JW Magazine - Summer 2015 by Jewish Women International

Summer 2015

(Baseball) Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend A Passion for Pickling Women Take Over the Grill One Mother's Campaign Against Cyberbullying

Success on a Stick Women entrepreneurs are innovating with ice cream (and other cool treats).

ROBYN SUE FISHER FOUNDER & CEO, SMITTEN ICE CREAM

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SUMMER 2015

BEYOND THE REGISTRY

BY SUE TOMCHIN

The wedding gifts they can't wait to receive â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and some they didn't know they wanted.

11 ALL GEARED UP

In the U.S. and Israel, on baseball diamonds and lacrosse pitches, girls are building skills, confidence and team spirit.

BY ELIANA BLOCK

17 PICKLED PASSION

A new generation of picklers blend a love for traditional fermentation techniques with a belief in eating locally, sustainably and organically.

BY SUE TOMCHIN

28 I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM

From scoop to stick, these entrepreneurs are making cool treats that impress foodies and make summer festive.

THE HEAT IS ON

BY SUE TOMCHIN

Barbeque is getting hot in the kosher world.

44 THIS GIRL IS ON FIRE

Move over, dudes: More and more women and warming up to the grill.

BY SUE TOMCHIN

55 STYLE FOR ALL

Lauren Rothman has a recent book and a growing cadre of clients seeking her advice on how to look appropriate and stylish in the workplace.

BY ELIANA BLOCK

58 TWEET OTHERS AS YOU'D WANT TO BE TWEETED Linda Rottenberg wants to help us all think like entrepreneurs.

BY BRETT SACHS

BY SUE TOMCHIN

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Volume 18 Number 2 EDITOR

Susan Tomchin CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Danielle Cantor CEO

Loribeth Weinstein VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

Meredith Jacobs BOARD OF TRUSTEES Diane Radin Kim Oster-Holstein, Chair Vivian Bass, Chair-Elect Deena Silver Nicole Feld Beth Sloan Susan Feldman Ellen Stone Meryl Frank Susan W. Turnbull, Immediate Past Chair Toby Graff Mardi Kunik Sandy Unger Erica Leatham Suzi Weiss-Fischmann Laurie Moskowitz

JW is published twice annually in print by JWI, and year-round online. Inspired by our legacy of progressive women’s leadership and guided by our Jewish values, JWI works to ensure that all women and girls thrive in healthy relationships, control their financial futures and realize the full potential of their personal strength. JW magazine is distributed to donors and supporters of JWI and is available for purchase at $5.99 per issue. Postmaster: Please send address changes and inquiries to JW, 1129 20th Street NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20036. © Contents JWI 2015 The articles and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the view of JWI or any member thereof. Advertising in JW does not necessarily imply editorial endorsement or guarantee kashrut of products.

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PRACTICE

The wedding gifts they can't wait to receive â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and some they didn't even know they wanted. BY SUE TOMCHIN

HEART-SHAPED GLASS BOWL ($114) by artisan Mark Rosenbaum of Rosetree Blown Glass Studio in New Orleans; from The Jewish Museum Shop

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THE COMMUNITY TABLE: RECIPES & STORIES FROM THE JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER IN MANHATTAN & BEYOND (Grand Central Life and Style, 2015) by Katja Goldman, Judy Bernstein Bunzl, and Lisa Rotmil, and MODERN JEWISH COOKING: RECIPES & CUSTOMS FOR TODAY’S KITCHEN (Chronicle Books, 2015) by Leah Koenig; each $35 at Modern Tribe

Three-quart STAUB ENAMELED CAST-IRON TOMATO COCOTTE ($149.95), perfect for two (or a few); available at Williams-Sonoma

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Israeli-made SODASTREAM SOURCE SPARKLING WATER MAKER, metal edition ($129.99); available at Bed Bath & Beyond

Top-rated ZOJIRUSHI HOME BAKERY MINI BREADMAKER ($189.95) is just the right size for two; available from King Arthur Flour

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Glowing glass ANIMALS OF THE ARK MENORAH ($240) by Susan Fullenbaum at Stained Glass Designs

Crystal and stainless steel TRIANGULAR WEDDING VESSEL ($175) by Israeli artist Anat Mayer holds shards from the glass broken at the end of the wedding ceremony; available from the Museum of American Jewish History Shop

Fragments of a SHATTERED WEDDING GLASS ($32) are sealed inside Joy Stemberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pewter, brass and acrylic WEDDING SHARD MEZUZAH ($165); available from the Spertus Museum shop

Colorful Yair Emanuel ALUMINUM KIDDUSH FOUNTAIN ($153); available from World of Judaica

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Designer/architect Amy Reichert's limitededition BRASS AND HONEY ONYX STONE SHABBAT CANDLES ($200); exclusively for the Jewish Museum

The ITA PLATTER ($128) is crafted from agate by Anna Rabinowicz for RabLabs, and no two are alike; available from Bliss Home and Design

SHABBAT KODESH CHALLAH KNIFE AND SALT SHAKER with accompanying stand ($375); available from the Museum of American Jewish History Shop

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A gift to give before the wedding: above: DANCING TREE OF LIFE KETUBAH ($220) from Fresh Ketubah by Naomi Broudo; available on Etsy top left: LOVE PERIOD KETUBAH ($250) by Baruch Sienna bottom left: ETERNAL LOVE KETUBAH ($250) by Veronique Jonas (also available with GOLD LEAF for $350). Both designs – and many, many more – available at ketubah.com

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photos courtesy of ketubah.com; artwork © Baruch Sienna and © Veronique Jonas

photo by Hannah Epstein

ASPIRE

In the U.S. and Israel, on baseball diamonds and lacrosse pitches, girls are building skills, confidence and team spirit. BY ELIANA BLOCK JW Magazine | jwmag.org

ith one gaze, 11-year-old Natasha Cohen signals to the catcher before whizzing a fastball over home plate, striking out her opponent. With the 9th inning ended and the game won, both teams line up for customary high fives. After cheers of victory, Cohen will celebrate with her teammates, who have become some of her best friends. Eleven of them are boys. Cohen, a self-described “half-Jew, half-Mexican” from Los Angeles, became interested in baseball at the age of four. She loved competing with her cousin in whatever he was doing. “I chose baseball because I got jealous of my cousin and I wanted to play better than him,” Cohen said. “We were super competitive.” While she began playing out of rivalry, challenging herself to outdo her cousin, Cohen learned to love the sport and has stuck with it for seven years. “I’m probably even better than him now,” she said. “He’s better at hitting, but I’m better at throwing.” Cohen is just one of over 100,000 girls in the U.S. who play organized baseball, according to Baseball for All, a non-profit that works to educate and empower female players.

While most of these girls practice on male-dominated teams, Justine Siegal, who founded Baseball for All, is trying to change that through mentoring girls, educating communities and creating female-only baseball tournaments. After being told that no man would ever take a female coach seriously, Siegal decided early, at age 16, that she would pursue a doctorate in sports psychology. “The PhD was another means to break the norm,” she said. “I felt that I had to be better to have the same opportunities coaching.” In 2007, Siegal was the only woman to coach baseball on the collegiate level. Two years later she became a pioneer as the first woman to coach a professional team, the Broxton Rox. Siegal went on to become, in 2011, the first woman to throw batting practice to a Major League Baseball team – the Cleveland Indians. She later pitched batting practice for the Oakland A’s, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the St. Louis Cardinals, the New York Mets and the Houston Astros. She became a national sensation featured on TED talks, The Queen Latifah Show, espnW and MLB.com and in Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Ms. and the New York Times. She currently coaches and advocates for her organization, Baseball for All.

photos by Josh Cohen

Natasha Cohen in action

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Over 7,500 miles away, from the U.S. Pacific coast to Israel’s Mediterranean coast, 17-year-old Mikaella Rutenberg loves playing midfield in what she says “looks like a man’s sport.” Israel is so new to organized sport that Rutenberg regularly gets stares while wearing her lacrosse gear. “When I’m going outside in the streets with my stick everyone stops me asking, ‘What is it,’ or just says, ‘Wow, you play lacrosse?’” she said. “It’s so awesome! My friends tell everyone that I’m a lacrosse player.” Rutenberg was introduced to lacrosse when four coaches – Emily Brodsky, Taylor Roy, Amanda Tuck, and head coach Hannah Deoul, all of whom had played lacrosse in high school and college and made Aliyah to Israel – began advertising the sport to schools in Ashkelon. The Israel Lacrosse Association began with men’s and women’s national teams after its founding in 2011 and organized teams for boys in five cities in 2011. Until the coaches took the initiative, no program for girls existed. In fall 2014, they started U-19, a national girls’ team in Ashkelon, Baltimore’s sister city.

photo by Hannah Epstein

U19's Mikaella Rutenberg pursues a shot.

