Chef David Kogan of Ecstatic Cuisine looks at the cleaning list to prepare the Texas Hillel Center kitchen for Passover. All bread products must be removed before the holiday.

(link to article)

By Pierre Bertrand

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

When it comes to Passover Seders, there are many ways in which the Jewish holiday, which begins Monday night, can be celebrated.

Jews might revert to their family traditions, or they might create their own version of the 2,000-year-old ceremony, which celebrates when Jews led by Moses left Egypt and went from slavery to freedom. But what do you do when you’re in college and faced with your first Passover Seder, one of the most holy observances in Judaism, without your family or loved ones?

That’s where Devora Brustin steps in. A Jewish educator for the past 21 years, Brustin leads a project as part of the Texas Hillel Center to get a select group of interns to create their own Seders. The interns are all part of the Campus Entrepreneurs Initiative, a nationwide program designed to get young Jews engaged in their communities and reconnecting with their faith. The initiative has been in place at the Texas Hillel Center for three years. Brustin also teaches a cooking class, JSNACK, for Hillel.

The campus initiative is designed to get Jewish students to seek Jews on the periphery and get them involved with the Jewish community. It’s not religious conversion, just a way for Jews to reconnect, Brustin said.

Because many Jews do not practice Judaism in the same way, the initiative helps bridge the gap.

“I feel everybody gets to choose how they will engage Jewishly,” Brustin said.

The roughly 10 interns have the following mission: Plan a Seder that will be personally meaningful to them and their friends, and any others to whom they would like to extend an invitation.

Their personalized Seders, during which the students are encouraged to discuss contemporary social conflicts, including modern slavery, help draw parallels to their past. But Brustin said this also is a way for young Jews to take their faith into their hands and choose how they want to celebrate.

“This is a time to explore and question, ‘What is true for me?’ ” Brustin said. “When (Jews) haven’t taken account of their Jewish identity, they take the Haggadah (the prayer book for the Seder) and read it from beginning to end. If it’s meaningful for them through tradition, great, but I want to go deeper.”

While the interns will be responsible for creating their own Seders, the Hillel will be preparing food for the students to take. Many Jews will do two Seders, one Monday night and one Tuesday night. Ecstatic Cuisine’s general manager and director of catering, David Kogan, said his company will be preparing Seder dinners and ready-to-go meals from Hillel’s kitchen. Menu options include roasted vegetables, a whole glazed side of salmon, brisket and turkey breasts along with more traditional Seder items, including matzo stuffing and charoset. This year is the first time the company also will be providing catered dinners to the general public, he said.

Between dinners being held at the center, those being organized by the students, those facilitated between the center and host families, and others organized in the Jewish fraternities around the University of Texas campus, there will be at least 10 Seders.

Though Brustin is trying to get young people connected to Jewish traditions, she admits, some people could regard her attempts at making Seders more engaging as an unintentional dilution of Jewish faith. For Brustin, however, Passover Seders are more about individuals’ personal attachment to how and why they are celebrating rather than the method in which people observe Passover.

“I would rather have people find a meaningful connection than do nothing,” she said.

Debbi Wolfson, a junior studying anthropology, said she was planning to have a wine and cheese party at her apartment, rather than a more conventional Seder. She said she wanted to have a simple gathering that stayed away from the lengthy service typical of more traditional Seders.

“You want to be surrounded by people,” Wolfson said. “It’s fun. Everyone can enjoy it. You don’t have to be super-religious or even Jewish.”

Last year Wolfson participated in Brustin’s cooking class and wanted to stay involved.

“I love to cook and love to bake,” Wolfson said. “I really wanted to build on that experience.”

International nutrition junior Jackie Anderson said she will host what she calls a gratitude picnic in Hemphill Park. She said her picnic will focus on freedom and slavery, in a attempt to have her guests appreciate everything they have and recognize how free they are. She is still coming up with ideas, she said, but she is toying with the thought of having her guests blindfolded and gradually unbound to symbolize their progressive spiritual awakening as well as instigate an appreciation for spring, rebirth and renewal.

“I really wanted to put in mind that we are so lucky,” Anderson said.

For Anderson, being a part of this initiative is a way to bring disconnected Jews closer to their community. She was herself uninvested in Judaism until, prompted by her own interest, Hillel members reached out to her; now she wants to do the same for others.

