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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

October 29, 2011

How to Stuff a Pumpkin [RECIPE]

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Every year I devote more garden space than I should to my Ahab-esque quest to capture one simple prize: Biggest Pumpkin at the Venice Farmers Market.

I avoid ornamental plants and flowers whenever possible. If you can’t eat it, what’s the point? But I seem to make an exception—a huge exception— for a giant pumpkin.  Why?  I started doing it when the kids were young, a fun way to get them invested in the garden beyond plain old vegetables. 

They were barely interested then—yeah, sure dad, you’re doing it ‘for the kids’—and now they are just not.

Here’s the thing: every year I come in Second Place.  If I lost, if I didn’t even show, that’s one thing.  But I can taste victory, and even though the 20 square feet of vine that swirls over my otherwise productive soil each summer would be better spent on tomatoes or kale or arugula, I find myself each July pumping that corner of the garden up with goat manure and compost, preparing a mound an a moat, and laying a few seeds inside.

This year I even bought a packet of Atlantic Giant seeds from a garden store in Half Moon Bay.  My sister lives near there, and I figured the home of the world’s biggest pumpkins would have the best seeds.  The seeds, I noticed, were produced in Kansas. Still.  I follow a book, too.  It’s called How to Grow a Giant Pumpkin.  It has photos of people placing their pumpkins on truck scales using a tractor.  My biggest pumpkin, so far, was 17 pounds.  Maybe this year.

For me, October always revolves around pumpkins, growing one, eating many.  We end up inviting lots of people over during the weeklong Sukkot holiday.  For almost every dinner I make a stuffed pumpkin.  It feeds a lot of people, it tastes good, and it comes to the table with a wow factor.  Serve people a stew of cubed orange squash, beans and kale and they’ll silently shrug, no matter how good it tastes.  Serve them beans and kale cooked inside a pumpkin, and you get a wow.  And you don’t even have to cube the pumpkin.

I stuffed my first pumpkin in 1985, when I worked at the first Il Fornaio in Union Square, San Francisco. A woman who baked alongside me was in charge of staff lunch one day.  She hollowed out a pumpkin, filled it with alternating layers of toasted sourdough bread, gruyere and caramelized onions, then poured white wine and heavy cream up to the rim.  It went into the bread oven, and when it came out, the flesh melting soft, the interior puffed and gratineed, I just kept thanking her for two things: lunch, and telling me where she got the recipe, from Richard Olney’s Simple French Food.  It is still my favorite cook book, my—okay, I’ll say it—Bible.

In fall, Jewish holidays hit the beach like Marines at Normandy,  they just keep coming.  The stuffed pumpkin is an almost impregnable defense.  Make ahead, fill it with dairy or with vegetables or with meat—cook it, reheat it, no matter what,  it works.  Just remember to use a pumpkin grown with eating in mind.  The giant and display pumpkins   tend to be stringy, bland and dry.  Sugar Pumpkin, Cinderella and some other strains are not just beautiful pumpkins, they are good squash. 

As for my non-edible giant pumpkin this year, the weigh in was at 9 am this morning.  I dropped my specimen off with Jim Murez, the market director, and went off to a meeting.  Three minutes ago, Jim e-mailed me:

“You are the First Place Winner @ 20.5 Lbs.  Two others had crop failures.  Congratulations!”

Yea!  Can there be two sweeter words in the English language besides “crop failures”?

[RECIPE] STUFFED PUMPKIN

Learn the techniques and adjust amounts depending on the size of the pumpkin and your taste.  This is a recipe for when want to make this dish start to finish in an hour.  Pumpkins are not exactly spun sugar.  It is going to be hard to mess this up.

1. Pick your pumpkin.  Choose a large eating pumpkin (Sugar, Cinderela, etc).  Too big is better than too small. The pumpkin should be free of blemish and heavy for its size.  Pick one with a nice stem, which serves as a handle and adds to the table drama.

2. Hollow out the pumpkin.  Carve a circle around the top quarter, just where its starts to get wide.  Lift off then cut and scrape away all the stringy fiber and seeds.  Use a stiff metal spoon and a knife. 

