Once a year our daughters challenge themselves with their very own Cook Off in which we are the judges. They usually come up with individual themes, but this year they thought they would share a theme. They asked me for ideas and without hesitation, I suggested: Brooklyn. After much contemplation and research and then several hours of preparation on the day of the Cook Off, they presented us with a full-course meal. I never imagined the clever concepts and creative plating and flavors this would generate. Interestingly, Joie thought of old-time Breukelen and the shores of the East River and Coney Island, while Sophie thought of more modern day artisanal Brooklyn.

As usual we ate well from appetizer to dessert – a “Junior’s Inspired Chocolate Cheesecake” with orange zest and raspberry sorbet  and “A Treat Grows in Brooklyn”- a seasonal cinnamon apple pear crumble inspired by the 1943 novel by Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, complete with a homemade puff pastry tree.

We ate, we judged, we enjoyed immensely. In the end, I think the judges were the real winners!

A discussion of food and climate change must address the need to significantly reduce our meat consumption. Fruits, vegetables, and grains require 95% percent less raw materials to produce. In a 2006 report, the United Nations said that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the world’s transportation combined. Agribusinesses and large factory farms (also known as CAFOs, Confined Animal Feeding Operations), in particular, are major culprits. To counter this, there is a growing movement of small farms that have found methods to avoid much of the harm caused by factory farms and feedlots. Grass-fed beef, for example, is estimated to produce 40% less greenhouse emissions and grass is easier for cattle to digest, resulting in less methane, the second most significant greenhouse gas. According to the Sierra Club’s National Sustainable Consumption Committee, factory-bred animals are fed a diet of concentrated corn and other grains. 80% or more of the grain grown in the US is fed to cows—it takes 10 to 16 pounds of grain to produce a pound of meat. The true cost of raising this grain is enormous, requiring massive amounts of land, water and fertilizer. In recent years, more and more consumers are choosing to reduce their meat intake for health and sustainability reasons. If every American had just one meat-free day a week, it would reduce carbon emissions equal to taking 8 million cars off the road.

Happy Meatless Monday!

For 18 years or so, I have been writing, speaking and teaching about the threat of climate change – the crisis formerly known as global warming. It’s a pretty easy cause and effect scenario to follow. We burn fossil fuels to produce energy, that puts more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, so much that it gets trapped and heats up the planet and the climate changes with negative effects. Yet it’s always been a hard sell because a) nobody wants to hear about doomsday scenarios b) to do anything about it, that is reduce our energy use, requires change, which is hard and c) it seems totally disconnected to our “developed” country  lives – it’s someone else’s problem. For many years it has been a problem for more vulnerable populations – the poor, indigenous populations and people living on small island nations. Well, guess what? My fellow New Yorkers and I live on an island too! And for anyone who rides the Lexington Avenue subway trains, you know that all it takes is a heavy rain to cause the East River to surge and flood the FDR, and cause delays on the 4, 5, and 6 trains. The idea of flooding in the subways began to get some serious public attention during the threat of Hurricane Irene this past summer.

During Irene the storm surge was 3.6.  According to Columbia University professor Klaus Jacob, one of the nation’s foremost experts on transit and climate change, “Had it been not 3.6 feet but 4.6, we would have been in deep trouble.” In other words, one foot of a difference.

According to the article “For Transit Agencies, Climate Change Can Cost Billions“ on NPR’s Transportation Nation, “What the city dodged was the ghost of climate change future — higher sea levels, intense storms, and elevated amounts of precipitation, all of which could combine to cause widespread flooding of the subway system.”

The transit infrastructure measures needed to protect us from catastrophic destruction, would cost New York’s MTA $15 billion. The MTA is currently $10 million short in funding its current capital campaign. The longterm fix would be to spend this money instead on investing in and producing more sustainable energy as a way to reduce the negative effects of climate change. But with no funds available, neither may be feasible. The money aside, Americans typically only act after disaster has struck. We’re on a fast track and stopping to take preventive actions would slow us down; many also believe that being forced to make changes to lower our carbon footprint would be infringing on our right to use an abundance of energy as we please. Let’s consider, though, that 5.2 million people ride the NYC subway a day. As stated in the article, a halted subway would almost halt the city’s economy, which, Jacob says produces $4 billion a day in economic activity. Our only hope may be that the almighty dollar will be enough of a wake-up call for us to begin taking action.

With this threat looming, I’ve thought that maybe I should once again look into swim lessons, but under these circumstances, even knowing how to keep our heads above water, won’t help much.

One of my best friends growing up was Alice Beck (Dubow), now a judge of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. I spent a great deal of time at her house. Her father, Dr. Aaron Beck, a psychiatrist acclaimed for being the creator of “cognitive therapy,” a type of psychotherapy, had his practice in the living room of their home. It was a beautiful room lined with built-in bookcases. I was a bibliophile, and so when he wasn’t seeing patients, I enjoyed perusing the titles in his collection. I remember going home and telling my mother that Alice’s father must be an expert on “The Depression” because he had so many books on the subject. It wasn’t until years later sitting in a psychology class that I realized just what kind of depression he had an expertise in!

If you’ll indulge me, here’s hoping this Depression doesn’t lead to a more serious depression!

This past Saturday was the 40th anniversary of the release of the film, The Last Picture Show, based on Larry McMurty’s 1966 novel of the same title. It’s an excellent film with a terrific cast.  To preserve the irreplaceable experience of celluoid cinema, distributors have re-released a digitally restored cut for theatres to screen around the country.  For me, whenever a reference is made to the film, the following personal anecdote comes to mind…

My mother had a very close friend named May – later Maya. They met as young mothers living in neighboring apartments then moved into neighboring houses. Simultaneously, each gave birth to three baby boomers. They shared many commonalities, and at the same time, their differences complemented each other. One thing they had in common was that they were always looking for interesting, cultural and fun things to do with their children.

