Thinks Giving

A few thoughts about my favorite holiday.  Aside from the obvious reasons (food, family, 90210 marathon on SoapNet, et cetera), Thanksgiving is the highlight of the PopKosher year because it is a secularly celebrated day that offers Jews full and complete participation.  Thanks to President FDR, its Thursday status steers clear of Sabbath violations.  Its origin and imagery contain no overtly heretical or offensive themes.  But most importantly, its traditional foods are kosher!

I don't think it's a coincidence that this major American holiday accommodates Jews so well.  Rather, Thanksgiving is essentially a Jewish holiday adapted by America.  Afterall, Jews lichrally wrote the book on fleeing religious persecution.  The Separatist Pilgrims schlepped across the Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower.  For us, the Red Sea parted, and we schlepped across on foot.

Okay, this might take you back a lifetime or two, but around now I like to dust off this clip from the 1986 Oscar winner for Best Live Action Short.  I first saw Molly's Pilgrim on a mid-November day in elementary school, luckily before my tear ducts fully matured.

And so, 389 Thanksgivings after that first New England one, we once again give thanks for our family, friends, health and the freedom and tolerance we experience in America, and hope that someday soon the persecuted can stop schlepping.

Paying the Price for Candy Corn

 

Pssssst.  Come closer.  I have a secret, but you can’t tell anyone.  Promise?  Swear??  Okay, here it is.  Kosher candy corn is sold all year-round.  Way!

Every time I visit the Kosher Experience section of my local ShopRite, I make sure to check the low shelf in a back corner to see that my stash of O’Goody’s yellow-orange-white kernels remains plentiful.  And alas, my candy corn cup runneth over.

I acknowledge and appreciate this abundance, and for most weeks of the year consider it a true blessing.  However, we currently find ourselves in those few weeks where the existence of that blessing becomes a curse – our sugary Achilles Heel.  Since Halloween is not celebrated by the majority of people who would only eat kosher candy corn, its demand throughout the year remains constant.  There is no need, then, for seasonal promotion – read: IT NEVER FREAKING GOES ON SALE!

Thanks to our OU-certified friends at Jelly Belly, this seasonal outlet is the closest we can get.  Enjoy.

The best part of Halloween is the post-Halloween, Jason Voorhees-style price-slashing on all fun-sized confections.  This year was especially torturous for me with the emergence of CC flavors like blackberry cobbler and crème brûlée for less than ¾ of a dollar!

 

In the world of mainstream candy, candy corn remains on my running list of treif hold-outs that could easily be made kosher with some adjustments (I’m talking to you, Peeps!).

But that’s just between you and me.

Playing the Stock Market

Stock-in-a-box.  Anyone who has ever watched an episode of 30 Minute Meals knows that it is the key to slow-cooked flavor in quick-cooking recipes.  Seriously, there’s a place for it in just about everything:  boil rice and grains in it, flavor sauces, make soups, even trade it for EVOO in low-fat salad dressings.  Rachael Ray liked it, so she put her Adirondack face on it.  I’ve tried to mimic stock’s magical powers with Osem's fake chicken powder – which is, when added to water, kinda the same.

Enter Imagine Foods.  Their wide variety of OU-certified boxed soups has always been impressive, but it’s the addition of kosher chicken broth (OU Meat) to their line that blew my mind.  I snapped this picture on a recent trip to Whole Foods.

It gives me a warm tingle when I see kosher products standing tall, side-by-side on the same self as their trief counterparts; proudly canoeing down the mainstream.  Call it assimilation.  Call it marketing.  Call it yum-O.

Glee-filte Fish

What’s the best part of Fox's megahit Glee?  The singing?  No.  Dancing?  Nope.  The unbridled hope and ambition of talented youth?  Uh-uh.

Give up?  It’s the Jew-cy one-liners served up by super hot Member of the Tribe, Noah Puckerman.

Last night's episode, “Never Been Kissed,” featured Puck’s return from a stint in a juvenile detention center, where apparently exists a dire lack of both chicks and kosher meal options.  Puck is unfortunately not the first bad-ass bocher to land in jail, so resources like the Aleph-Institute are out there for the next time he drives his mom's Volvo into a convenience store and leaves with the ATM.  It could happen to anyone.

 "There's no way I'm going back to Juvie. There's no chicks and no kosher meal options at that place."

Sure, a lot about Puck is not very kosher (ie:  Puckerman family Simchat Torah sweet-and-sour pork/Schindler’s List minhag).  But the combination of his unusual Jewish beefiness and acoustic guitar talents (ask any Jewish girl who went to sleep away camp what I mean) has us praying for his rehabilitation and successful immersion back into society.

Puck, if you’re out there, you’re not alone.  Chabad of Greater Dayton is just 70 miles from Lima.  I hear Rabbi Mangel there does an awesome mash-up of Hava Nagila and Adam Sandler’s The Hanukkah Song.  You might even prefer the more traditional, Schnapps-fueled Simchat Torah celebration.

Not Your Zayde's Cel-Ray

 

It seems only fitting that the inaugural Pop Kosher blog post would be about, well, pop.  The innovative mixologists at Jones Soda Co. have combined forces with the bacon experts at J&D Foods to come up with a bacon-flavored soda.  Buy yours here in a delicious gift pack, complete with 2 bottles of Jones Bacon Soda (Star-K), 1 bag of Bacon Pop popcorn (OU Pareve), 1 package of Bacon Gravy Mix (OU Dairy), and 1 tube of Bacon Lip Balm.  Just in time for Hanukkah!

Okay, some might say that a meaty, carbonated concoction sounds gross.  But for me, and kosher consumers like me, Jones Bacon Soda serves as another piece in the pig puzzle.  It allows us to round out our understanding of what bacon really tastes like.  “Facon” products like Bac-Os and Morningstar Farms Veggie Bacon Strips have gotten us this far, but Jones Bacon Soda gives us a new way to experience fake bacon flavor, which is the closest we’ll ever get.

And, even if this soda is just a gimmicky fad like the Crystal Pepsi or Pepsi Kona of yore, we can at least look forward to the inevitable SNL commercial spoof.