Jo Ann Gardner
By Jo Ann Gardner
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Recipes The Secret Sage-Scented History of the Menorah
On successive trips to Israel beginning in the 1980s, I became enchanted with the country’s native wild salvias, thought to be the inspiration for the biblical menorah described in Exodus (37:17-24). In my travels I saw them growing by the roadside, on hillsides, and in the Negev desert, as well as at Neot Kedumim, the…
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Recipes Easy Apple-Preserving Ideas — Sauce, Butter, Cider and Leather
The custom of dipping apples in honey on Rosh Hashanah is so well-established as a symbol of our hopes for a sweet New Year that no matter how we celebrate the holiday this year, whatever foods we serve on this festive occasion, apples are sure to be featured. Why apples? According to Jewish sources, the…
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Food Matzo, Elemental Bread of the Spirit
What’s so special about matzo? After all, it’s nothing more than flour and water baked to a cracker-like thinness. Not especially digestible either, especially after eating it as the default bread for the entire week of Passover when chametz (leavened or risen bread and leavened products) are forbidden. Related Matzo Brei With Fresh Herbs and…
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Recipes Matzo Brei With Fresh Herbs and Early Spring Greens
Matzo Brei (rhymes with “fry”), literally fried matzo, is the most beloved of Passover week traditions, the centerpiece of a simple brunch or breakfast: softened matzo, usually with egg beaten into it, fried in hot fat. This mixture may be scrambled, formed into little pancakes or cooked like an omelet. I have eaten it in…
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Food Lentils in the Bible and the Bowl
Red, brown and green lentils. The following is an excerpt from (Decalogue Books, 2014). Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the open, famished. And Esau said to Jacob, “Give me some of that red, red stuff to gulp down, for I am famished” — which is why he was named…
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Food Why We Eat the 7 Fruits on Tu B’Shvat
The seven species are pomegranate (above), grapes, dates, figs, olives, wheat and barley. Why do we eat fruit of the Seven Species on Tu B’Shvat? The Seven Species of the Bible are a central feature of the celebration of Tu B’Shvat, which this year occurs in late January. The reason usually given for eating foods…
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Recipes Homemade Date Honey — A Sweet, Sticky Take on One of the 7 Species
Dates, one of the seven species traditionally eaten on Tu B’Shvat, are represented in Deuteronomy (8:7-8) by their honey, called devash in Hebrew. Authentic biblical honey is as dark and thick as molasses, but it has its own rich flavor and isn’t quite as sweet as regular honey. You can buy it already prepared as…
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Food The Disappearance and Return of the Date Palm
Methuselah date palm, grown from a 2,000-year-old seed found at Masada, is now in kibbutz Ketura. The history of the date palm in Israel is inextricably bound to the history of Israel itself. A great presence whether massed in plantations or growing wild in a desert oasis where they indicate water, their straight, unbranched trunks…
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