Announcing Noshin’: for Jews who love to eat

SaraTC Jewfolk is excited to announce our new columnist, Sara Rice, and her new weekly column “Noshin’.” Here is what Sara has to say:

For the better part of six millenia, there were no piles of cookbooks (certainly no online recipe databases), no Williams-Sonoma, or even Julia Child. The Sabbath meals looked identical week to week, and holiday meals from year to year. Heck, l’dor v’dor applies to more than our faith; it’s evident in the recipes that have been passed down from before the “old country” was old. Today, we expect more — more variety, more informed decisions (traditional kashrut? socially-conscious “kosher”? something entirely different? conscientious dissent?), more convenience — more.

In response, I offer you Noshin‘: TC Jewfolk’s kosher equivalent of Food Network. Each Thursday, I’ll share a recipe for Friday dinner, restaurant reviews and food finds, or other current foodie news, all with a Jewish spin.

Food resonates with me and is a significant way I find meaning in Judaism. Through exploring both new and traditional ways of celebrating our numerous holidays — and everyday life — I’m figuring out what matters to me, and how I want participate in being Jewish. I love to try new techniques and recipes, read about how different cultures reach the same end through completely different means (like the thousands of different charoset recipes), and generally use my kitchen as a playground.

Jewish and noshing-related credentials I can claim include serving as the chair for Noazim, Mount Zion Temple’s 20s/30s group, preparing Pesach seders (for 14!) like a pro, and teaching youth farmers how to cook what they grow (and more!) with the Lyndale Youth Farm and Market Project. I’m seriously into baking and nutrition (competing forces . . .), as well as anything local and/or socially-conscious.

When I’m not writing for TC Jewfolk, you can find me blogging for “Food if by Land, Food if by Sea,” where I write about my not-specifically-Jewish culinary endeavors; teaching cooking and baking to Mount Zion’s Chai School kids; or checking out new and delicious restaurant across the Twin Cities.

So whether you were raised baking kugel at your Bubbele’s side, or don’t know a kugel from a knish, I hope you’ll check back every Thursday to see what we’re cooking.

Bitai avon!Sara Rice