Deoul’s first hurdle was making running around and getting sweaty appealing to teenage girls. In a society that values glamorous Middle Eastern femininity, Deoul was selling slicked ponytail hairdos and lacrosse sticks. “We started to grow our team culture mostly within the girls themselves who thought they couldn’t be sweaty and take pictures,” she said. “Getting our girls to all put their hair in ponytails sounds little, but it means that they’re gaining confidence that you can be sporty and attractive, and we’ve seen them become really proud of that.” According to assistant coach Emily Brodsky, they had to work to change the conception of sports in a country where “girls are doing gymnastics and dance.” Most girls, she said, hadn’t “been on a team or couldn't understand the concept of competitive team sports.” Coaches not only had to convince Israeli parents to allow their daughters to play, but to pay for it. Additionally, she said, parents often don’t understand the commitment of having their daughters show up to every practice. “Parents don’t think sports are a reason to spend money, which is so different from in the U.S., where sports are a huge part of life and sometimes a priority,” Brodsky said. JW Magazine | jwmag.org

Below, top and bottom: Justine Siegal, founder of Baseball for All, coaches some of the girls; Center: Natasha Cohen pitching a game

Above, top and middle: Coach Hannah Deoul helps U19 player Shirel Fresh Bottom: Player Rotem BenZino

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The team is heavily subsidized by Baltimore donors and the team prides itself on not turning any girl away because of financial issues. To play in the league costs 100 shekels a month, equivalent to 25 dollars, for stick, goggles, and lacrosse balls. If the players can’t afford the fee, they still get to play. This understanding has allowed parents to trust the coaches and the girls to build a community and a love for organized sport. “The spirit of the coaches made me want to join the team,” Rutenberg said. “The team is like a big family.” Deoul also called her team a ‘family’ and shares in players’ personal victories off the field too.

photos courtesy of Justine Siegal/Baseball For All (left) and Hannah Epstein (right)

“We just attended a graduation for three of our girls,” she said. “They cried when they saw us there.” “It is really inspiring to see how much they have changed and grown since starting lacrosse,” said Brodsky. “They are confident, committed to learning about the game and proud to represent Israel. They work together and support each other.” Adds Deoul: “Time management, selfconfidence, trust in others, working with people, commitment, it’s a perfect activity to train them…[and] all those things translate directly to training for the army.” On Los Angeles baseball diamonds, too, girls are building skills, fostering strong relationships and making memories with teammates. Cohen’s dad, Josh, attends all of her regular baseball games, but he said when his daughter played on Siegal’s U-11 team during a tournament it was “pretty amazing.”

“It is really inspiring to see how much they have changed and grown since starting lacrosse... They are confident, committed to learning about the game and proud to represent Israel. They work together and support each other.”

“When she played with the girls, there was an instant connection because they all seemed to be the same as her,” Josh said. “The kids there were also the only girls on their teams and she was able to relate to them in a way that she doesn’t relate to her [boy] teammates.” Cohen has kept up her relationship with Siegal, and interviewed her role model one-on-one for a school project. She recalled the skills Siegal taught her, like catching and stealing bases, but what was far more memorable was the star coach’s lasting impression on the preteen. “I think it’s really cool that she made this organization for girls to play and that you can meet girls that play just like you,” Cohen said, “I know she was the first woman to do that and that’s really cool.” “For me it’s all about the girls and I’m really honored when I can bring attention to them,” Siegal said. “The next step is showing that a girl doesn’t need to be a superstar to play baseball. We need to celebrate all the girls who play.” But for Josh Cohen, his daughter, the pitcher, is a superstar. “Right now she’s a little more advanced,” he said. “She’s probably one of the top two or three players on her team, and I’m not just bragging!” Siegal’s first Girls’ National Baseball Tournament took place at the Walt Disney Resort from May 30-June 4. Rutenberg, coach Deoul, and the rest of the members of Israel’s national girls’ lacrosse team will compete at the 2015 FIL (Federation of International Lacrosse)Women’s U-19 World Cup in Edinburgh, Scotland, July 23rd through August 1st. Eliana Block is an intern at JW magazine.

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D.C.'s young Jewish professionals are having fun in the city with JWI's Young Women's Leadership Network! Above: Rooftop Yoga and Meditation (left) and Bootcamp Workout (right). Below: Cake Pops and Entrepreneurs Bottom: The Young Women's Leadership Conference

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New networks are starting soon in New York and Denver...

Join us at jwi.org/ywln!

NOURISH

Pickled Passion

A new generation of picklers blends a love for traditional fermentation techniques with a belief in eating locally, sustainably and organically. BY SUE TOMCHIN

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ne of cookbook author and food writer Karen Solomon’s earliest memories is going with her mother and grandmother to Jewish delis in her home town of Worcester, Mass., and near her grandmother’s home in Deerfield Beach, Fla. “We would sit down and there would be a basket of rolls, and bowls of pickles and sauerkraut. I would be perfectly happy eating just those things,” she recalls. Though she obviously didn’t know it at the time, pickling cucumbers, cabbage and a wheelbarrow’s full of other veggies would become one of her passions. In this season when home gardens are flourishing and farmers markets are overflowing with local produce, JW decided to check in with Solomon as well as three other women – Miriam Feiner, Blair Noson and Julia Braun – who are members of a new generation of picklers. They combine an interest in traditional fermentation techniques with a craving to recapture the flavors lost in mass production and a belief in eating locally, sustainably and organically. None of them think twice about putting up a crock of cukes or kraut to ferment or turning a basket of beets into a tangy condiment to add spunk to a main dish or sparkle to a salad. In the dedication to one of her cookbooks, Solomon credits her mom, Arlene, with teaching her how “to take pleasure and refuge in the kitchen.” When growing up in Worcester and later in Florida, she often stood at her mom’s side to watch as she prepared such familiar Ashkenazi Jewish dishes as kugel, chicken soup and stuffed cabbage. 18

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Yet, as Solomon told me when we spoke, making pickles or other condiments from scratch wasn’t on her mom’s radar. “To this day she has 6 or 7 bottles of bottled salad dressing and jars of commercial pickles in her refrigerator,” she says. Solomon’s interest in the power of homemade condiments was born while she was in college and visited her future partner’s parents for the first time. “I ate a salad with homemade dressing I thought was amazing. It made me think, if dressing could be that good, what about other things?”

says. “I love being able to open peoples’ eyes and give them the option of making something themselves. To do this, they probably already have everything in the house they need.” Despite her forays into many different kinds of food preparation, Solomon says that she always keeps coming back to pickling. In her critically acclaimed recent book, Asian Pickles: Sweet, Salty, Cured and Fermented Preserves from Japan, Korea, China, India and Beyond, she writes: “Although I love all my kitchen creations the way a mother hen loves her flock, pickles have truly captured my heart (and my stomach!).” Asian Pickles is a book filled with new pickle possibilities, including an array of chutneys and kimchis, the latter a “nonnegotiable” part of the Korean meal. In the Jewish gastronomic realm, “Pickles were there to cut the heaviness and fattiness of food,” Solomon says. “Anything acidic wakes up the taste buds and makes rich, fatty food taste better. And in Jewish cuisine we have always had sweet and sour flavors in such things as cabbage rolls, created by using citric acid.”

That revelation ultimately inspired Solomon to make – from scratch – the staples most of us are used to buying at the store, among them not only salad dressing but crackers, mayonnaise, ketchup, butter, marshmallows, smoked fish, jams – and pickles from green beans to daikon to kimchi. What she learned became the basis of two cookbooks: Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It and Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It.

Solomon has a tried and true recipe for kosher dills for which she uses either the traditional Kirby cucumbers or sometimes Persian cucumbers, which were just coming into season when we spoke. And, since she can get cabbage pretty much year round, “I always have a kraut going,” she says. At the end of the season she pickles whatever tomatoes are left in her small home garden in San Francisco’s Mission District “that haven’t been sliced or fried.” Everyone in the household loves pickles, including her two young sons, even her dachshund.

“When people need food items, they add them to the grocery list,” she

While pickling seasonal vegetables is enjoying a surge in popularity, back

in the days before refrigeration, Jews living in colder climates where vegetables couldn’t be obtained year round, regarded pickles as a necessity and kept crocks of pickled cucumbers, shredded cabbage and beets on hand in their root cellars to help get them through the winter. “Pickled vegetables were an important source of vitamins and an original way to flavor food,” says Solomon. While pickles is a “catch-all word,” referring both to pickles made with vinegar and those made with brine, says Solomon, the kosher dills, halfdones and sauerkraut one associates with the delis of yore were generally in the latter camp. The brine is composed of salt and water that, when used in the right ratios, and in combination with the bacteria naturally found in the vegetables, induces a process called lacto-fermentation. A crock or jar of pickles or sauerkraut is left in a warm place for two to three weeks until it reaches the preferred flavor; refrigeration then halts the fermentation process. Eating lactofermented foods is thought to boost healthy bacteria in the body, a valuable aid to digestion and immunity.

ences with ecology, food systems and spiritual practice. This seemed like a perfect fit for Feiner's interests and an opportunity to increase her knowledge about gardening. Taking part in the fellowship in the summer of 2006, she recalls, “took things to a whole new level for me, growing cucumbers and then learning to preserve them using the same traditional salt water brine methods used by our ancestors.”

She returned two years later to work on Adamah’s staff, serving as its Value-Added Products Business Manager in charge of preserving the farm’s produce. “We would start cucumber seedlings a couple weeks apart and they could come in in stages but we could harvest hundreds of pounds at one time,” she recalls. “It would happen so fast. I felt like it was a very big responsibility making sure they didn’t go to waste.”

adamah's pickled turnips & kohlrabi

“I love the way the way pickled things taste and having them in the refrigerator,” says Solomon. “I always love discovering a jar I’d forgotten about hidden in the back.”

Miriam Feiner: Pickling the Harvest Miriam Feiner had been working in environmental education and for Jewish summer camps when she saw that Adamah was offering fellowships at its farm at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Conn. The program combined farming using organic and sustainable methods with hands-on experiJW Magazine | jwmag.org

Despite the pressure, she enjoyed working with the team of Adamah fellows as they transformed the produce they picked into a few thousand jars of pickles, kimchi, dilly beans and fruit preserves. “We would play music and dance and then process food. Friendships were formed from the conversations going on,” she says. After Adamah, she ran a school garden program in San Francisco in which she did planting, gardening and cooking, and now works for the Berkeley School District, though not in the environmental field. “One of the biggest pleasures of my experiences is being able to go to the farmer’s market and get vegetables in season, creating combinations that maybe no one has made before. It’s exciting to use my creativity.”

