Tu B’Shevat is many things: Ancient tax festival, kabbalistic celebration of nature, communal birthday of all trees, and contemporarily: a sort of Jewish Earth Day, a call for conversations about sustainability and our duty to protect the natural world.

Borrowing a little bit from each tradition (except maybe the taxes part), I am celebrating the birthday of the several hundred worms that currently live in my pantry.

Yes, they’re there on purpose.

Since Sukkot, I’ve been composting right in the pantry of my kitchen. The plastic shelves take up fewer than ten cubic feet in space, but contain a tiny ecosystem of worms, the occasional invasive fruit fly, and an ever-growing pile of fresh compost.

I honestly don’t know why I decided to do this. I’ve gradually shifted to being more “green” over the years, but I’m far from a fanatic. Maybe it was my desire for pets— I’ve never had one of my own. Maybe I was tired of dropping off my food scraps a few blocks away during very limited hours; my neighborhood doesn’t have compost pickup, like some others in Brooklyn. Mostly, I just thought it seemed neat. I did the research, and the maintenance costs are minimal, as is the time-commitment.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by my friends’ range of disinterest to disgust, but I was.

“I’m getting compost worms!” I excitedly told one chum who’s so eco-conscious that she was once an Adamah Fellow— and that’s a Jewish farming/social justice program.

“Oh,” she replied. “Wow. That’s rather hardcore.”

Uh oh. Had I bit off more than I could chew? Well, with many more mouths to feed now, I had lots of help chewing. With my husband’s full support (so long as I took primary responsibility), I went full-steam ahead, and received in the mail, about 500 “red wrigglers.”

The system is pretty simple: The worms live in a stack of special plastic bins with a bit of dirt and old newspaper (and that’s one thing less to recycle). When my husband or I produce raw waste— from egg shells to banana peels (things like meat are a no-no), we chop the food into smaller pieces and bury the food about an inch down in the mixture of the box, and go about our day. Over time, the old food disappears, and the worm castings (yep— poop, but it’s essentially rich soil) builds up in the stacked shelves/boxes.

Judaism has the concept of “bal tashchit,” of not being wasteful, going back to Biblical laws about not cutting down fruit trees during a war. Today, the phrase is more often used in conjunction with concepts like reducing, reusing, recycling. And food waste is a particularly frustrating need to address— nearly half of American food gets thrown out, when there are still people with not enough to eat. Furthermore, improperly discarded food can contribute to greenhouse gases, an extra kick in the pants for the issue. Much of the problem has to do with the relationship between commerce or industry and food, but individual households are also responsible for doing their part.

As for composting at home as opposed to outsourcing the job, cities like New York may have eyes bigger than their zero-waste stomachs; from finding spots for the raw food, to needing trucks to transport the goods, the logistics of how to reduce food waste create more challenges that doing-it-yourself can alleviate.

Well, fulfilling my responsibility is all well and good, but composting has also been amazing fun. It helps that I’m not squeamish about looking at, or even touching worms (though I rarely need to), but I love opening the bin and seeing the wrigglers living up to their name. I love seeing how quickly the food I leave disappears, and the rich, dark castings take their place. Sometimes the seeds that end up in the box manage to sprout, despite the lack of sunlight, and get to be several inches tall before they too are worm food, which is a cute reminder of mortality to have right under the spice shelf.

Plus, I can leave the worms alone for days, even weeks, and they’ll be fine. Name a pet that’s as low-maintenance.

I think also of the book of Jonah, when the single, God-sent worm eats the tree shielding the prophet overnight. Jonah decries the loss of the tree in a lesson about valuing all life, but I’ve come to see the worm as an industrious little hero. Maybe the Bible just doesn’t mention a soft pile of worm castings where the tree once stood, but if Jonah stopped to think, he could use the fresh soil to grow a new tree. (For what it’s worth, my worms aren’t interested in eating still-growing plants, and would not have treated Jonah that way. Good worms!)