3. Season.  Rub the inside with olive oil and season with a good dose of salt and fresh pepper.  Throw in some garlic as well. 

4. Precook.  This helps speed things up and ensures your pumpkin will be soft.  Replace lid, place on a baking sheet or pan, and bake in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes, or until just barely tender—you want al dente, not soft.

5. Prepare stuffing. Saute onion with garlic and spices (ras el-hanout, Berber spice, cumin, etc).  Add chopped kale, diced potato and soaked or canned garbanzo and some water or stock. ( If you’re using meat brown first, then proceed with onion, etc.)  Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer until flavorful.

6. Stuff your pumpkin. Remove pumpkin from oven and add stuffing.  Replace lid and return to ven.  Bake at 350 degrees until pumpkin is soft.  Serve.

There are many variation, unlimited.  Go Italian with canelini beans, Italian dandelion, bay leaves and lemon.  Go Yiddish with cholent or Sephardic with hamin.  Use for a chicken stew or vegetable curry.

For the inspirational, and richest recipe, see Onion Panade in Richard Olney’s Simple French Food, and make it in your pumpkin.

 

 

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Networking: Are you asking the right questions?

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I was almost 19 years old, a business undergrad student at USC, and was at a lunch event with Paul Orfalea, the founder of Kinko’s. I was ecstatic thinking to myself: “oh my god, it’s him… I want to know how he did it! What do I say?” I wanted to connect with him so badly but I was at a loss for words because “how did you do it?” was not something I could just walk up to him and ask; it didn’t feel right. In reality, I just wanted his advice on anything he wanted to give it on and I wasn’t sure what to ask to get it. Luckily, I was wearing a very formal skirt suit, panty hose and heels and I caught his eye. He said to me, “why are you dressed like that at school?” I answered, “today is career fair day and I am trying to get a summer job.” He looked at me and said with disgust in his voice, “a job?… ” He continued, “Don’t get a job! Do you live with your family? You don’t have any expenses. You are young. Start a business. Any business. Just do something and grow.”

His words were etched into the tablet of my mind forever. People’s words have tremendous value. Luckily he took the initiative to talk to me. It is very common to admire someone you meet and have an inner burning need to connect with them. Don’t miss an opportunity to connect. Learn how to ask the right questions.

What are the right questions? Here are my tips on how to determine if your questions are effective, valuable and lend themselves to a connection.

SPECIFICITY:
Does your question have a specific answer? When you are in a public and social environment, you should not burden your connection with an open-ended question that requires a long drawn out explanation.
No-no: “I want to write a book as well. How did you get your book published?”
Right question: “When you decided to write a book which publishing companies did you initially approach?”
Explanation: The right question in this example has a specific answer. You can obtain a list of publishers you might be able to approach. The question is easy to answer, allowing your connection the opportunity to either end the conversation or open up with more information and ask you about your intentions. This could become a very valuable conversation for you. Avoid how and why questions; the answers are never specific.

PRIVACY:
Make sure your question is not a violation of the person’s privacy (money, interest rates on someone’s loans, debt, start up costs, etc). These types of questions are not appropriate when you first meet someone. You need to build trust and a personal connection before you should even consider getting into private matters.
No-no: “Are nail salons a profitable business?”
Right question: “What does the manicuring industry’s profit margin range between?”
Explanation:  If you are curious about the profitability of a nail salon, for example, you should ask a general question, allowing your connection to give a vague answer if they wanted to. Although privacy seems like common sense, as a business woman, you would be surprised how many times people have asked me “is your business profitable?”