Blair Noson: Creating a Pickle CSA Like the other women, we spoke to, Blair Noson, 30, of the Detroit area, had no family tradition of pickling. Her initial interest in food preservation came from an unexpected source. “My mom read me Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books when I was young. I don’t know if she intended to impart to me pioneer values, but that’s what happened. I became enamored of being self-sufficient.” Noson taught herself to cook in college and worked in a pizzeria, along the way becoming interested in the slow food movement and environmentalism. In 2008 she had a three-month summer fellowship at Adamah that combined farming, pickling and other tangible life skills with Jewish text study on agriculture, the environment and sustainability. At Adamah, “I learned about Shabbat in a farm20

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ing context,” she says. “You work for six days and then take a day to stand back and experience the world as complete.” She stayed on that fall to work as a “pickle apprentice” under Miriam Feiner, helping with pickle production. When Noson returned to her native Michigan after Adamah she found that the urban agriculture movement was flourishing. People were interested in learning about food preservation because “they wanted to get control of where their food is coming from.” Called upon to teach classes about pickling, drying and canning, she decided that she would start a pickle business. In addition to teaching classes, friends began asking Noson to make pickles for events. She also started a pickle CSA. “People would pay me at the beginning of the season and I would give them two jars of pickles every month for six months.” All told there were a total of 12 different types, including butternut squash kimchi, dilly beans, pickled cauliflower, shredded beets, and parsnip kimchi. During the second year of her CSA, she grew her own cucumbers so she could make dill pickles from her own crop. “The fact I had a refrigerator filled with foods I had made added value to my life,” she says of those two years running the business. At the end of the second year, she realized that for the business to grow she needed to scale up by renting kitchen space and adding staff. However, her interest in the Jewish community took her in a different direction. Noson became involved in two Jewish initiatives in Detroit: She co-founded (with a black and Jewish synagogue member who was president of her block club) Eden

Gardens, a Jewish and AfricanAmerican inner city farm project, and co-created PeerCorps, a program teaching Jewish teens about social and environmental issues. Ultimately, she decided to go back to graduate school for a master’s in Jewish education at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Though her life no longer centers on pickling, Noson's immersion in fermentation and pickling continues to inform her perspective. “Preserving and fermentation made me think about Jewish texts differently,” she says. Among those things that she approached with new insight is matzah and its connection to sourdough, which is based on fermentation. Read her fascinating d’var Torah, “To Celebrate Passover, We Must Learn to Bake Bread.”

Julia Braun: From Kraut to Kosher Adventures “I was a food entrepreneur from an early age,” says Julia Braun, 32, who

julia braun's pickled kumquats

now runs Noshland, a kosher catering company in Oakland, Calif. “At 9 or 10, I started a jam business with a neighbor. I would pick blackberries and had the idea to make and sell jam. It didn’t last.” Pickles were an infrequent presence in her childhood growing up in the only Jewish family in the town of Bandon, Oregon. Her main exposure to them, came, like Solomon’s, at delis in the Northeast. She and her mom would travel to the East Coast to see family and would enjoy deli lunches with her grandfather. “I associated the half sours we had with my family on the other side of the country,” she recalls. Her mother was a gardener, but not a pickler. Braun does remember making preserves from some of the blueberries for which Oregon is known. Pickling entered her life in earnest 5 or 6 years ago when she was living in New Orleans. “Cabbages are thrown during the city’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. I am against food waste, so I started pickling, not with cucumbers, but cabbage.” She discovered a book by fermentation revivalist Sandor Katz called Wild Fermentation, and became infatuated with the process, regularly making fire kraut and kimchi. When she moved to the San Francisco Bay area with its burgeoning artisan food community in 2012, she took her pickling knowledge to the next level by working for two years at The Cultured Pickle, a shop that on any given day offers at least 10 kinds of sauerkraut, 4 varieties of kimchi, 14 different types of seasonal specialty pickles, among many other things “It was really more of an apprenticeship than a job, learning from some of the best how to transform vegetables into new flavors,” she says.

Interested in revitalizing the traditional Jewish foods of Eastern Europe, she launched a bicycle-powered food cart/catering company that she named “Hugs and Knishes,” selling Eastern European Jewish street foods such as pirogies and cabbage rolls.

"when i am fermenting vegetables i feel like i'm part of a process much bigger than myself... lacto fermentation is a living breathing biological process. i feel like i'm only the person igniting this process. everything else is up to the bacteria. it's very humbling and miraculous to me." The positive response to the cart inspired her to learn more: she studied at the Brooklyn Center for Kosher Culinary Arts becoming a certified kosher chef and returned to the Bay area to launch Noshland, a company which combines food, classes and events, “to create a fun environment full of community and connection.” At Noshland, she has taught classes in fermentation, but also on making

challah, crafting wood-fired bagels and homemade cream cheese and perfecting such Jewish pastries as babka and rugelach. She also caters events both large and small: Her popup Passover Seder in the garden included a 5-course dinner inspired by the Seder plate. Pickled watermelon radishes adorned the salad and ribbons of fermented beets added a pop of color to the main dish: Matzoh flatbread with horseradish braised lamb, cauliflower puree, parsley oil and fermented beet. When she pickles she tries to be as creative as possible, “while honoring the flavor of the vegetables.” She has fermented beets from her own garden with coriander, mustard seeds and shallots and cured kumquats in tangerine brine to which she added chipotle pepper and chiles de arbol, a Spanish chile similar to cayenne. She says that one of her best krauts is cabbage with green apple and lemongrass. “I tend to focus a lot of my fermenting on root vegetables and brassicas (cabbage family),” she notes. “To me, when I am fermenting vegetables I feel like I’m part of a process much bigger than myself,” she says. “Lacto fermentation is a living breathing biological process. I feel like I’m only the person igniting this process. Everything else is up to the bacteria. It’s very humbling and miraculous to me.” “Our food system can seem fast and scary. By creating pickles and sauerkraut, jams and other preserved foods, we become part of the process and part of the food system in a way that feels safe.“ Sue Tomchin is editor of JW magazine.

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Fermenting Tips, Tricks & Resources (from Julia Braun of Noshland) Experiment with different vegetables. I enjoy fermenting root vegetables, hearty greens like turnip greens or beet greens, and cabbage of all colors. Add an allium such as a shallot, garlic, or onion for an earthy sweetness Spices such as fenugreek (maple flavor), coriander, mustard seed, and fennel are great additions. Use a scale to weigh your vegetables in grams. Multiply this amount by 0.025 and this will give you the right amount of salt to use. Use sea salt to ferment. The added minerals boost nutritional value, and I have found through trial and error that the product ferments more quickly and with a less salty flavor. I can't overemphasize the benefits of really packing down the veggies firmly in the jar. Any air pocket is a chance for bad bacteria, mold or yeast to grow. If you notice browning, remove the brown vegetables from the jar as soon as possible and wipe down sides with a paper towel. If you notice white on your ferment, it is most likely yeast and is a result of exposure to oxygen and not enough brine. Remove the yeast and continue to ferment. Pink or green fuzz (mold) is a bad sign, and you will need to toss the ferment. Smell tells you a lot too. It should smell salty and fragrant. Any foul smell is a red flag; do not consume ferments that don't smell good. Some great websites for fermentation: â&#x20AC;˘ wildfermentation.com â&#x20AC;˘ punkdomestics.com â&#x20AC;˘ nourishedkitchen.com 22

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watermelon radish pickle These ingredients are abundant in the Bay Area in early spring. All ingredients can be substituted. Any radish can work; green onions can substitute for green garlic; and regular lemons can work in place of Meyer lemons. I would not use black pepper in place of pink pepper as the flavor is much more powerful with black pepper. If pink peppercorn is unavailable, use white or green peppercorns, if possible. Ingredients • 1 pound watermelon radish, cut into quarters and sliced as thin as possible (use a mandoline or vegetable peeler for best results) • 2 bulbs green garlic, white bulb sliced thin and green stem chopped fine

• 2 tablespoons Meyer lemon zest (about two lemons) • 2 tablespoons pink peppercorns • 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon sea salt

Directions 1. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl and let sit at room temperature for an hour or until brine (liquid from vegetables combined with salt) forms. 2. Transfer to a glass jar, packing firmly down to remove all air pockets. A tamper or pestle can aid in this, but avoid using glass to pack down vegetables, as glass can shatter and ruin the batch (It happened to me!). 3. Once vegetables have been firmly packed in the jar, use a smaller jar or bottle that fits inside or insert a bag and fill the bag with a weight, like small, clean stones. The idea is to ensure the vegetables stay submerged under the brine. Cover with some cheese cloth or an old pillowcase and secure to the jar with a rubber band to keep bugs away. You can also purchase jar lids with fermentation air locks, which is a great method. 4. Wait. Taste. Enjoy. In my kitchen, I left the radishes on the counter at room temperature (about 65°) for 10 days. Your time may differ based on temperature. Experiment and taste the ferment every day to experience the transformation. When it tastes sour and not salty, it can be stored in the fridge for up to 6 months, as long as the color stays strong and the smell stays consistent.

