultra Thin Digital Kitchen Scale also includes a 1 minute automatic turn-off that preserves battery life while giving you time to confirm each measurement (batteries included).Price: $59.99
BRAND NEW SIGN!! 12" tall and 8" wide sign. Our novelty signs are made from outdoor durable plastic with professional grade vinyl graphics. These signs will never rust or fade, perfect inside or out (4-5 years outdoors)! The sign has round corners and a hole pre-drilled for easy mounting. This item is in stock and ready to ship, generally the following business day. Please check out all our other signs, they make the perfect gift for any occasion.
Here are our two favorite quick and easy dinner recipes -
Spicy Chicken and Potatoes
-Grab a pre-cooked chicken from your local grocery store deli and a bag of home fries from the frozen foods section. Add a bag of pre-washed salad, one medium sized yellow onion and a jar of pepperoncinis to your shopping cart.
-Toss the potatoes in a frying pan with a little bit of pepperoncini juice and let them start browning. De-bone the chicken and add it to the potatoes. Dice up the onion and add. Cook on medium for about 10 minutes and serve right from the pan.
-Take the bag of salad, cut off a corner and add in salad dressing. Shake up the bag and you have an instant tossed salad.
Worcestershire Sourdough Burgers
-Grab a package of ground beef, pre-sliced cheddar cheese, loaf of sourdough bread and a yellow onion. Add to your list a bag of frozen french fries and a bottle of worcestershire sauce.
-Fry up a couple of hamburger patties adding worcestershire sauce after you flip the burger the first time. Put the frozen fries in a frying pan with a little vegetable oil. While the patties are cooking, pop the sourdough bread in the toaster.
-Place a slice of cheddar cheese on the patties, butter up your sourdough toast and add fries to your plate. Garnish your burger with ketchup, mustard and/or mayonnaise. Quick and easy!
Prepare In AdvanceThe most important piece of advice for quick and easy dinner recipes is to prepare ahead of time. Plan your meals at least a week in advance so that you are not scrambling at the last minute. This eliminates unnecessary trips to the grocery store. Stock up on necessities such as dried goods, spices, and canned and frozen foods. If you shop for these things in bulk, you will save yourself not only time, but money as well. When you get your groceries, chop your vegetables and place them in zip-lock bags. Not only does this drastically cut down on preparation time, but it helps the food stay fresh longer as well.
Make Leftovers The First TimeSecond, cook extra food whenever possible. If you are browning meat, make a double batch and freeze what you don't use. When you make a casserole, fix two instead of one. This doesn't take much more time than simply preparing one meal, but it saves a ton of time when it comes to preparing quick and easy dinner recipes. The second casserole can be frozen, and on a particularly hectic day all that is required is to heat it up. However, cooking extra doesn't always mean that you have to eat the same thing twice. A roast can be served with potatoes and gravy one night, and as a roast beef sandwich another.
Buy Prepared Food - It's OK!Finally, buy foods that are already prepared. This doesn't mean that you have to eat out of a box, either. Frozen vegetables are just as healthy as fresh, but they are already cut up and cook in minutes. In addition, the time saved by buying pre-grated cheese more than makes up for the small increase in cost. If you get in the habit of doing these three simple things, you can have meals on the table in under twenty minutes almost every night. As a result, you will not only be able to relax more, but you can feel good about preparing your family meals that are healthy.
Preparing meals doesn't have to be a drag, nor does it have to be very time-consuming. With a few resources and a little foresight, you can become a pro at quick and easy dinner recipes.
Tired of coming up with dinner plans? For daily recipes, visit us at http://QuickAndEasyDinnerRecipes.com
What follows is a sermon that I delivered at Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Md. at its 2010 evening Yom Kippur service (Kol Nidre). I am Adat Shalom's founding rabbi.
You may think it odd, maybe even cruel, to give a sermon about food on Yom Kippur -- kind of like talking about ice cream at a Weight Watcher's convention. But the more I thought about it, the more the idea grew on me.
For many of my generation, "food fight" conjures up the memory of the scene from Animal House when John Belushi calls out, "Food fight!" and all hell breaks loose. But I hope this sermon results in something a bit more noble than recollections of Animal House or the craziest memory you have of summer camp.
Changing associations of well known terms is not easy, but it's possible. Remember when Madonna was the mother of Jesus? Now she is an aging pop singer who dabbles in Kabbalah. And I doubt if anyone in this room would even consider calling an upcoming gathering at your home a "tea party."
I hope to give you a new association with the term "food fight" because in this sermon I want to explore how we bridge the gap between our appetites and what we know to be good for ourselves and our world.
Food and the Planet
What first seemed like a quirky offshoot of the environmental movement has become a full-fledged social movement of its own. It is worth taking stock of what this movement is about and what it might mean for us.