“I think people think Judaism is all about religion,” Anderson said. “It doesn’t matter what you believe. It’s your own Jewish journey.”

Jesse and David - Front page of Statesman.com

Cover Photo

The Austin American-Statesman is currently running a story about Ecstatic Cuisine Kosher. The story is on today’s Section B front page as well as featured on their homepage. Very exciting!

-

In thriving kosher food industry, Ecstatic Cuisine finds a niche

Austin’s sole kosher catering company also earns new ethical seal.

By Joshunda Sanders and AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

The kosher food industry brought in $12.5 billion in 2008, a 64 percent increase since 2003, research firm Mintel reported in 2009.

For Austin chefs Jesse Bloom and David Kogan, that figure is not surprising. They operate Ecstatic Cuisine, a cafe at the Texas Region XIII Education Service Center in Northeast Austin. Two years ago, they launched Ecstatic Cuisine Kosher, which is Austin’s only certified kosher catering business.

“With the growth of the Jewish community in Austin, the need for kosher food has grown as well,” Kogan said.

An estimated 12,000 Jews live in Austin, and though it’s unknown how many of them follow kosher dietary laws — which can include limits on the way animals are slaughtered and on the mixing of meat and dairy — 90 percent of the chefs’ business comes from the Dell Jewish Community Center and the Texas Hillel, an organization for Jewish students at the University of Texas.

But the Jewish population accounts for only part of kosher food’s popularity — those who keep kosher for religious reasons account for about 14 percent of the market, according to Mintel. The number of business clients requesting kosher food also has grown, Kogan said. Austin-area hotels such as the Hilton, the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center, and the Barton Creek Resort & Spa have ordered kosher meals for their guests.

“The increase has come from people hosting out-of-town guests who may keep kosher, so everyone ends up eating kosher,” Kogan said.

Bloom started Ecstatic Cuisine in February 2009 as a cafe and catering company with a focus on local and organic food. The cafe serves thousands of teachers who come to the building for testing annually, but it is not kosher.

Kogan and Bloom met when Kogan was in charge of a kosher cafe and catering at Texas Hillel. Kogan became a consultant for Bloom, and when the Texas Hillel built a kosher kitchen, the chefs began cooking together.

“Kosher in the global sense has a reputation for being bad food because it’s usually prepared off-site,” like a frozen airline meal, Kogan said. By offering his clients kosher barbecue, for example — smoked brisket and beef sausage with coleslaw — as well as traditional holiday foods such as potato pancakes and challah bread, he and Bloom aim to “show that kosher food can be just as gourmet as anyone else’s food.”

Ecstatic Cuisine Kosher is overseen, or supervised, by Dallas Kosher, a certification agency. Certification agencies provide kosher companies with extensive reviews of food formulas, equipment and raw ingredients to ensure that they meet kosher standards. Kogan and Bloom get most of their food locally, but the kosher meat is shipped from vendors in New York.

The source of kosher meat has become a hot topic after Iowa-based Agriprocessors, the largest kosher meat packing facility in the United States, was raided by federal authorities and closed in 2008 after harsh treatment of animals and workers became well-known.

That led University of Texas alumnus Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz and hundreds of other Jewish leaders to boycott the business as part of Yanklowitz’s New York-based Orthodox social justice organization, Uri L’Tzedek. In 2009, he created Tav HaYosher, a seal indicating that a kosher business operates ethically by paying their workers a fair wage, Yanklowitz said.

“Jews who aren’t normally interested in keeping kosher are becoming more interested because it speaks more to their values, and ethical transparency is becoming easier for them because they don’t have to find out if someone is certified or not,” Yanklowitz said.

In October, Ecstatic Cuisine Kosher became the first business in Texas to earn that seal, Yanklowitz said.

The seal “gives us another way to showcase that we run a business of high standards for food and labor and decision-making,” Bloom said.

The business is “not worth doing unless it’s creating some kind of social good,” he added. “To me, that’s a pretty Jewish idea.”

jsanders@statesman.com; 445-3630

]]> http://www.ecstaticcuisine.com/2010/12/ecstatic-cuisine-kosher-in-the-statesman/feed/ 0 http://www.ecstaticcuisine.com/2010/12/cafe-closed-reopen-on-january-3rd/ http://www.ecstaticcuisine.com/2010/12/cafe-closed-reopen-on-january-3rd/#comments Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:49:34 +0000 Kassie http://www.ecstaticcuisine.com/?p=1932 Hello everyone,

The Ecstatic Cuisine Cafe will be closed for the holidays. We will reopen on Monday, January 3rd. We are still available for holiday caterings or to answer any general catering inquiries. Contact us at info@ecstaticcuisine.com or 512-919-5100.