From Julia Braun of Noshland

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"wasabi" pickled carrots Why am I using “quotes” for wasabi? Because while this is bursting with wasabi flavor, there is no actual wasabi in it. Real wasabi is hard to come by. And the stuff you and I have access to in the grocery store – the green-tinged powder, or that gunk in the tube – is just dreadful; it’s full of artificial color, preservatives, and mysterious chemicals, and the flavor shows it. Instead, I hereby direct you to buy yourself a fresh bottle of prepared horseradish, close your eyes, and tell yourself it’s wasabi for this recipe and for any sushi you make at home. If you must, add a little green food coloring or spirulina powder for color. Leftover horseradish can be smeared on your roast beef sandwich, or saved for the gefilte fish on Passover. TIME: ABOUT 1 HOUR • MAKES ABOUT 2¼ CUPS Ingredients • 1 pound carrots, preferably a mix of colors, peeled

• 4 teaspoons sugar

• 4 teaspoons prepared horseradish

• 1 ½ teaspoons very finely minced or grated fresh ginger (use a Microplane grater if you have one)

• 1 tablespoon kosher salt

• 1 teaspoon dried chile flakes

Directions 1. Using a vegetable peeler, cut the carrots into ribbons, getting as much out of each carrot as you can; discard (or eat) the nubs. 2. In a medium bowl, combine the carrots with the horseradish, salt, sugar, chile flakes, and ginger and toss very well, using a fork (or two, if necessary) to really work the seasoning into the carrot ribbons. Cover with a drop lid and a 1-pound weight and let sit for 30 minutes, retaining any liquid that accumulates in the bottom of the bowl. After a quick toss, the pickle is ready to eat; covered and refrigerated, it keeps for at least 6 weeks.

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kosher dill pickle These have the taste of the classic barrel-aged dill pickle of a Jewish deli, bursting with a nice boost of salt and a naturally-created tanginess. Cucumbers are the classic, but by all means, try this with green, unripened tomatoes or Brussels sprouts. And feel free to add additional flavorings such as celery seed, ajwain seed, cumin seed, dill seed, juniper, or whole mustard seeds. TIME: ABOUT 1-3 WEEKS. THESE PICKLES SHOULD NOT BE CANNED. Ingredients • About 2 pounds small Kirby, Persian or other small pickling cucumbers

• 3 cloves garlic, lightly crushed

• ¼ cup kosher salt (or about 50 grams)

• One bunch fresh dill

• 1-2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns

Directions 1. First, prepare the cucumbers. Scrub them really well, particularly the root ends, as these can leave your pickles soggy. 2. Place the garlic, pepper, and dill in the bottom of a large glass jar or crock, and stack in the cucumbers. Pack them in as tightly as you can without bruising. 3. Meanwhile, in a separate pitcher, combine the salt with 1 quart of water until it makes a cloudy brine. 4. Pour the brine over the cucumbers until they are completely covered in liquid (even if it means mixing up a second batch of brine). The vegetables will want to float: dissuade them from doing so by adding weight (such as a bag full of water over a drop lid) at the top of the jar to fully submerge them. 5. Cover loosely with a kitchen towel to let air in and keep debris out. Let the jar or crock sit in a cool, dark place. 6. After a few days, you will start to notice some small natural fermentation bubbles and a “pickled” aroma; this is good. You may also see mold spores or slime on top; remove them and discard, and keep checking for their reappearance every few days. Taste after 7-14 days (vegetables will ferment faster in warmer weather, and larger vegetables take longer to ferment). Feel free to let your pickles go longer if you’d like them to get more sour and tender (however, note that they will also continue to sour, albeit more slowly, in the fridge). Many people let them go for months for a really tangy taste. 7. When they are ready to eat, either cover tightly or transfer to jars with lids and refrigerate. Be sure to evenly distribute the liquid with the solids (and if you need more liquid, mix up another batch of brine). These will keep, refrigerated, for several months. However, note that the flavor and the texture will continue to evolve, and that your pickles will be at their best after being refrigerated for about a week.

By Karen Solomon, author of Asian Pickles, used with permission.

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From scoop to stick, these entrepreneurs are making cool treats that impress foodies and make summer festive. BY SUE TOMCHIN JW Magazine | jwmag.org

But the guys who invented Cherry Garcia® and Chunky Money® don’t have a corner on Jewish ice cream entrepreneurship. Polish immigrant Reuben Mattus, founder of Häagen Dazs, helped revolutionize the ice cream world with his super-premium brand that boasted not only a distinctive name but a deliciously high butterfat, and an absence of the stabilizers commonly found in commercial brands. At his side was his wife, Rose, who helped build the company by giving out samples in grocery stores. As controller, she handled the company’s day-to-day business affairs. Of course, we also can’t forget brothers-in-law Burton “Burt” Baskin and Irvine “Irv” Robbins who founded the international chain of ice cream emporiums that share their names. Today the spirit of Jewish ice cream and frozen treat entrepreneurship is thriving. We offer as proof the stories of three women: Robyn Sue Fisher, of Smitten Ice Cream, Kim Oster Holstein of The Crave Bar, and Fany Gerson of NewYorkina. Though their paths and products vary, they share a commitment to creating unique, artisan-caliber products that enthrall even the most exacting member of today’s flourishing foodie culture. Robyn Fisher with Brrr™, her ice cream machine

BUILDING A BETTER ICE CREAM MACHINE Robyn Sue Fisher’s affection for ice cream runs through the summer evenings of her Boston childhood like a swirl of marshmallow cream through a pint of Rocky Road. “My mom would tell me that I had two stomachs, one totally reserved for ice cream,” she says. While ice cream was Fisher’s family’s dessert of choice almost every night, that didn’t preclude special outings to ice cream shops. Those impromptu visits were “filled with happy moments and spending time together.” “Building a business around those moments was very attractive to me,” she says about the origins of her Smitten Ice Cream business that recently opened its fifth location in the San Francisco area. Described on its website as “new old-fashioned,” Fisher’s ice cream is made from scratch and to order from organic milk and cream and other fresh ingredients from local farms. Fisher didn’t know at first that she was destined to become an ice cream entrepreneur. She worked for years in the corporate world but wasn’t truly happy. When she went back to business school at Stanford, she says, “I decided to dive into something that I loved with the goal of making it better.” Her other criteria: “I didn’t want my biggest creations to be power point presentations, as it had been in the corporate world.” When she read the ingredients on ice cream cartons, “I couldn’t pronounce many of them. “Why did all this stuff have to be there – emulsifiers, preservatives, stabilizers?” she wondered. What she learned when she started investigating was that commercial ice cream is usually made in large batches and has to be distributed over a wide network, necessitating the additives to maintain quality and consistency. Her conclusion: Why not make it to order and focus on the taste? Making it to order meant finding a way to freeze it quickly – liquid nitrogen would work – but liquid nitrogen also made it hard to freeze each batch consistently and without iciness due to the extreme temperature. It took several years and Fisher’s life savings to come up with Brrr™, an ice cream machine that would meet her goals. “I was working with very smart engineers in a basement shop and we figured out how to make something that didn’t previously exist,” she says. “We have four patents on it.”

photos courtesy of Smitten Ice Cream

ay the words “Jewish ice cream entrepreneurs” and the names Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield pop into one’s brain as predictably as hot fudge does when you say sundae. Indeed these Vermont icons created an admirable model for building a business based on quality products and a social conscience.

In the fall of 2009, Robyn bungee-corded Brrr™ atop a Radio Flyer® wagon and began selling made-to-order ice cream on the streets of San Francisco, with the help of pastry chef Robyn Lenzi. People would wait patiently in line for half an hour for their cones. During the red wagon stage, she attended her two-year grad school reunion. Her former classmates asked what she was doing. “I would say, ‘I’m selling ice cream on the street’ and they would ask, ’You mean Wall Street?’ And I would say, ‘No, the streets of San Francisco.’” People laughed. Buoyed by the growing number of devotees, she opened her first stationary location—in a recycled shipping container—in April 2011 in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. Her crew took on the title of “Brrristas™.” Four other locations followed, including one opening this month. Smitten also offers catering which is called “wagoneering,” and has done many weddings and private events, especially for Bay Area tech companies. “Our customers are very discerning,” Fisher says. “They believe in the things we stand for and appreciate that we are making an epically good ice cream that also has organic and natural ingredients.”

Each location offers 4-6 flavors a day, depending on the shop. “Our 60.5% TCHO Chocolate is to die for,” Fisher says. “And the most popular flavors are Salted Caramel and Fresh Mint Chip.” The latter, she explains, uses real mint and is pale, not bright, green from the leaves, since no food coloring is used. Chef Lenzi works on flavor development and flavors change frequently, depending on seasonal produce available. For spring, for example, one may find Strawberry White Balsamic or Blood Orange with Pistachio Cookies; for summer, Sweet Corn with Berries or Nectarines and Cream; for fall, Crème Fraiche with Pear Caramel or Cinnamon Apple Crisp; for winter, Earl Grey with Milk Chocolate Chips or Lemon Gingersnap. Fisher is adamant about quality control and doesn’t sell her machine or plan to franchise Smitten. “I don’t want anything to tarnish our brand,” she says. Does she ever tire of eating ice cream? “Nope,” she says. “I often have it for breakfast, because we taste the new flavors in the morning before the stores open.”