There is a shelf-full of recent books that have raised the consciousness of Americans about food. Books like Michael Pollan's The Omnivores Dilemma and Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, each in its own way, offer some simple wisdom that is convincing. Eating less meat, more plants, fruits and vegetables and focusing on locally grown crops is good for your health and good for the planet.
The data is pretty compelling, and while it leads more and more people to become vegetarians or vegans, there is much you can do short of that. Consider the following:
Now just knowing that something is good for you is not always enough to get you to do it. Think about how many pledges to do more exercise get broken every year! Yet I do think that all of the buzz around the food movement has made an impact on us.
How many of you have changed your food-buying and eating habits over the past year so as to eat healthier and/or to walk more lightly on the earth?
In early May I was at a conference center run by a church in Connecticut for the annual board meeting of Rabbis for Human Rights. We davenned shacharit in the garden and every corner of the garden was bursting with the color of exotic flowers and the sights and sounds of birds flying above us. The night before I had watched a news report on the oil well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and how the oil spill was already starting to endanger the wildlife of the region.
During the briefest of reveries during the silent amidah, I imagined that I was standing on the last green spot on Earth, all other corners of the globe having been devastated by humanity's shortsighted desire to "pave over paradise and put up a parking lot." I thought of the Biblical verse in Genesis that tells us what our relationship to the earth needs to be: l'ovdah u'lshomrah, "to work the land in such a way as to guard and protect it." And I was horrified to consider how we have all become part of a global marketplace that supports the raping of the earth.
Our Addiction to Consumption
If we could amend the 10 Commandments like we can the U.S. Constitution, the eleventh commandment that I would propose would be, "Consume Less." And if I had a chance to give a speech on the floor of the International Jewish Assembly that was voting on the amendment to the 10 Commandments, I would invoke Yom Kippur in my speech.
The festival we usher in tonight forbids almost all forms of consumption -- food, water, electricity and fossil fuels. It is essentially an exercise to convince us that we can get closer to God, closer to more sacred and ethical living, if we spent less time consuming. When we do that, we should become aware of two things.
First: As we tread more lightly on the planet by consuming less, we get closer to the experience of the rest of the world's population. Our calls for greater justice for the impoverished people of the world ring hollow when we are part of an American society that is only 5 percent of the world's population but which consumes more than 20 percent of the world's food, water and energy.
Second: We learn that the key to following a more sacred and ethical life is the discipline that comes from accepting limits to indulging our voracious appetites for whatever we want, whenever we want it. World events like the Gulf oil spill, global warming and weather-related disasters -- all the result of human activity -- are teaching us that both human beings and the planet pay a steep price for a life without limits.
It is time for us to assign a moral value to the consequences of our over-consumption of everything, both as individuals and as a society. The best morality play for this lesson comes in the book of Numbers chapter 11. The Israelites are, at this point in the Biblical narrative, wandering in the desert and romanticizing their recollections of Egypt as a place where food, particularly meat, was abundant. In the desert God was providing a vegetarian option -- Manna -- on a daily basis, and a double portion on Friday so that no collection had to be done on Shabbat. But the Manna had become stale (pun intended) and the people called for a return to Egypt just so they could eat meat. Consumption had become more important than freedom.
Moses looks to God for some relief from the ongoing complaining of the people, and God complies by sending a flock of quail that conveniently drop out of the sky in the vicinity of the Israelite encampment. The quail is both a response to an outcry and a test. And the Israelites fail the test. They consume so much quail so quickly that a plague overtakes the tribe and thousands die, many with the meat of quail still in their mouths. Our ancestors ate themselves to death. The Torah calls the place of this incident, Kibroth Taavah, the graves of consumption! It may foreshadow our own future. The graves of consumption, indeed!
If Kibroth Taavah is the time and place that the children of Israel faced their consumption test, Yom Kippur is ours. This is our "food fight." Are we slaves to our appetites, or are we capable of being motivated by a higher consciousness that limits what we consume, how much we consume, and how we produce that which nourishes our bodies? And if we can pass the test on Yom Kippur, does that not tell us that we can apply that discipline in the days, weeks and months that follow this festival?
We Are What We Eat, and How
There are exciting things happening in the Jewish world around food that suggests a refreshing level of seriousness about living our ethics. I spent a day this summer at the new Jewish Farm School housed at the Pearlstone Retreat Center outside of Baltimore. Participants for the summer were mostly Jews in their 20s who took seriously all the lessons I am speaking about this evening: environmentalism, growing one's own food, making eating into a sacred activity and more. There are similar Jewish experiments taking place all around the country. Very exciting!