CLARITY:
Have clarity about your intentions. You want to make sure when you are asking questions the connection feels that their answers are useful to you. If you ask questions that appear to be of no value to you, you are wasting the person’s time and no one in the business world respects time-wasters. When you have clear intentions you will be able to ask a series of related questions that will open up conversation on a specific subject. When you are not clear, you will most likely not know what to ask once you get your first question answered and will move into a socially awkward moment.
No-no:
You have no clear intention because you don’t really know what your plans are, but you just want to chat with the person hoping they could say something that will make you clear about your plans.
You: “Where was your first Kinko’s location?”
Him: “Santa Barbara.”
You: “Oh. Okay. Where do you live now?”
Him: He checks his phone and says, “Sorry I have to take this call” Because he doesn’t want to tell you where he lives, he doesn’t even know you!
Right Question:
You have a clear intention. You want to open a clothing boutique and want information on how to choose a good location.
You: Where was your first Kinko’s location?”
Him: “Santa Barbara.”
You: “At the time what factors did you consider when choosing your location.”
Him: “Proximity to where I was living at the time, rent, size of space.”
You: “Do you still think those are important factors or would you add anything to them now that you’ve had years of experience?”
Explanation:
When you are clear your connection will realize where you are going with your questions and will be able to help you and will feel good that they could be of value to your needs. The bad example in this situation will make your connection feel that you are awkward, unclear and possibly nosy. They won’t know what your intentions are, because you don’t know your own intentions.

REMEMBER:
Do your homework.
Know your industry.
Be genuinely interested in the inner-workings of the business you are asking about.
Be humble.
Be modest in your approach.
Know what you want to gain out of the conversation.
Be clear about what your needs are.
Be clear on what you want to accomplish… Remember that the only difference between someone who owns a successful advertising agency, for example, and someone who wants to is just a series of steps to get there. People who are clear on what they want to accomplish and people who are accomplished are easy to discuss business matters with; it’s the confused people that create awkward networking moments.
Be clear on what your skills are and how you may be of use in case you need to barter with the person you want to connect with.
Asking the right questions not only gives you answers that are useful, an opportunity to connect with someone, a potentially valuable conversation, but also gives you credibility.

Effective networking can potentially be your life source. Knowing the right people is not enough. You have to know how to build the right connections with those people. Remember what networking is and network consciously.* Need help determining if your questions are the right ones? Email me: samira@bellacures.com.

*Samira’s definition of networking:
We are all an abundant resource on different matters. Our goal in human interaction is to provide our resource to another who needs it. When talking, remember to ask questions that bring out the resource you need in the other person. They don’t know how to help you. You know. Make what you need clear. Make what your resource is clear to others as well… so you can give others an opportunity to use your resources.

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The Muslim world is out of control

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The Muslim world is out of control. And that’s a good thing.

The control of ruthless dictators has declined markedly in less than a single year. Two brutal despots, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, are gone for good, and while it will take time for the citizens of these two states to clean up the mess left them by their erstwhile leaders, they are moving in the right direction. Others, like King Abdullah in Jordan and King Mohammad VI in Morocco, are voluntarily beginning to transfer power, incrementally to be sure, to parliaments.

The old guard running the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is failing to keep discipline among young members who are creating new break-off parties, and as of this writing the Islamist Tunisian Renaissance Party (called Hizb al-Nahda in Arabic) is negotiating with secular parties to try to form a coalition government as a result of its winning 41 percent of the vote in a fair and democratic election. Veteran Islamist popular preachers such as Yusuf Qaradawi, who used to control the media for the Muslim religious right, are swiftly losing ground to savvy young Muslim televangelists. And leaders in Al-Azhar, the bastion of the Muslim old guard in Egypt, are hoping the new government that will be formed in elections a month from now will have a secular bent that protects the rights of all minorities, including Christians.

Whatever happened to the static, unchanging, ever-rigid iceberg of Islamic backwardness?

The answer is that we weren’t paying attention. All the while that we were assuming Muslims were hopelessly stuck, they were, in fact, changing. We weren’t paying attention because it was we who were stuck in the false assumption about Islam that actually has never been true — that Islam is backward and unable to change with the times.

Never have I been more struck by the positive lack of control in the Muslim world than last week in Qatar at two conferences, the 18th Conference of the Islamic World Academy of Sciences, and the ninth annual conference of the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue (DICID). Muslim participants represented virtually the entire Muslim world, from Bangladesh to Bosnia, and from Yemen and Somalia to Norway and Sweden. The Interfaith Dialogue conference was particularly interesting because of this year’s theme of new social media and how to use it for enhancing understanding and better relations among religious communities. Not only did we experience plenary sessions and Q-and-A before an international audience of hundreds, we also had the opportunity to take workshops on the latest in the social media trade, including how to avoid its pitfalls and harmful use. And all this in an Arab Muslim state.