Smitten Ice Cream's first location in San Francisco

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Chicago area entrepreneur Kim Oster Holstein believes in marriage – not only her own to husband Scott (they’ve been together 20 years) – but also the marriage of flavors salty and sweet. Those flavors are the inspiration for their innovative product: The Crave Bar, the artisan-style, chocolate-swathed ice cream bar borne, not on a wooden stick, but a crunchy chocolate and caramel dipped pretzel stick. Kim and Scott have introduced the bar to the Chicago-area market and ultimately plan to take it national. Holstein (who also serves as chair of JWI’s Board of Trustees) has always loved chocolate pretzels. Her husband’s interest in the ice cream business goes back to the 1990s when his family had a Ben & Jerry’s location in Chicago. Those two passions came together and The Crave Bar was born. This is the couple’s second company. They founded the first, Kim & Scott’s Gourmet Pretzels, in 1995 and sold it in 2012, negotiating with the buyers to retain ownership of The Crave Bar. Once the legal issues of retaining ownership were resolved, work began in earnest on building the new brand. One order of business was to create a group of flavors to take to the marketplace. “As food entrepreneurs, we love to think about new food creations all the time,” Holstein says. “We

spend a lot of time playing around in the kitchen.” Once they come up with ideas, they turn them over to artisan creamery chefs, who help them figure out how to capture the right flavor profile. The newest flavors are “Salted Caramelicious,” “Peanut Butter Bash,” and “Mint Mayhem,” joining the three original flavors “Dark Chocolate Decadence,” “Milk Chocolate Madness” and “Cappuccino Craze.” “We love brainstorming clever names, too,” says Holstein. Each variety features its own unique union of super premium ice cream, pretzel crunch and real chocolate, with a final touch of sea salt, or in the case of Cappuccino Craze, roasted coffee grinds. “We are creating an experience through the bar,” says Holstein. “ The Crave Bar customer is the discriminating foodie who appreciates artisan inspired products, enjoys trying new things, and sees food as an adventure and an experience to be enjoyed.” “Our focus is on getting to know our target market instead of trying to please everyone and be everywhere,” she says. The Crave Bar is currently available at places where foodies tend to shop in the Chicago area—select Whole Foods locations, a local gourmet grocery chain called Mariano’s, and other smaller artisan markets. This summer, Holstein and her husband are ramping up the product’s local presence. The Crave Bar food truck will be on hand a number of festivals and events including the

left: Kim and Scott Holstein in their Crave Bar food truck; right: The Crave Bar in Dark Chocolate Decadence

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photos courtesy of The Crave Bar

SALTY MEETS SWEET

Taste of Chicago, the world’s largest food festival. Debuting this summer in time for July 4 festivities is a Crave Bar location at the Navy Pier on Lake Michigan. “It’s in a very cute small Crave house facing the lake,” she says. Ongoing catering for weddings, bar mitzvahs and office buildings will continue. “We are a small company building a brand and continue to tweak the product and the packaging,” Holstein says. Recently, for example, they undertook a study of types of chocolate available and decided to make a switch to Callebaut chocolate, one they felt would be more distinctive. While Crave Bars are sold and packaged individually, they also are investigating adding bite-sized Crave Bars to their product line and are in the midst of research about creating a gluten-free version, a challenge since gluten free pretzel rods as yet are hard to come by. Before taking the brand national, “we have to be completely ready,” Holstein says. They’ll need to have a plan in place for distribution and shipping to all parts of the country, not to mention a marketing plan and budget, and have recently moved to a larger production facility to handle increasing demand. This time around in building their business, they have social media as a valuable tool. “It was just becoming part of our lives when we founded Kim & Scott’s,” Holstein says. “Now it is such a powerful vehicle and makes it more affordable for small businesses to get traction and build a large following in a creative way.” A key piece of their business philosophy from their earlier company that they’ve brought into their new venture is a belief in giving back. “As we say on our website, we’re ‘raising the bar on fund-raising,’ by teaming up with organizations to donate a percentage of revenues to their causes,” Holstein says. “Making this part of our business model adds intention to what we do.”

ICE POPS WITH MEXICAN FLAIR One of Fany Gerson’s favorite ice cream memories, which she relates in her 2010 cookbook, My Sweet Mexico (Ten Speed Press), was a visit some years ago with her aunt Alex to an ice cream town on the outskirts of Mexico City. Along the street were about 15 ice cream vendors. Each stand featured between 10 and 15 varieties, all homemade with flavors created from local produce and spices. By the time she and her aunt got back to the car, they had tried at least 15 kinds of ice cream. Gerson, 38, has never been able to find that spot again (though she says she is still searching), but she’s done the next best thing: She has created La Newyorkina, her own company that sells frozen Mexican treats. Founded in 2010 in her adopted home of New York, she uses ingredients that are organic and seasonal, and are sourced from New York state farmers and from small producers in her native Mexico. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Gerson came to the U.S. alone at age 19. Her parents, brother, grandmother and other relatives still live in Mexico City. Considered a U.S. authority on Mexican confections, she has also worked at fine restaurants both in New York and abroad. When she returned from a year in Mexico researching her book, My Sweet Mexico, she decided to create a business to share the flavors that she had rediscovered in her travels. “I wanted to continue sharing the sweetness of Mexico. I know it sounds cheesy but that’s the truth. The thing is, I kind of wanted to do it all – bakery, candy shop, ice creams – and one day I had a dream and it was [about] a Mexican ice cream/candy shop. I knew that’s what I wanted to do.” She started by selling paletas, the rectangular, flavorpacked ice pops on a stick that she had enjoyed as a child. “Every little town has at least one paletería (paleta shop) JW Magazine | jwmag.org

and to Mexicans, paletas are like gelatos to Italians, a delicious and integral part of the culture,” the La Newyorkina website explains. Gerson’s second cookbook, published in 2011, is devoted to the icy treat. Entitled Paletas (Ten Speed Press), it showcases many ways to make them. Either water or cream/milk based, you can include an array of fruits, spices, nuts and other ingredients. At Newyorkina, says Gerson, “We have a lineup of nine flavors that include coconut, pink limeade hibiscus, horchata [Mexican rice milk made with cinnamon] and Mexican chocolate.” The bestsellers are probably mango chile and cucumber lime, she adds. Other flavors come and go seasonally. The diversity of New York’s cultures and the flood of tourists to the city have created a varied clientele. “We have many different flavors to please all sorts of palates,” Gerson says. “The Europeans like simple, classic flavors like mango-blackberry, coconut and lime; Indians love the spicy flavors and the tamarind; Argentinians love the creamy ones like cajeta (goat’s milk caramel); and the New Yorkers are foodies and love to try different ones.” She started selling the ice pops in 2010 from a cart at the Hester Street fair. (On her website, the Village Voice is quoted as saying of them: “The best thing we ate at the Hester Street Fair.”) She now has three carts, in addition to her shop in Brooklyn. Her paletas are also available in other stores; a list of these appears on La Newyorkina’s website. The company also offers catering. Gerson’s native country is never far from her thoughts: A portion of La Newyorkina’s sales is donated to an organization called Crea that helps create employment opportunities in Mexico for low-income women. “These women are amazing and a continuous inspiration,” she says. Running La Newyorkina is wonderful, yet challenging, Gerson says. “I get to be creative and share part of my culture and my ideas.” Running a business, however, “is extremely stressful. You are married to your business so you miss out on a lot of important things but that is true of the food industry in general.”

(Avocado Ice Cream) Avocado is one of the many ingredients indigenous to the Americas, and luckily it is available in supermarkets all over the world. The Hass avocado is the creamiest and sweetest variety, but when it comes to sweet preparations, many may wonder – avocado ice cream? Most people have had avocado in a salty and/or spicy format, or at least as an accompaniment to something that is not primarily sweet. If you like avocado, however, you will really enjoy this ice cream. Its natural oil gives the ice cream a very smooth and silky mouthfeel, and the lime juice heightens its flavor. Although it may taste too sweet before freezing in the ice cream maker, it will be just right when it’s done. Makes about 1 quart Ingredients • 3 ripe Hass avocados • Juice of 2 limes • Pinch of salt • 1½ cups whole milk

She went through tough times when the kitchen where she makes her products was flooded by Hurricane Sandy. Coming back from this “has been a long process because the financial damages were substantial,” she says. “It has taken a long time to recuperate but I’ve had amazing support from family, friends and customers. I feel we are finally back on track to where we were heading prior to Sandy and are growing.”

1. Peel and pit the avocados.

A line of old-fashioned Mexican confections has been added to La Newyorkina’s offerings and Gerson is at work on a third cookbook – this one on Mexican ice creams. “I am so excited,” she says.

2. Place the avocado flesh in a blender with the lime juice, salt, milk, and sugar. Blend until smooth.

Running the company “has brought me closer to home,” she says. “It feels as though I was meant to do this. I feel this is my purpose.”

3. Freeze immediately in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Sue Tomchin is editor of JW magazine.

Helado de Aguacate

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• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar Directions

From My Sweet Mexico by Fany Gerson, used with permission.

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photo courtesy of Fany Gerson

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Paletas de Yogurt con Moras (Yogurt Ice Pops with Berries) The Greek-style yogurt provides a creamy consistency for this paleta, so you’ll have a rich mouthfeel without any of the guilt. This combination is really quite classic, but feel free to replace the blackberries with any other berry. If you want a marbled paleta, put the blackberries in a blender and sprinkle with confectioner's sugar to taste (just a little sweet) and whirl. Pour the mixture into the molds after adding the yogurt mixture, swirling with a skewer while you pour. Makes 8 to 10 Ingredients • 1 lemon

• 1 ½ cups plain unsweetened Greek-style yogurt

• ½ cup water

• 2 tablespoons honey

• ½ cup sugar

• 2 cups fresh blackberries, or the berry of your choice Directions

1. Rinse the lemon, then peel it. (This recipe uses only the peel, so save the lemon for a different use.) Combine the water and sugar in a small saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until the mixture comes to a boil and the sugar has dissolved. Add the lemon peel, lower the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Let cool to room temperature. Strain the syrup through a fine-mesh sieve, then refrigerate until chilled. 2. Add the yogurt and honey to the chilled syrup and stir until thoroughly combined. Put a bit of the yogurt mixture into each of the molds, to a height of about ¾ inch. Freeze until the mixture begins to set, about 40 minutes. 3. If the blackberries are big, cut them in half. Divide the blackberries among the molds, then pour in the remaining yogurt mixture, dividing it evenly among the molds. 4. If using conventional molds, snap on the lid and freeze until solid, 3 to 4 hours. If using glasses or other unconventional molds, freeze until the pops are beginning to set (45 minutes to 1 hour), then insert the sticks and freeze until solid, 3 to 4 hours. 5. If using an instant ice pop maker, gently fold the blackberries into the yogurt prior to filling the molds and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

From Paletas by Fany Gerson, used with permission.