More examples: More than two decades ago the Reconstructionist movement began talking about Eco-Kashrut, suggesting that what made food kosher was not just about eating permissible foods prepared in the right way but taking into consideration the environmental impact of the food as well. The Conservative movement of Judaism recently approved a new form of oversight for food establishments called Magen Tzedek, a "justice seal" which will certify food companies only if they are meeting appropriate standards for wages and benefits for their employees and are abiding by stringent standards for ecological sustainability in their business practices. An Orthodox group has begun yet another campaign in several U.S. cities called Tav haYosher, an "ethical seal" which will signal to Jews that restaurants are paying their employees fairly.
The message is coming through loud and clear. To live an ethical life will require a new level of consciousness about our consumption habits.
Sacred Meals
There is yet one other lesson that Judaism can teach us about food. It is the concept of the sacred meal. Many of you have read about the Slow Food Movement that started in Italy. It was a response to the phenomenon of fast food, which is symbolic of everything wrong with our Western approach to food. But Judaism anticipated the Slow Food Movement by centuries (and not just because of the bad service in kosher restaurants.)
Judaism views the dinner table as a mikdash meaat, a miniature Temple. According to Jewish custom, when we sit down to a meal, we engage in a ritual washing of the hands; we say a blessing over the bread, thanking the source of life who brings forth bounty from the earth. We use food as a way to connect with people we love around the table. We say grace after the meal.
Studies have been done about the correlation between families that have a tradition of a family dinner at least four nights a week and well-developed children. Barbara Kingsolver calls the family meal "nurseries of democracy" where children learn the art of conversation, sharing and listening -- the habits of civility. And yet, how many of our households lack the routine of the family meal? How many of us are part of the statistic that 40 percent of Americans watch TV during their meals, suffocating any natural family communication. That is not even counting the number of people who come to the dinner table connected to their iPods or Blackberrys.
Action Plan
I'll let you in on a trade secret. Rabbis love it when congregants tell them that they liked their sermon. But at least this rabbi is happier when a congregant tells me that as a result of a sermon, they made a change in their behavior.
So here is a concrete, three-point action plan for every one of you:
Change your food-buying habits so as to give preference to locally grown produce, and cut back on the eating of animals in favor of that which grows from the earth.Try to institute a regular sacred meal at least once a week. Try to make it coincide with Shabbat if at all possible. And if you already have a tradition of a regular sacred meal, see if you can't do it twice as often.Cut back on your consumption -- food, driving, clothes, consumer goods. Not because you can't afford it but because it does not improve your life and it harms the planet. Our ancestors left a corner of their fields for the poor. The act symbolized the Jewish view that you don't have to consume everything that is available to you. Sharing with the poor acknowledges that wealth is determined not by what we take for ourselves but by what we give over to those who have less. I also have come to believe that simplifying our lives by cutting back on consumption is the meaning of the famous verse by the prophet Micah: "What does the Lord require of you? Only to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God."Food is thus a metaphor for a much larger understanding of our consumption behavior. I hope that, as a result of this sermon, the phrase "food fight" will no longer conjure up thoughts of John Belushi but rather will result in a pledge that each of you takes to live a more simple, humble and modest life. It may well be that the unintended gift of the current economic recession is the realization that we can get by with less and actually have a more fulfilling life.
The Tree of Life
A final metaphor.
The movie Avatar offers a vivid depiction of the very issue I've raised this evening. It portrays a human race that is over-techified, totally lacking in compassion and committed to wiping out a native population of a distant planet so as to access the mineral wealth that exists there. The human race -- representing us -- are obsessed with consuming more. The aliens in the movie are the good guys. They are called the Na'vi, the Hebrew word for prophet. The Na'vi see themselves as sacredly connected to each other and to their planet, Pandora. The planet gives them sustenance. At the very center of Pandora is a sacred tree that represents Divine energy. It is the life force of every creature on the planet. The image, of course, is the Garden of Eden, and the tree is what the Torah calls the etz chaim, the tree of life.
My friends, on this holiest day of the Jewish year when we pray to be inscribed in the Book of Life, we very much need to get back in touch with the etz chaim in our life and in our world. The etz chaim is not only a metaphor for an idyllic Garden of Eden but it is a symbol of a way of life that we are called upon to follow -- a transcendent source of energy that connects us to the earth and, through the earth, to each other.
In our liturgy we sing: etz chaim hi l'machazikim bah, v'tomcheha mushar, "it is a tree of life to those who hold it tight; all who live by it, will be enriched." We have more than enough knowledge to tell us what kind of behavior we need to engage in to sustain the etz chaim in our life and in our world. All that stands between us and that way of living is our appetites. To conquer those appetites, it is worth engaging in our own personal "food fight".
As we pray this season to be inscribed into the Book of Life, we would do well to remember the Native American teaching, "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children." In the coming year may we each of be able to re-shape our living patterns so that we ourselves become trees of life; and may we be privileged to pass on that legacy to our children and to our children's children.