In 1971, director Peter Bogdonavitch made the cinematic version of The Last Picture Show. From its charming title, my mother surmised that the film was about old time movie houses when movies were referred to as “moving pictures” and then just “pictures.” She thought the film would not only be charming, but possibly educational with a history lesson on the movie industry! So the two mothers, with us in tow – Aunt May’s 11 year-old son and 15 year-old daughter and my 15 year-old brother, and me (having recently turned 12), took off for one of our many outings. Because it had been a last minute decision, we arrived at the theatre moments before the start of the film and ended up sitting in the first few rows. I apologize for this spoiler, but about 15 minutes into the film, a female character took off her top and there she was bare breasted on the 512 x 384 screen. Not long after that, severely depressed Cloris Leachman was having sex with a teenage boy. The film continued for the next two hours with several characters engaging in “rites of passage.”

It obviously left a lasting impression on me and begged the question, why didn’t our mothers find the nearest exit and get us out of there? We left the film that day and never spoke about it again. So after all these years, I decided to ask my mother. She didn’t have as strong a memory of the incident as I had, and nonchalantly explained that she figured I didn’t understand what was going on anyway. All this time I thought it was because she was embarrassed that she had taken me to see it!

My husband shared a similar story. In 1974, while home on a college break, he went with his grandfather to see the movie Lenny, the life story of the very irreverent Lenny Bruce.  He was squirming in his seat with embarrassment as one expletive followed another, and thought maybe they should get up and leave. He hesitantly glanced over to see how his grandfather was reacting, only to find that he was sound asleep!  Relieved, he stayed till the end of the film, figuring that his grandfather didn’t understand what was going on anyway!

Today is national Food Day.  I like to think everyday is a day to support healthy, affordable food, produced in a sustainable way! This first national Food Day is being recognized with lots of fun, educational and delicious foodie events planned all around the country.

A few weeks ago, JCC Grows, the healthy food and hunger-relief – community gardens initiative that I manage was featured on the White House blog, the Let’s Move blog and the USDA blog. JCC Grows is part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move effort and the USDA’s People’s Garden initiative. Click here to read about the project on the White House blog.

…once Nana was out of the house, she could escape the unholy trinity of herself, her husband and her mother-in-law. For the sake of shalom bayit, peace in the home, she never told Pop-Pop how much it bothered her that her mother-in-law had him sit at the head of the table with her after his father passed away. Even after her mother-in-law died, she remained a presence in Nana’s life. She had stipulated in her will that Nana should continue to carry on her tradition of making gefilte fish to feed the male elders of the synagogue, who adhering to the mitzvah of celebrating in the sukkah, lived in the temporary dwelling that was erected for the seven days of the holiday of Sukkos. Making gefilte fish wasn’t the most pleasant job; Nana would quietly stew to herself as she methodically went through the many steps: grinding the carp, pollack, and whitefish with a hand grinder and then chopping it to a finer consistency in a wooden chopping bowl. But eventually she wasn’t angry about it anymore; everyone loved her gefilte fish…Nana could honestly say that hers was even better than her mother-in-law’s.

(excerpted from Nana Buys a Pants Suit, which can be found at the top of the home page of my blog)

This morning on the subway, a young guy was attempting to tie his tie while his girlfriend looked on. I overheard him say that he remembered his father first teaching him to tie a tie–a memory no doubt that a lot of young men share. But it’s actually a memory I share as well. In the late 1970s, caught up in the Annie Hall tie and vest fashion craze, I asked my dad if he had any old ties I could have. My father was well known for always being the most dapper guy in the room. He punctuated his suits with the many ties we had given him over the years for his birthday and Father’s Day. Without even asking why, he pulled out a Wanamaker’s gift box from the closet, filled to the brim with ties that no longer made his fashion cut. I had a field day! But of course what good is a tie if you don’t know how to tie it. So my dad, typically unphased by anything out of the ordinary, (if his children were asking for something, we must have our reasons), gave me, his only daughter, a lesson on how to tie a tie. As I watched the young man on the subway struggle with his neckware, I thought about how it’s usually the little moments in life that we remember and cherish–the ties that bond!

For me, one of the all-time gems of New York City is the show, The Fantasticks. After 42 years at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, it relocated to The Snapple Theater on Broadway in 2006, where they are happy to welcome students and groups of any age. In fact, a few months ago, we took a group of students participating in Urban Glee NYC, a project of our in-school arts education organization, Literacy Takes a Bow (LTAB), to see the show. It was thrilling for them, especially when they got to hang out with some of the actors during the Talk Back and ask questions about their acting process and the production. I have always had a special place in my heart for The Fantasticks. Here’s why…

As a college student attending NYU in the 1980s, I had an apartment over Rocco Restaurant on Thompson Street between Bleeker and Houston in Greenwich Village. In the height of the summer, the hot, stagnant air, pregnant with the pungent fragrance of roasted garlic from Rocco’s, filled my apartment. For a respite from the heat, I would sit on my windowsill, which opened out to the fire escape, to try and catch an occasional cool breeze. One night I made an incredible discovery. The back of the Sullivan Street Playhouse was directly parallel to my apartment. Seeking some relief from the sultry temperatures, they would often open the stage door resulting in the sweet sounds of the The Fantasticks flowing out the theatre door and in through my open window. As an aspiring writer and student in NYU’s School of the Arts, I was passionate about theatre. What greater gift could there have been, than to be serenaded night after night by the world’s longest running musical? It’s a memory I haven’t had to “Try to Remember,” because it has stayed with me all these years.