But the most amazing result of this wormy journey has been subtle— a growing awareness of how much food scraps my household produces, and how, in ideal circumstances, they decompose and become part of the earth. It’s made me reconsider my meals in and out of my home, and where they came from, and where they’re going next.

I’m still not an eco-fanatic, but maybe I’m on my way.

Tu B’Shevat is also a strange holiday due to its timing; it’s hard to think about things growing when many Diasporic communities are still mired in mid-winter. But I’m committing to harvesting the worm castings and, when it’s warmer, filling a window box in my kitchen, just a few feet from where the worms do their work. I’ve never had a plant I didn’t kill, but I’ve been sustaining life for months now. I think I’m ready to try again. The rest I’ll drop off at a community garden, or offer to friends.

In the Torah, God commands humankind to take dominion of the earth, to rule over the other species that live there. Today, that passage is also seen as a call for responsibility of the world in our care. Well, I’ve captured the circle of life in a box, a tiny utopia for lots of little living things. I see to their needs, and in their tiny way, they’re seeing to mine.

Photo of worm via Flickr. Photo of worm hut by Gabriela Geselowitz.

The post This Tu B’Shevat: Celebrating the Worms in My Kitchen appeared first on Jewcy.

As you may know, tonight and tomorrow are Tu BiShvat— the Jewish holiday celebrated as a universal birthday for the trees— often compared to Arbor Day.

If you’re sick of reading The Giving Tree for the millionth time this year, and you’ve already eaten enough dried fruit to give you a fiber overdose, here are a few things you can do to get just a little more radical this year:

1. Contact politicians. Yes, we know, you’ve already had to do it 5 times this week for some reason or another, but on the other hand, what’s one more?
   There aren’t any bills in particular right now that need attention, but you can still call your Congressional Representative. Tell them that climate change is an important issue to you, and that they should prioritize it going forward, especially if there’s legislation that puts the environment at risk. Also, there’s no time like the present to mention the Dakota Pipeline.
2. Donate to an eco-cause. Once again, you may have been giving a lot of tzedakah lately— maybe to the ACLU or Planned Parenthood. But if you have any left to spare, why not try an organization that fights for a sustainable future? If you want to go the Jewish route, try Hazon— they do amazing work with food sustainability.
3. Guerrilla gardening. As in, secretly plant something in land that’s being underused— like a vacant lot, or a broken up piece of street. You can wear all black and feel like a vigilante. And of course there are online resources to help you get started.
4. Change your eco-behavior. Sure, every Tu B’Shvat comes with a message of “recycling is important!,” and while that is true, step up in one way this year. Go vegetarian for one day a week, or see if you can go a month only eating locally. We here at Jewcy give you permission to be as sanctimonious about it as you like. You’re welcome.
5. Give up toilet paper. Sure, this fits into the previous action, but we feel that it deserves its own mention. This is really a thing. Alternatives include bidets and washable cloths. We’d be lying if we said anyone at Jewcy was going to do it. But please contact us if you give it a try.

So happy Tu BiShvat! May you enjoy a new type of fruit that isn’t starfruit or dragonfruit, because for some reason those are the only two new fruits anyone ever seems to use?

Tweet at us with what you’ve done this holiday that’s radical (so long as it isn’t eco-terrorism, please).

Viva la eco-revolution.

Image by Sarah Santos, via Flickr.

The post Get Political for Tu BiShvat appeared first on Jewcy.

Kadesh. U’rchatz. Karpas. Scratch that. Wrong seder. While the Passover seder is my favorite ritualized meal, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Tu B’Shevat seder. Tu B’Shevat, which is coming up this Friday, not only provides a space to celebrate our inner Jewish tree-hugger, but it also has good food and no matzah. Unlike Passover’s seder, this one does not have a set rabbinic text, so over the centuries, people have come up with a number of innovative ways to commemorate the holiday. From eating significant fruits to reading passages about Jewish environmentalism to trying out Jewish meditation, there is a wide range of ways to celebrate the birthday of the trees. Personally, I’m all for everyone standing on their chairs and yelling, “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees!”