Hope everyone has a lovely holiday!

We kick off this summer season by participating in Slow Food Austin‘s Happy Hour event at Boggy Creek Farm on Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 5:00PM. Ecstatic Cuisine is a great supporter of the slow food movement and will be preparing a menu based on all the great things slow food has to offer.

Zucchini Bread Croutons with Local Tasso  Cream Cheese

Gazpacho Soup Shooters garnished with Tako Salad

Grilled Local Squash Lasagna

French Potato Salad

Boggy Creek Greens Salad

Intrigued? Confused? Want to know more about the slow food movement?

Well, the slow food movement works to promote biodiversity in our food supply, gastronomic education in our communities, and facilitate connections between ethical and delicious food producers and co-producers. The movement seeks to help people rediscover excellent food and better understand where their food comes from, who makes it, and how it’s made.

So, if you’re interested in meeting the those behind the food that you eat, please come down to the Slow Food Austin event. We would love to meet you! Please see flyer below for more details.

The Edible Austin Tea Festival is a gathering of the Austin area’s fine tea purveyors and tea rooms who will sample and demonstrate all that is mysterious and wonderful about tea. Chef Jesse Bloom of Ecstatic Cuisine will offer tea-paired food plates for $10/ plate. Also featuring tea talks, demonstrations, traditional tea ceremonies and tea products for sale. Tea participants include Barefoot Botanicals, Buddah’s Brew, Jade Leaves, Sesa Tea, Steeping Room, Sweet Leaf Tea, Tea Embassy, Texas Medicinals and Zhi Tea. The Tea Festival is also a stop on the Urban Farm Bicycle Tour

A portion of proceeds go to Urban Roots, a youth development program that uses sustainable agriculture as a means to transform the lives of young people and to increase the access of healthy food in Austin. 15 farm interns, ages 14-17, are hired to work from February to July, growing more than 22,000 lbs of produce every year—donating 40% of that to hunger relief and selling 60% at farmers’ markets and farm stands run by the farm interns.

Photo courtesy of www.youthlaunch.org

For more information, check out our Facebook invitation and Do512 Event Listing.

Our menu at the cafe will be totally locally sourced from Dec. 8 – 11, so please come out to support Central Texas farmers and try some seasonal delicacies!

(For more events and activities during Eat Local Week, check out Edible Austin’s event page and here to check out foods in season and farms and resources involved in next week’s festivities.)

Slow Food is an international, member-supported, non-profit organization that works to promote biodiversity in our food supply, gastronomic education in our communities and facilitate connections between ethical and delicious food producers and co-producers. Slow Food seeks to help people rediscover excellent food and better understand where their food comes from, who makes it and how it’s made.

The organization has chapters in every major city throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, Japan and many other countries.

Slow Food organizes fairs, markets and events locally and internationally to showcase products of excellent gastronomic quality and to offer discerning consumers the opportunity to meet producers.

The Austin Discovery School/Slow Food Feast in the Field is Saturday October 24 from 7pm – 11pm. Purchase tickets for the event or become a Slow Food member.

Curtis Williams (left) and Andy Erwin.

Curtis and Andy’s passion for food extends far beyond Thai Peanut Noodles or the Green Chile Mac and Cheese with Oven Fried Chicken on this week’s menu.  When they aren’t running the Ecstatic Kitchen they somehow manage to find the time (and water) to cultivate their family farms.  Andy uses his scraps to feed the chickens on his permaculture inspired farm near Manor.  Curtis’ Bastrop gardens are currently blossoming with Okra and Tomatoes and less common plants like Epozote, which we use in our black beans.

When they aren’t planting or cooking Curtis is playing or teaching Capoeira with the Project Abundant Life and Andy is hanging out with his wife Shahnaz, and daughters Mila  and Mecca.

Our employee composting initiative adds a sense of reality and immediacy to our “green efforts.”   It is great to know that our food waste is being used to fertilize new growth.  Hopefully someday soon Ecstatic Cuisine will be using the fruits of these labors in our food. We’ll keep you posted.