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Paletas de Piña con Chile (Spicy Pineapple Ice Pops) In Mexico, fruit and chiles are often found together: in fruit stands, where ground chiles are sprinkled over freshly cut fruit; in fruit-flavored lollipops covered with ground chiles; and in many different ice pops. The spiciness in these ice pops comes from a chile-infused syrup and chunks of fresh pineapple tossed with ground chiles, so they have different layers of flavor and spiciness. Makes 8 to 10 Ingredients • 1 cup water

• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 1 to 2 teaspoons ground chiles (piquín, guajillo, or árbol)

• 1 small serrano or jalapeño pepper, split lengthwise

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 ripe pineapple, peeled Directions 1. Combine the water and sugar in a small saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until the mixture comes to a boil and the sugar has dissolved. Add the serrano, lower the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Let cool to room temperature. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. 2. Finely dice 1½ cups of the pineapple and coarsely chop the rest. Mixed the diced pineapple with the chile and salt and set aside. Put the coarsely chopped pineapple in a blender or food processor, pour in the syrup, lime juice, and blend until smooth. 3. Divide the blended mixture among the molds, leaving enough room for the diced pineapple. If using conventional molds, don’t snap on the lids yet. Freeze until the mixture has a slushy consistency, about 30 minutes. (This will prevent the diced pineapple from sinking to the bottom when added.) 4. Drop the diced pineapple into the ice pops, dividing it evenly among the molds. If it floats, push it down with a small spoon or an ice pop stick. 5. If using conventional molds, snap on the lid and freeze until solid, about 5 hours. If using glasses or other unconventional molds, freeze until the pops are beginning to set (45 minutes to 1 hour), then insert the sticks and freeze until solid, 3 to 4 hours. 6. If using an instant ice pop maker, mix the diced pineapple in with the blended mixture, then pour into the molds and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

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From Paletas by Fany Gerson, used with permission.

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SAVE THE DATE! 40

JWI's gala luncheon & awards will be Monday, December 7, 2015 at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Join us for the 15th annual celebration of extraordinary Jewish women and their achievements!

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the heat is on Barbecue is getting hot in the kosher world. BY SUE TOMCHIN

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rowing up kosher in the upper South, the world of barbecue with its swine-centric menu of spare ribs, pulled pork, and bacon-seasoned baked beans was pretty much a closed book to me. We would occasionally make kosher hamburgers or hot dogs on our portable charcoal grill and my dad would douse them in bottled barbecue sauce, but that was the extent of our foray into an otherwise verboten world. Apparently kosher cooks have gotten tired of standing on the outside looking in on this style of slow cooking over wood and charcoal that everyone else is rhapsodizing about. Kosher barbecue businesses are popping up in the New York area and beyond. A few years ago, Texas-born kosher chef, caterer and pit boss Ari White launched the Wandering Que, a travelling Texas kosher barbecue. Its centerpiece is a mammoth commercial-grade barbecue rig fueled by wood that “pops up” at street fairs, festivals and catering venues in the New York area. His slow roasted turkey legs were featured in New York magazine in 2013 and earlier this year he won first place in the innovation category in the Brisket King NYC contest. And two brick and mortar businesses are turning out smoked brisket and ribs among many other dishes: Milt’s BBQ for the Perplexed in the Chicago suburb of Lakeview, Ill., and Blue Star Kosher in the Washington ‘burbs.

cuit. The “granddaddy” or should we say “zayde” of them all is the World Kosher Barbecue Championship, born nearly three decades ago at Congregation Anshei SphardBeth El Emeth (ASBEE) in Memphis, Tenn., as an alternative to the city’s “long standing…contest of the swine variety.” The festival hosts more than 40 teams and more than 3,000 attendees and is one of the synagogue’s best fund raisers. And other communities have taken note of ASBEE’s success. Now there are 10 or so kosher barbecue festivals (see box) sponsored by synagogues, day schools and JCCs in such cities as Chicago, Kansas City, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and Fairfield, Conn. Among those who “got the barbecue bug” as she describes it, is Leah Cohen, 42, of Staten Island, N.Y. A biochemist and mother of four, Cohen has joined with her husband, Ari, and friends Zvi and Debra Moskowitz, to create “Breaking BBQ,” a team that has competed in kosher barbecue festivals in the region. Kosher barbecue competitions are generally “closed competitions,” Cohen explains. The organization sponsoring the gathering provides the meat, the grill and the charcoal, and all the other ingredients— wood chips, sauces, spices, etc.—that teams bring with them must be checked by the onsite rabbi.

Preparation is lengthy. Texas-based startup For a Sunday barbecue Summit Point Farms festival, Cohen explains, is featuring among its products kosher Hicko“You go Thursday night ry Smoked Sliced Brisand prepare the meat. ket, BBQ Pulled Chicken Saturday night you and even BBQ Baked start cooking.” Beans with Hickory Cohen says that she Smoked Meat that are has been one of the as close as the cooler The “Breaking BBQ” team includes, from left, Zvi Moskowitz, few women involved at of many kosher superDebra Moskowitz, Leah Cohen and Ari Cohen. the contests they’ve atmarkets. Rabbis are even getting into the act. This spring, Rabbi Mendel Segal, tended. “Not that many women stay up all night with the the executive director of Vaad HaKashruth of Kansas City, guys watching to make sure the coals don’t go out.” who organized the Kansas City Kosher BBQ Festival, inOne box of the finished product is presented to the judges troduced a rub and sauce under the RaBBiQ label. The rub and what remains is divided into small portions for the is lower in sodium to compensate for the fact that kosher crowd attending to sample. meats are already salted when they undergo the kashering process. Categories include brisket, chicken and ribs, but sometimes baked beans or chili. Judging is based on presentaAlongside – and sometimes predating these commercial tion, taste and texture. endeavors – is the growing kosher barbecue contest cir-

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“Many components go into the taste,” Cohen says. “Every team uses different spice rubs and sauces and different wood chips give different flavors. You also have to prepare the meat right or it won’t cook properly or be too tough.” Cohen and her husband are self-taught through reading books about barbecue, watching videos and learning from the people they’ve met along the way. They constantly work at perfecting their flavors. “We do a lot of practice sessions and have had people come and score us,” Cohen says. “Is it too sweet, too spicy?” So far, they’ve done well in the chicken and ribs categories. “Every time we compete we improve the scores,” she says.

The camaraderie of the kosher barbecue world is one of its draws, Cohen says. Her husband became involved because a friend from growing up was doing it. But, she adds, “Once we started getting into it, the flavors we were creating were amazing.” Last year, from Rosh Hashanah to Sukkot, she says that “80 percent of our meals were made on the barbecue.” The family owns two grills that use charcoal and wood chips and a Pit Barrel Smoker in which they have made brisket and turkey for Thanksgiving. Says Cohen, “There’s nothing like a piece of meat cooked long and slow over indirect heat.” Sue Tomchin is the editor of JW magazine.

2015 KOSHER BARBECUE FESTIVALS Chicago Kosher BBQ Competition and Festival June 14 Kansas City Vaad Kosher BBQ Festival August 16 Southern New England Kosher BBQ Championship and Festival August 30 Cleveland Kosher Rib Burn Off September 7 Charlotte Kosher BBQ Competition September 7 ASBEE World Kosher Barbecue Championship (Memphis) October 18 Atlanta Kosher BBQ Competition October 18 Dallas Kosher BBQ Championship October 25 JCC Barbecue CookOff and Festival (Las Vegas) October 25 The Texas Kosher Barbecue Championship (San Antonio) November 8

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stereotype is rapidly biting the dust – or maybe we should say going up in smoke.

has done her part to bring women into the grilling world through her website Girlsatthegrill.com, founded 14 years ago.

baked goods,” she says, and in summer she’ll even make crisps and cobblers on the grill and in the fall, gingerbread.

The image of a brawny shortsclad guy standing with tongs in hand, flipping burgers and dogs, the smoke from smoldering charcoal haloing his brow, is growing rarer. Not only are gas grills becoming more the norm, girls are taking their place grill-side along with the guys.

“With the advent of good gas grills, grilling has become as easy as flipping on a switch and is no longer messy or intimidating to women,” Karmel notes. And, even better, grilling is fun. “Cooking indoors is essentially solitary, but grilling is a social activity and takes the drudgery out of food preparation. Women like joining in. You feel a sense of adventure – it’s as close to taking a vacation as you can come, without leaving home.”

Because heat in a gas grill circulates like in a convection oven, you can make great bread on the grill, she adds. Loaves are crusty and evenly browned. “You can even make challah in your grill, but you have to put all bread on a cookie sheet.”