The 15th day of the month Shevat, or Tu B’Shevat, was initially a place marker used to remind farmers to bring crops from their fruit trees to the Temple. It shows up in the mishnah in tractate Rosh Hashannah during a discussion of the four Jewish new year celebrations—did you know that there were four? Me neither. There is a new year for kings and a new year for animal tithes in addition to the one that comes 10 days before Yom Kippur and Tu B’Shevat, which was considered the new year for planting and tithing.

After the Temple’s destruction, the holiday was revived by Kabbalists in Tzfat, who tapped into the mystical essence of nature using fruit to symbolize our relationship with God. They created a structure for the Tu B’Shevat seder, including four glasses of wine and 10 different fruits, believing proper observance would bring the world closer to tikkun. Stemming from their use of fruit, it became customary in some parts of Europe to eat 15 different fruits on Tu B’Shevat, and other communities celebrated the day by eating a fruit for the first time in the last year. The Talmud also uses Tu B’Shevat as the literal birthday of the trees, counting a tree’s lifespan by the number of Tu B’Shevat’s it has witnessed.

A long-standing tradition of Tu B’Shevat entails eating Israel’s seven species, which include wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives (often consumed in the form of oil), and dates. I have clear memories of Tu B’Shevat when I was a student in Jewish day school. The whole school would file into the “festively” decorated cafeteria toward the end of the school day. There would inevitably be a dramatization of Honi and the carob tree, an interpretive scarf dance about the life of a tree, and an eagerly shrieked rendition of Eretz Zavat Chalav U’Devash.

After some supplemental readings on the land of milk and honey and a poem about the New Year of the Trees, we would (finally) turn to the partitioned Styrofoam plates before us and, after reciting a plethora of blessings, gingerly taste the figs and dry crackers, wishing we were actually eating the honey we’d spent the last hour talking about.

For this year’s Tu B’Shevat celebration, I wanted to use all of the species, but I actually wanted it to feel a little more grown up and make the food taste good, so instead of nibbling at each ingredient on its own, I’ve put together three recipes that combine them in a way that showcases the wonderful flavors in each and form a cohesive meal. Start the meal with a hearty winter salad and warm hunks of grape focaccia dipped in rich Israeli olive oil. Not totally sold on putting grapes on your focaccia? Fulfill your grape requirement with a nice glass of Israeli wine.

Then enjoy flavorful, juicy roasted chicken with figs and olives. If you want to keep your meal vegetarian, use the focaccia as a vehicle for homemade hummus and fig and olive tapenade. The barley and date recipe below is inspired by Turkish cuisine and uses pomegranate molasses to bring a tangy flavor to this grain salad that can be served warm or room temperature. If you’re not feeling the pomegranate molasses, throw some pomegranate seeds in with the dates instead. Be aware that non-pearled barley takes a very long time to cook. You can, of course, substitute another whole grain for the barley, but then you would be down one of the seven species! Incidentally, barley is the grain of the month for February, so you would be getting a jump-start on that celebration if you go with this recipe.

Don’t forget to add a new fruit to your meal—ideally something grown in Israel that you haven’t eaten in the last year—so you can say the shehechyanu.

Not Your Bubbe’s Grape Focaccia

Ingredients:

1 ⅔ cups lukewarm water
1 (¼ ounce) package active dry yeast
5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional for kneading
¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon coarse sea salt
1 ½ cups halved grapes, seeded
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, roughly chopped
1 ½ tablespoons coarse sugar
2 teaspoons coarse sea salt

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, gently combine the water and yeast until the water becomes murky and let it stand for 5-10 minutes. Add 5 cups flour, ¼ cup olive oil, and 1 tablespoon salt and mix vigorously with a wooden spoon until the ingredients form a dough.