What particularly struck me was the openness of discourse among the participants. Not only Muslims and Christians, but a minyan of rabbis representing literally all Jewish religious movements engaged fully in the program, from delivering keynote presentations to chairing panels and even drafting the final summary conference declaration.

Islam always has honored the monotheistic religions of Judaism and Christianity, even when it has not had a consistent record of honoring those religions’ practitioners. But Islam has had a history of real trouble with polytheistic religious traditions. And yet, in a plenary session attended by the entire assembly, a Muslim religious scholar who directs an institute of Islamic studies at one of the most prominent Islamic seminaries in India called for future conferences to include non-monotheistic religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and others. This would have been impossible even a few years ago.

This year’s conference was far less controlled than the earliest Doha conferences on interfaith dialogue, which excluded Jews. Since those early days, Jews from the Diaspora and from Israel have been invited and have participated, though during periods when relations between Israel and the Arab world deteriorate enough, Israelis are not invited — which is unfortunate because inviting them nevertheless would be a great step forward. OK, there is still government meddling in religious affairs, but they are light-years ahead of where they were only a short while ago, and forward-looking projects like DICID are leading the way.

The Arab Spring has given a huge push to the sea change in the Middle East and North Africa, but the region is a very big ship, and it takes a long time for a turn of the helm to move such a large vessel to a different course. That new course is one in which the old autocratic forms of leadership will lose influence and power as the culture of the region continues to move toward democracy. We need to keep in mind that it will not happen in any way that we can expect or anticipate. Still, we will see real change in our own lifetimes, something that I could hardly have hoped for even a year ago. That’s because people have been pushing the rudder for many years. The molasses seas of dictatorships have, until recently, blocked any significant turn.

Let’s not let our old assumptions remain stuck in the muck of stale thinking. Democracy is a political system that varies from state to state. Christian Democrats control the government of democratic Germany. Not secular Democrats, but Christian Democrats. And in democratic Israel, the National Religious Party and Shas have made themselves indispensable to virtually every government. So, too, will we see Muslim democrats controlling the governments of some Arab democratic political systems. That in and of itself is not cause for alarm. We need to judge by deed and not by name.

The Muslim world is not nearly so simple as we’ve been accustomed to thinking.

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Snack Time!

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It’s that time of year again! Halloween is just 2 days away and no child is absent of the temptations of candy and treats on this holiday. While candy in moderation is usually fine, particularly on very special occasions, and we should never deprive our children completely, keeping your kids healthy year-round should always be a priority. When you’re a busy single mom like me, it can be difficult and time consuming to keep a handle on the snacks and treats your kids are eating.

If you need quick, healthy, and satisfying pre-packaged snacks for your kids to enjoy between meals, here are a few guide lines to follow:

1) If you can’t pronounce it, do not allow them to eat it! READ the ingredients on the package before giving it to your kids. Some ingredients to stay away from: High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Corn Sugar, Natural Flavor, Partially Hydrogenated Oils, and Corn Starch.

2) The best and most healthful snack bars have at least 6 grams of protein, 3 grams of fiber, and less than 15 grams of sugar. I always recommend Kind, Lara and . They’re perfect on-the-go snacks for adults AND kids!

3) Any packaged snack that is over 150 calories is too much. Stick to around 150 calories or less.

4) Don’t be fooled by the cute little 100 calorie packs such as Oreo’s, packaged peanut butter crackers,Teddy grams, or cheese nips. They are loaded with enriched flour, salt, sugar, high fructose corn syrup and other artificial ingredients. Don’t compromise their health… your kids deserve
better than that!

5) Stay away from prepackaged fruit cups that feature “flavored fruit chunks in 100% juice”. That is just tricky terminology for MORE SUGAR! Fresh cut fruits and vegetables are always your best option, and they only require a few minutes to prepare.

7) Give them Bananas! This sweet, yummy, and versatile fruit has so many benefits. Bananas are super inexpensive (about 35-40 cents a pound) and are loaded with Potassium, which is a mineral that helps maintain normal blood pressure and heart function. 1 medium banana contains a whopping 467 mg of Potassium!

