Grape Expectations

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Swirl. Sniff. Swish. Spit.

Repeat 170 times. In four hours and change.

Welcome to the life of a time-stressed kosher wine taster.

In the basement of City Winery on a recent Thursday afternoon, five young wine connoisseurs made their way through 170 bottles of kosher wine — first aerating the wine with a gentle swirl, then swishing it around the palate, and ultimately spitting the liquid into silver wine-chilling buckets scattered across a table where they were seated.

The five men had gathered for an expedited wine tasting, where in 4 ½ hours, they’d plow through the daunting number of bottles and give each a ranking between 1 and 100. The point of the blind tasting — the labels were wrapped in white paper to conceal their provenance — was to determine which wines were the top 18 for The Jewish Week’s Kosher Wine Guide. Companies that planned to showcase their wines at an upcoming March 14 Grand Wine Tasting had sent over complimentary bottles to the group of judges.

“We’re going to try to do it fairly, quickly and give each wine a number — we’ll arrive at the top 18,” said Michael Dorf, owner of City Winery, who chaired the tasting group. “All we’re doing is getting a taste and spitting it out.”

Dorf instructed the others to refrain from jotting down notes and to try their best to stay within 50 and 100 points in their ratings, unless the wine was completely undrinkable. And then they embarked on a turbo-speed process essentially “emulating what the biggies do,” according to Dorf, a reference to high-toned wine tasters.

First up were the white wines, then the rosés, followed by the reds and finally, the sweet dessert wines. The reds claimed the majority of the table space, as reds are much more popular among consumers and get a much higher profit margin for producers, the tasters told The Jewish Week.

“Well, l’chaim, everyone,” Dorf said, officially kicking off the tasting, and sampling his first white wine.   Continue reading…

Kosher App-etizing

The new “Cookshelf” kosher cookbook application.

by Sharon Udasin

Want to add a little spice to your great-grandmother’s century-old noodle kugel?

There’s an app for that.

Just in time for the holidays, the team at Web design firm Appsolutemedia has launched a $4.99 iPhone/iTouch application called “CookShelf,” the touchscreen wireless “Kosher Cookbook” that provides over 300 step-by-step recipes, a shopping list generator and 52-week meal plans.

Thus far, the recipes are all by local Jewish chef Gloria Kobrin — an experienced food writer and instructor — but CookShelf will soon incorporate other material as well, according to Alex Libkind, the CEO of Appsolutemedia. While traditional Jewish fare like chicken soup and roasted potatoes are certainly available, the application aims to diversify the kosher repertoire, providing recipes for international favorites like hoisin spare ribs (using beef flanken) with apricots, and chicken satay with peanut chutney.

“You won’t find a cholent there at this point,” Libkind said. “We’re moving away from the gefilte fish and kugel markets to the sushi and more advanced palates.”  Continue reading…

Bringing More To The Table

The kosher chicken case at the new Whole Foods market on the Upper West Side. courtesy Whole foods

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Just in time for the Jewish new year, local food vendors are pumping up their kosher offerings.

Two weeks ago, Whole Foods Market opened a new Upper West Side location, where staff members pay added attention to the needs of the largely observant local Jewish community. Meanwhile, the owners of Kosher.com have re-launched their Web site, spruced up with blogs, recipes and cooking shows in addition to the food orders. And in Midtown, several new kosher restaurants have just opened, including Schnitzel Express, Lunchbox and a revamped Mr. Broadway now acceptable to the Health Department.
At the new Whole Foods, located on the corner of Columbus Avenue and 97th Street, Andrew Roberts, the grocery’s regional prepared foods coordinator, is diverging from the Whole Foods norm. Unlike at the other stores, where kosher products are mostly mixed among others, Roberts has sectioned off an area for kosher prepared foods only, next to the store’s regular dairy section.

“We’ve consolidated all the kosher products,” Roberts said. “I’m also taking a look at opening this up a bit more to vendors suggested by people in the neighborhood.”
Thus far, the prepared foods are dominated by two brands — Foremost Fresh Caterers and Zayda’s — and include a variety of Mediterranean salads, as well as ratatouille and traditional Ashkenazi foods like kugel and mushroom barley soup. 

As with other Whole Foods, the new store adheres to specific ethical standards, such as the Animal Compassion Act.  Continue reading…