2. Lightly flour the counter and turn out the dough to begin kneading by hand, until the dough is soft and smooth, but still sticky. Add flour as you go to prevent the dough from sticking to the counter, but remember that it should be a sticky dough. This should not take more than ten minutes.

3. Clean out your large bowl with warm water, dry, and lightly oil it. Transfer the dough to the bowl, and let it rise, covered with plastic wrap, at warm room temperature, until dough has doubled, about 1 to 1 ½ hours.

4. Generously oil a large (13″x17″) rimmed baking sheet or lightly oil a baking sheet lined with a silpat mat. Turn dough onto the baking sheet, and use your fingers (you may want to dip them in olive oil first) to spread the dough evenly to fill the sheet, letting the dough rest periodically. The dough will be dimpled from your fingertips–this is the rustic look we’re going for! Once the dough fills most of the whole baking sheet, let it rise again, covered with kitchen towels, until it doubles, about 1 hour.

5. Preheat the oven to 450°. Brush the top of the dough with the remaining olive oil and sprinkle grapes, rosemary, coarse sugar and coarse sea salt evenly over the dough. Bake in the middle of the oven for 25-30 minutes, until the bread is golden and and the grapes are bubbling. Immediately slide the focaccia from the baking sheet onto a cooling rack. Cool slightly and serve warm or at room temperature.

Not Your Bubbe’s Roasted Chicken with Figs and Olives

Ingredients:

8 ounces dried mission figs, stems removed
1 cup green pimento-stuffed olives
½ cup balsamic vinegar
¼ cup olive oil
1 chicken, cut in eight
1 lemon, zested
Cracked black pepper, to taste

Special equipment:

Food processor

Directions:

1. In the food processor, combine figs and olives and pulse until thoroughly minced. Add ¼ cup of the balsamic vinegar and run the food processor for 15 more seconds.

2. Drizzle some of the olive oil (reserve the rest) into the bottom of a baking pan and arrange the chicken, skin side up. Spread the fig and olive mixture over the chicken, tucking some under the skin so that it is nestled against the meat. Pour remaining olive oil over the chicken and allow it to marinate, covered, in the refrigerator for at least one hour and up to four.

3. When you are ready to cook the chicken, heat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit.

4. Pour the remaining oil and lemon zest over the chicken. Add the cracked pepper. Roast chicken in the oven for about 40 minutes, or until the skin has browned and the meat has cooked through.

Not Your Bubbe’s Barley with Dates and Pomegranate Molasses

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup pearled barley, rinsed
2 cups water, salted
⅓ cups dates, chopped
⅓ cup scallions, thinly sliced
¼ cup parsley, chopped
¼ cup mint, chopped
2 teaspoons harissa, optional
½ cup pomegranate juice or 3 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
Juice of ½ lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil. Add the pearled barley and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until lightly toasted and fragrant, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the water and bring to a boil. Cover and cook over very low heat until the water is absorbed and the grains are tender, about 30 minutes. Fluff the grains with a fork.

2. To make the pomegranate molasses, pour ½ cup of pomegranate juice in a small pot and bring to a low boil over medium-high heat. Allow the juice to simmer until reduced by at least half and has become a thick syrup, about 6-8 minutes. Remove from the stove and allow the syrup to cool. The molasses can be refrigerated in a sealed container for up to one month.

3. When the barley has cooled, add the dates, scallions, parsley, mint, harissa (if using), pomegranate molasses, and lemon to the bowl and toss to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste and pomegranate molasses or lemon juice as needed.

Also try:

Not Your Bubbe’s Downton Abbey Viewing Party

Not Your Bubbe’s Almond Olive Oil Cake

Not Your Bubbe’s Indian Spiced Latkes With Apple Chutney

The post Not Your Bubbe’s Tu B’Shevat Seder appeared first on Jewcy.