“I think originally – and by originally I mean at least 15 years ago – grilling was done by men because it wasn’t just about cooking outdoors, it was about fire-building,” says Elizabeth Karmel, aka “Grill Girl.” A nationally recognized authority on grilling, she

Karmel recommends purchasing the best quality and largest gas grill you can afford. You may find yourself using it more than your indoor oven. “The only thing I cook in my oven are

And thanks to grilling, brisket “isn’t just for the Jewish holidays anymore. It’s huge as an everyday food,” she says. Of course brisket on the grill is Texas-style barbecue brisket and not the traditional brisket braised with onion soup that falls apart when you spear it with your fork. Texas-style brisket is smoked on the grill until the interior reaches 180 degrees, she explains. It slices beautifully and is incredibly tender. Karmel has also had superb results with fish. One technique that she uses is to slather a fish steak like salmon or tuna with mayonnaise. “The mayonnaise holds the juice in and gives the fish a nice crust,” she explains. There are innumerable ways to prep and season food for the grill including marinades, brines, spice rubs, barbecue sauces and more, all of which Karmel explores in her book cookbook Soaked, Slathered and Seasoned, one of several she has written on grilling. But she believes

Move over, dudes: More and more women are warming up to the grill. BY SUE TOMCHIN 44

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that all one really needs to turn out delicious dishes – from fish to chicken to beef to vegetables – is “the trilogy – olive oil, salt and pepper.” she says. On the grill, says Karmel, “vegetables are transformed from something you have to eat to something you want to eat. It’s all about the caramelization. The difference between something grilled or roasted, and something steamed is a world of flavor.” The technique is simple, she explains: Wash your favorite vegetables; cut them up, though not too small; brush on some olive oil and sprinkle with salt; the heat of the grill transforms them and the little fat involved isn’t a problem. “It’s not like when you sauté and the vegetables drink up oil like a sponge. On the grill you need just enough oil to coat your food.” Cooking on the grill is done either directly or indirectly. The key to knowing whether to use direct or indirect heat for foods on the grill is a food’s size and density. “My rule of thumb is the lighter and smaller the food, the less time it will take to cook,” Karmel says. Potatoes, even new potatoes, are dense and can take 40 minutes or more to cook using indirect heat. Asparagus takes only a few minutes and is cooked directly over the flame. The same is true of corn on the cob, which cooks in a few minutes. “The main thing is to buy corn in the husk,” Karmel explains. “Soak it in the sink for 30 minutes. Shake off the extra water. Then grill it over direct heat, turning occasionally, for about 10 minutes or so, depending on how fresh the corn is.” After grilling the corn you can cut it off the cob and turn it into a salad. She combines grilled corn, fresh tomatoes, basil, olive oil and vinegar to make a flavorful salad. “It’s colorful and delicious and defines summer for me.” With the grill, having people over to dinner stops being something you stress over. “I have a menu I call my ‘back pocket dinner,’” she says. “It’s the dinner I make if people are coming over and I only have one hour to get ready. I make my Beer Can Chicken, grilled asparagus, and sweet potato chips. If I have extra time I also make corn bread. Everyone loves it.” Elizabeth Karmel is a barbecue and Southern foods expert. She is the founder of Girlsatthegrill.com and the chef and pitmaster at CarolinaCueToGo.com, an online Barbecue Shack. She is also the author of three award-winning books, including Taming the Flame and Soaked, Slathered and Seasoned.

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the original beer-can chicken Grilling Method: Indirect/Medium Heat Special Equipment: Chicken Sitter (optional) Ingredients •

One 4- to 5-pound roasting chicken

•

Olive oil

•

One 12-ounce can of beer

•

3 tablespoons of your favorite dry spice rub recipe, divided, or Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper Directions

Remove neck and giblets and rinse chicken inside and out if desired; pat dry with paper towels. Coat chicken lightly with oil and season with 2 tablespoons dry rub. Set aside. If you prefer a more classic roasted chicken flavor, omit the dry rub and use only Kosher salt and black pepper.

2. Use a Chicken Sitter or a beer can. If using a Chicken Sitter, pour the beer inside the Chicken Sitter. If using a beer can, open beer can, pour out about ¼ cup of the beer and make an extra hole in top of the can with church key can opener. 3. Sprinkle the remaining tablespoon of the dry rub inside beer can. 4. Place beer can in center of cooking grate and "sit" chicken on top of the beer can. The chicken will appear to be “sitting” on the grate. 5. Twist wings “akimbo” and make sure that the drumsticks are in front of the beer can – this will stabilize the chicken on the cooking grate. 6. Cook chicken for 1-1½ hours or until the internal temperature registers 165°F in the breast area and 180°F in the thigh. Remove from grill and let rest for 10 minutes before carving. When removing from grate, be careful not to spill contents of beer can, as it will be very hot. Serves 4 ©2015 Elizabeth A. Karmel, Girls at the Grill®

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grilled sweet potato chips Grilling Method: Indirect/Medium Heat Ingredients •

2 medium sweet potatoes, preferably garnet (red-skinned) variety

•

Olive oil

•

Kosher salt Directions

Directions: 1.

Peel sweet potatoes and slice into ½-inch thick slices. Brush or spray lightly with olive oil. (If you are making these for a crowd – as I do a lot – put the potatoes in a re-closeable plastic bag, add the oil and massage to coat all surfaces; this method works best, and it is the fastest and easiest to boot.)

2. Just before placing on the grill, season liberally with salt. 3. Place rounds directly on the cooking grate over direct heat and grill 2-3 minutes on each side or until well-marked. They will still be raw and will need about 20-30 more minutes to cook through. 4. Move to indirect heat to finish cooking, and turn halfway through cooking time. (I place the sweet potatoes on the warming rack of my grill.) 5. When soft and tender, remove from grill and enjoy immediately. They are best still hot, like French fries. If you are serving them room temperature, brush with a little best-quality olive oil and sprinkle with salt. ©2015 Elizabeth A. Karmel, Girls at the Grill®

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great grilled asparagus Grilling Method: Direct/Medium Heat Ingredients •

1 pound fresh asparagus (Look for fat firm stalks with firm deep green or purplish tips. Also check the bottom of the spears. If they are dried up, chances are they have been sitting around for too long.)

•

4 tablespoons olive oil

•

½-1 teaspoon Kosher salt (use salt according to taste) Directions

Trim off the tough bottom of the spear by grasping each end and bending it gently until it snaps at its natural point of tenderness – usually two-thirds of the way down the spear. If the spear is less than 6 inches long, chances are it has already been trimmed for you. Alternatively, you can cut the ends off with a knife.

2. Coat each spear with olive oil by placing clean, dry spears in a re-closable plastic bag, pour in the oil and massage spears to coat each one with oil. Sprinkle with salt and massage again. Leave the asparagus in the bag until ready to cook. This can be done up to 1 day in advance – refrigerate until grilling. 3. Place each stalk on the cooking grate crosswise so it won’t fall through the grates. Grill for 10-15 minutes, turning occasionally to expose all sides to the heat. Asparagus should begin to brown in spots (indicating that its natural sugars are caramelizing) but should not be allowed to char. 4. Remove from grill and serve immediately – eating with your fingers enhances the experience. Serves 4 ©2015 Elizabeth A. Karmel, Girls at the Grill® JW Magazine | jwmag.org

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"secret ingredient" grilled skillet cornbread Grilling Method: Indirect/High Heat Special Equipment: Cast-iron skillet Ingredients •

1 cup all-purpose flour

•

1 cup milk (coconut milk can be substituted to keep corn bread pareve—Editor)

•

1 cup yellow or white cornmeal

•

1 teaspoon sugar

•

⅛ cup olive oil or melted butter

•

2 teaspoons baking powder

•

1 generous heaping cup canned creamed corn

•

1 teaspoon sea salt

•

1 large egg

2 tablespoons butter (or olive oil to keep corn bread pareve—Editor)

Directions 1.

Mix flour and cornmeal. Add sugar, baking powder and salt. Using a wire whisk, mix until well combined and set aside. In a separate bowl, mix egg, milk and oil.

2. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Add creamed corn and mix until just combined. 3. Do not over mix. Set aside. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil in 10-inch cast iron skillet. Once butter is melted and pan is hot, pour batter directly into warm skillet. 4. Place skillet immediately in the center of cooking grate. Place lid on grill and cook over indirect high heat (about 450°F) for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when placed in the center. 5. Cut and serve from pan while still warm. Serves 4 ©2015 Elizabeth A. Karmel, Girls at the Grill® Recipe adapted from Taming the Flame by Elizabeth Karmel (John Wiley & Sons, 2005, $24.95)

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tri-berry crisp with pecan topping Grilling Method: Indirect/High Heat Ingredients Streusel Topping

Berry Filling

• 1½ cups packed light brown sugar

• 2 pints strawberries, halved

• 1½ cups all-purpose flour

• 2 pints blueberries

• 1½ cups regular or quick-cooking oatmeal (not instant)

• 2 pints blackberries or raspberries

• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans

• 1 lemon, zested and juiced

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• ½ to ⅔ cup sugar, depending on sweetness of fruit

• ½ teaspoon Kosher salt

• ¼ cup cornstarch

• ¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter (or pareve margarine –Editor), softened, cut into small pieces

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1 orange, zested and juiced

• 2 to 3 tablespoons Grand Marnier, optional

Directions 1. Build a charcoal fire or preheat a gas grill. 2. Make the streusel: In a large bowl, combine all the topping ingredients except the butter or margarine. Work in the butter with a pastry blender or fork until the mixture resembles large, coarse bread crumbs. Set aside. 3. Make the filling: In another large bowl, mix the berries together. Add the orange juice, lemon juice, orange and lemon zests, sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon; mix lightly. Add the Grand Marnier, if using. Set aside for 5 minutes. 4. Place the berry mixture in an ovenproof, 4-quart, round casserole or soufflé dish. Top it evenly with the streusel mixture. Place the dish in the center of the cooking grate over Indirect medium heat, cover, and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until bubbly and the top is browned. Transfer the baking dish to a cooling rack. Serve warm with ice cream, if desired. Serves 6 to 8 ©2015 Elizabeth A. Karmel, Girls at the Grill® Recipe adapted from Taming the Flame by Elizabeth Karmel (John Wiley & Sons, 2005, $24.95)

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You’ve had a lot to drink; why don’t you lay down in my room. I make sure you get home safe. It’s on us to change the culture. Start the conversation here.

jwi.org/ssd

READ Lauren Rothman has a recent book and a growing cadre of clients seeking her advice on how to be appropriate and stylish in the workplace. BY ELIANA BLOCK

hen, as a toddler, Lauren Rothman uttered her first words outside a Neiman Marcus in Miami, it heralded what she has become known as today – the “Styleauteur.” A fashion, style, and trend expert, she keeps her finger on the pulse of fashion, advising both organizations and individuals about style and wardrobe. The individual clients she works with aren’t fashion plates, but “real people” who may wear size-12 skirts, still apply the same shade of lipstick from their teen years, and never consider the possibility that wearing a favorite Looney Tunes tie could delay their promotions at work. They walk into corporate meetings and through office mailrooms, not down runways. Rothman dresses the everyday person, and her new book, Style Bible: What to Wear to Work, is becoming their holy grail, offering advice for the modern professional on how to dress to create the right image in the workplace. Rothman grew up a “Jewban” in Miami (her mother was born in Cuba), but is now based in Washington, DC. She travels widely to lead seminars on executive presence and her expert style advice has been featured in Glamour, Real Simple, the Washington Post, and on Oprah.com. She also writes on style and politics for the Huffington Post and has been interviewed on ABC News, CNN, and The Insider. Now, she turns guidebook guru, defining “business casual” and decoding the do’s and don’ts of dress, while following her mantra: “If you’re going to spend money on clothes, you might as well make the best decisions possible.” JW Magazine | jwmag.org

My mom is my style icon because I always admired her confidence and eye for style when I was growing up. I love to dress up and get inspiration everywhere, from designers on the red carpet to leading women on television shows like Alicia Florrick on The Good Wife.

