Reap and Sow

There are certain signs that indicate the end of summer. The days grow shorter with each sunset. The cooler night air lingers longer in the morning as the sun takes its time making its way up into the sky. Kids are everywhere as camp programs end and the mad rush to enjoy the last days of freedom coincides with back to school signs and sales. And while this is the first year of many that I will not be returning to class in September, I have new indicators of the impending fall now that I am working on a farm: the harvest of summer produce and planting of fall and winter crops.

In these first two weeks on the farm I have already been a part of this segue to the fall. During my first few days at St. Joe's I harvested the last of the cucumbers in the hoophouse before tearing out the bed and preparing it for greens. Each day we frantically pick the ripest tomatoes, which have only a few more weeks. Just yesterday we tore out the remaining basil - some of it already damaged by the early morning frost, and prepared the bed with a broadfork, claw and hefty amount of compost. Though I still spend my days out in the warm summer sun, our latest farm work provides a good reminder that fall is just around the corner.

This week we directly seeds carrots and transplanted scallions, chard and lettuce into the hoophouse. The harvest included different varieties of tomatoes (read my guest blog post about Sun Gold tomatoes here), peppers, eggplant, chard, kale, basil, beets and carrots. 

The physical demands of the farm are certainly new to me.  But the cycle of crops, the forecasting of what to harvest next, seems somehow intuitive, and I wonder how much of it is related to my Jewish roots. Although I was grew up in a city, I was raised in the Jewish tradition, whose calendar maintains a strong agricultural tie so that the year has always held a close relationship with the land and the major pilgrimage holidays throughout the year are all connected to the harvest cycle. As this synagogue's website nicely explains, Passover marks the barley harvest in early spring, Shavuot marks the wheat harvest in early summer and the final harvest of the season is celebrated on the holiday of Succot in the fall. With the month of Elul beginning this week, it is hard not to anticipate the Jewish New Year and Succot after that.

Each day I appreciate how lucky I am to spend my time on The Farm, around a bounty of beautiful produce and a healthy eco-system filled with life (also filled with mosquitoes!). I eat better, sleep better and am inspired by the work of so many professionals and volunteers I've met so far. And the work itself is hard. On a small farm where almost everything is done by hand, patience and determination are good skills to have. But there's something very satisfying about planting and harvesting in the same day, experiencing two ends of the farm cycle at once. Planting is the start of something new, an act of faith and anticipation while harvesting is the result, the yield and fosters a sense of gratitude. I am grateful to experience both.

A Long, Hot Summer Fast

While I usually write about eating, today I am writing about not eating. At sundown last night a little known Jewish holiday called Tisha B'Av, or the Ninth (day) of (the month of) Av, commenced, marking the beginning of a 25-hour fast. Whereas Jewish holidays generally adhere to the rule: "they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat", there are at least five days on the calendar where this is not the case. These days are designated as fast days - more of a "they tried to kill us, they succeeded, let's fast" approach, involving mourning and repentance. Like most Jewish practices, fasts are observed to varying degrees by members of the Jewish community. While it is a feature of many religions and belief systems, in traditional Judaism fasting requires - at the very least - complete abstinence from eating and drinking.

Tisha B'Av is a unique day, one that I approach with dread each year and not just because it lands smack dab in the middle of the summer, when days are long and hot. It is the most solemn day on the Jewish calendar. As far as fasts go, it is second in gravity only to Yom Kippur, the more widely recognized Day of Atonement, but the purpose, tone and mood of these two days are quite different from one another. Whereas Yom Kippur is a day to atone for personal and communal sins, to repent and start anew, to pray for the year ahead, Tisha B'Av commemorates major tragedies throughout Jewish history - the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem, the Spanish Inquisition, the pogroms, the Holocaust. This one day encapsulates every devastation that Jews have experienced over time due to anti-semitism and religious and political persecution. It bears the ominous message that despite protesting "Never Again," history has a nasty way of repeating itself. And rather than ignoring this fact, rather than quelling the fear and anxiety with food and drink, with the business-as-usual routines of everyday life, tradition demands that we forsake eating and instead feel those emotions, mourn the past, take stock of the present and develop steps toward changing the future. In the Orthodox circles I grew up in, this was not so much a charge toward self-assessment (that will characterize the High Holidays in a few short months) but a cry against complacency, getting too comfortable in the world. Spending a long hot day without food or even water is a struggle and physically mirrors the conceptual struggle I feel on Tisha B'Av. While searching for some articles that might lend more meaning to my fast, I came across this piece from a Jewish website that recast the theme of the day through an analogy to Howard Schultz and Starbucks. I miss Seattle.

Dairy: Good for the Jews?

As a nutrition student, I often consider the many issues surrounding dairy. There's the treatment of the cows. Bovine growth hormone. Homogenization. Pasteurization. Fortification. Raw milk, goat's milk vs. sheep's milk vs. cow's milk. But this week when I think dairy I think of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.

Most Jewish holidays involve lots of meat. Chicken soup. Brisket. Stuffed cabbage. But not this one. One of the lesser known ones, Shavuot celebrates the receiving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai and involves staying up all night and eating cheesecake, blintzes and all things milk-derived. In traditional Jewish dietary laws of kashrut meat and dairy are not consumed together so this holiday becomes unique in shunning meat altogether. It's something of a joke too, since Ashkenazic Jews are not known for tolerating lactose particularly well. In my house, for example, my mother used to place a bowl of Lactaid pills in the middle of our holiday table. For an interesting read about the complicated history of Jews and dairy, check out this article from Tablet.

Shavuot begins on Tuesday night and I will be celebrating, for the second year in a row, dairy-free. After two years of celebrating Passover gluten-free (ie. no matzah), I wonder if something of the tradition is being lost and if so how can I recoup it. So this week I am hosting dinner at my house, dairy and all and invite you to join in the celebration which will include a cheesemaking workshop. I will also have plenty of dairy-free options (thank goodness for Coconut Bliss!). And maybe I'll put out a bowl of Lactaid. After all, it's tradition.