8) Serve water in place of sugary juices. Juicy juice has 26 grams of sugar in an 8oz glass, which equals about 6 1/2 teaspoons in one serving! Water will help your kids avoid a sugar rush, unnecessary weight gain, and most importantly: drinking water will help them POOP!

9) Apples are an excellent quick snack and are full of fiber. Try to buy organic though, since non-organic apples contain about 111 pesticides.

10) Always add the most important ingredient to any food you provide your children: L-O-V-E. When I prepare my daughter’s food, I do it with smile on my face. And at the end, right before I wrap it, I say: now I’m adding love and more love and more love. I’ve been doing this with her since she was 3 years old. One day, I was rushing and forgot to do it. Well, she looked at me with her arms crossed and her big blue eyes and said, “Mommy, did you forget to add something?” It really makes my whole day to know that SHE KNOWS how much I LOVE her and your kids will know it too!

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Let there never be a need for another Yad Vashem

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Yesterday was the day I had been dreading.  Every time I checked my itinerary: Friday, 8:45. Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum.  I didn’t want to go.  I really really didn’t want to go and I desperately needed to go all at once.  I was a swirl of nervous anxiety walking up to the front door.  What if it was just another tour, just another museum we shuffled through? What if I zoned out, hearing only with my brain and never settling into my heart? What if I, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, couldn’t cry?

And then the guide casually mentioned that the ramp we were walking on was just like the ones the Jews used to enter the gas chambers, and with chills, I reached for my Kleenex as the floodgates opened.  It was power, overwhelming, informative and grotesquely beautiful. 

Lost in my imagination, deep in my soul, the stark concrete walls that angled as if to close in upon us became my personal gas chamber.  I couldn’t hear the guide, as the hoards of tourists suddenly were my fellow Jews herded into the trapped walls of our death.  At one point, I stepped away from the exhibit, needing to catch my breath, needing to quell the panic, the suffocation. 

I stepped away to remind myself of the miracle of Israel, the blessing of having my feet on Israeli soil even as I bore witness to the gapping wounding in our collective history, the climax of my ancestors history, the truth of my past.

This museum and the reality of the Holocaust is why I would stand as an Israeli citizen before all other nationalities.  So that Never Again will there be no one to come for us.  Never again will we have to perish alone.  Never again will we be trapped without a home to go to.  Never Again. Never Again.

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Why I Love Venice, or, The Perfect Shabbat [SLIDESHOW]

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Wake up.

Feed the dogs, goats and chickens.

Collect the eggs.

Yerba Mate.

Melanie Murez swings by to drop off the pumpkin we entered in the Venice Farmers Market Giant Pumpkin Contest.

The winning pumpkin, thank you.

Noa and I take the dogs for a walk on the canals.  We pop into the canoe we keep there, paddle around.

The water is see-to-the-bottom.  We paddle past egrets, ducks and seagulls.

We tie up by Washington Blvd., stop at The Cows End for an avocado and feta sandwich (and, of course, more yerba mate), then paddle back.

On our way back, we pass a Halloween parade of stand-up paddle boarders.  Katy Perry is there.  A Viking. A Goth Girl. A Human Reptile.

The group is from Poseidon Stand Up Paddle of Santa Monica. 

Noa and I look at each other: Only in Venice.

I go home and finish making chevre.  But that’s the next post.

[RECIPE]Cows End Avocado and Feta Sandwich

Split an Italian roll. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar.  Lay on a half avocado, sliced, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, pepperoncini and feta cheese.  Serve with potato chips.

[SLIDESHOW]

Only in Venice: The Venice Canal Poseidon Stand Up Paddle Halloween Parade

Find more photos like this on EveryJew.com

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Why the Germans fought to the bitter end

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My next book is a biography of an early Jewish resistance fighter who has been mostly overlooked in history, and so I am thinking a lot nowadays about Hitler’s “war against the Jews” and how, when and why the Jews fought back.  That’s why I read with special interest Timothy Snyder’s recent review of “The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944-1945” by Ian Kershaw (Penguin, $35) in The New Republic (November 3, 2011).

Snyder is the author of “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin,” books@jewishjournal.com.

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