WHAT’S THE BEST PART OF YOUR JOB? The moment when I can have a woman see herself in the mirror the way that I truly see her. It happened the other day, a client had tears of joy in her eyes when she finally connected with her reflection. It’s a moment I look forward to and I hope I can connect to someone in such a strong way that she can let go of her insecurities. I feel really lucky.

HOW HAS LIFE CHANGED SINCE THE RELEASE OF YOUR NEW BOOK? It’s like getting a PhD. All of a sudden, I’m an “expert” in the true sense of the word. It’s fun to be quoted as an author of a book! I think the perception, in terms of my expertise, has opened a lot of doors with corporate clients and a lot of opportunities for speaking and motivational talks. It has certainly helped me grow my business.

HOW DO YOU STAY FASHION-FORWARD? A lot of shopping! “Shopping” is always my favorite word because it doesn’t always mean buying. I’m just out there in the stores scouting, [which] is the primary thing I do whether it’s in New York, Miami, L.A., San Francisco, or D.C. So much is available online that it’s not necessary to travel to see a fashion show. Because my clients are real people with 56

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real bodies, the higher-end fashion shows aren’t always as applicable to them. For me it’s really about seeing what’s new in a store.

IF I DON’T KNOW WHETHER I’M PEAR- OR APPLESHAPED, SPORTY OR BOYISH – HOW DO I KNOW WHICH CLOTHES ARE RIGHT FOR ME? I identify all those shapes in my book. Many people are a blend of shapes, so you can be an apple and a pear! The hardest muscle to move in my fitting room is always going to be your mindset – it’s never going to be jiggling those hips into a pair of jeans. It’s always going to be the mental jump and trusting that the way you’ve been dressing yourself for the past twenty years might not actually be what looks best on you. That’s a huge revelation for a lot of women, because a lot of women are very drawn to clothing that doesn’t necessarily match their features or their lifestyles.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT ONLINE SHOPPING? Online shopping is great for the expert shopper but is often overused by the novice. The safest way to use online shopping is for replenishment, meaning you already love those jeans and you’re really just going to buy a pair of the exact same ones, and shoe shopping at Zappos and Nordstrom, free shipping both ways. A lot of mistakes are made with online shopping and returns create such a paralysis for many women. So if you are going to do online shopping, be careful, don’t do it late at night with a glass of wine, check the return policy, and be ready to make a trip to the post office, if necessary.

images by Freepik.com

WHO IS YOUR FASHION ICON?

ARE LEGGINGS AN OFFICE NO-NO? Retailers are marketing to try to get stuff out of their stores, so if the stores are stocked with leggings, they’re going to show you a million different ways to wear them. Does that mean that offices are going to approve of how you’re going to wear them? No! There are always going to be those people who can sort of sidestep those rules, sure; that’s why I don’t call them “rules” because they’re not; they are guidelines. My guidelines aren’t for those select few who know how to navigate the fashion waters; my advice is really for the everyday average person who feels overwhelmed when she goes into a store.

IF YOU RUN LATE, IS IT ACCEPTABLE TO DO YOUR MAKEUP IN THE OFFICE BATHROOM OR EVEN IN THE CAR? Yes, you can! I see people do it in the car all the time; we’re all time-starved, so whenever you can, you want to set yourself up for success. There are some days that you might decide can be your five-minute makeup days rather than your 15-minute makeup days. On those days, you just might want a little tinted moisturizer before you leave the house.

IS IT EVER A GOOD IDEA TO BUY CLOTHES FOR A FRIEND? I think accessories are better! The best gift is to buy something they want but would never buy themselves! Right now 3D jewelry, like ear jackets, are really in.

YOU GO INTO DETAIL MORE IN YOUR BOOK, BUT WHAT’S THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FADS AND TRENDS? A fad is something that is very, very fluid. It’s in now and it’s out later, so it may only last a season. A trend is more of an overarching philosophy; something like floral is a spring trend; we see it every year at this time. Nautical is a trend, but the fad would be culottes. They’re here this year, but they may not be here next year, and that means that anybody who is anybody will try to put them on this year. They won’t work for everybody. Next year the only people who will wear them are the people that culottes look good on.

WHICH STYLE TRENDS HAVE SURPRISED YOU? Skinny jeans and leggings are the biggest ones! I think they really changed the face of how women dressed. For so long women wore boot-cut jeans, wide-leg jeans and trouser pants, and over the last five years every woman has gotten used to seeing herself in a slimmer leg. [The others are] still around but what’s coming back now are the bell-bottom and the wide-leg, which will mean that the face of denim will change, which would be refreshing because we’ve been seeing a skinny silhouette for such a long time now.

Eliana Block is an intern at JW magazine.

Don’t show spaghetti straps, exposed bra straps, or excessive cleavage. Camouflage VPL (visible panty lines). Look in the mirror and bend over to avoid flashing a skin belt or muffin top. Don’t wear sheer, tight, short, backless, strapless, or otherwise revealing clothing. Don’t wear stained, ripped, or frayed clothes. Avoid wrinkled or ill-fitting clothes. Don’t wear casual leggings or yoga pants. Don’t wear flip-flops, Uggs, Crocs or cowboy boots. Avoid chipped or dirty nails, unshaved legs, and body odor. Avoid heavy makeup and frizzy or unkempt hair. JW Magazine | jwmag.org

Tweet Others as You'� Wan� to be Tweete�

Author, mom and social media blogger Galit Breen’s new book helps parents teach kids how to be kind online BY BRETT SACHS

As a 20-year-old, I’ve been there since the beginning of most major social media crazes. After begging for months in seventh grade to get a Facebook account, Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest came much easier. I was fortunate enough to have an over-involved mother, who was there every step of my social media journey, from helping create my passwords to “liking” all of my profile pictures. It seemed as though social media was all fun and games until it took a turn for the worse with the rise of the anonymous websites. From Formspring to YikYak, people had a platform to say things anonymously without facing any consequences they would have had to face in person. This seemed to open the door for social media to become used as a shiny new tool for bullies. What once happened on school playgrounds or in lunch lines at the cafeteria is now happening in every corner of our lives, thanks to laptops, tablets, and phones. This is a problem of my generation that our parents have inherited, with no experience in how to handle it. Parents must confront the fact that their children can be targeted and harmed by cyberbullying – and the damage may be happening without their kids confiding their pain. All we can do now is move forward by navigating the social media world together, hand in hand, post by post. 58

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Today, parents can breathe a little easier and guide their children with much more confidence thanks to Galit Breen. In her new book Kindness Wins, the mother of three, freelance writer, and author of the blog These Little Waves tackles the territory of teaching cyber-kindness by laying out ten simple, but important lessons for 21st century parents. Breen’s ten lessons are delivered in an intimate, conversational style, breaking down a potentially difficult topic into an engaging discussion, complete with personal experiences and metaphoric hand-holding. Most of the advice stems from the need to remember that there is someone sitting on the other side of the screen. As she explains, “When we text and comment and ‘like’ – and don't ‘like’ – it's easy to forget this, because we can't see reactions to our actions.”

photo by Nicole Spangler Photography

Breen delves into a variety of topics – the lack of privacy that truly exists on the internet, the importance of gaining permission before posting someone else’s content, and avoiding discussion about other people’s bodies. As she notes, “The words people say to us and about us become our own self-talk.” What enlightened Breen to the potential pain that social media could inflict was a personal encounter with cyberbullying in the comments section of a June 2014 article she wrote for the Huffington Post. Breen included a candid, glowing wedding photo of her and her husband, to complement her article “12 Secrets Happily Married Women Know.” A short while after the article posted, Breen peeked at the comment section only to be hit with an onslaught of negative responses. They didn’t focus on the content of the article but rather on her weight and how her body looked in the photograph. Tapping into her expertise in education, child-rearing, and human development, Breen set out to counter the culture of cruelty on the internet. Kindness Wins is the result of that journey. Breen’s lessons are applicable not only to parents, but to anyone online, which today includes almost everybody. Kindness Wins reminds children and adults alike that actions have real consequences, whether online or in person. Breen does her part in helping to change the social media culture into a place where we expect kindness and are taken aback by bullying, not the other way around. Brett Sachs, an intern at JWI, is a junior at Vanderbilt University.

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1 in 3 teens experiences

physical, sexual,

emotional or verbal

abuse from a

dating partner. Most victims tell no one.

TEENS NEED TO TALK. Learn how to start the conversation at jwi.org/datingabuse

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