This sandwitch seems to be different and special. Thank you for sharing. I found Carrot Sandwich recipe at Yreach which is also tasty and simple to prepare. And carrot is very good for health. Here is a link that might be useful: Food Recipies

Hi guys, this is very delayed, but I just figured out an easier disposable version for freezing onion cubes. Unfortunately, my Fuji finepix-camera from long ago went dead on me, so I can't provide a pic. Here's the alternate / easier / version: If Natures Yoke cage-free eggs are available in your area, since their cartons are made of clear plastic, they can serve as disposable onion containers. Natures Yoke cartons give you double the amount of compartments for the money, because of the flip-over egg-guard. Just cut them apart, along the "hinged" seam where it flips over, so that you now have two cartons, each with 12-compartments. Once you fill them with the diced-fried onions, you can cover each dozen with plastic wrap, then insert into plastic bags for freezing. You can also choose to fill just eight or ten compartments, and cut off the remaining compartments with scissors, to easily fit in your freezer. Once they're frozen, you just "pop" them out. For use in soup, I prefer only white-onions, and less-fried than my above picture. Otherwise the soup can have an off-taste. From the leftover compartments, hey, some people even fashion clear plastic flowers as seen on google images.

Dcarch, two out of three. Simplified: Fish have to have scales and can't be bottom feeders (no to catfish). Shellfish are not kosher, ever. I figure if I were meant to keep kosher I wouldn't have been made allergic to swimmy fish. To the best of my knowledge, all healthy beef on the hoof is potentially kosher (literally, fit to eat). It's the butchering that makes it kosher. Some of the highlights: A highly trained and certified kosher butcher says the proper blessings acknowledging taking a life and kills the beast with a special extremely sharp blade in one clean cut. I think it's to the jugular. In ancient times this was the most humane way they had. There has been some recent controversy about whether this is the most humane way now, and what it would take to change it. There are other conditions as well, such as the calf may not be slaughtered in front of it mother. If it's not a single clean cut, it's not a kosher death and the carcass cannot be made fit to eat by Jews. It can be sold to other people, however, rather than wasted. First they inspect the lungs for disease. If are no marks or scars at all, if the lungs are completely smooth, the meat can be sold as "glatt kosher" (Ashkenazi "smooth kosher"), which is prized by some. It's not any more kosher than the ones with minor blemishes that are not signs of disease. It's just a more special special super duper, if it costs more (scarcer) it must be better. The blood must also be drained. Then the carcass has to be cut up correctly, if the rear half is to be used, rather than sold off, the sciatic nerve (I think that's the one) has to be removed in a certain way. Few kosher butchers even learn how to do this. It's a mess and ends up with the meat so cut up it's not very attractive. With neighbors valuing the rear half, it doesn't make economic sense to bother. Then the meat has to be salted to draw out the rest of the blood. Housewives used to do this. Nowadays, the packers do it for value added. "Kosher Salt" is a misnomer as it is the salt used to draw the blood from the meat. Rightly, it should be called "kashering salt". All clean, unadulterated, pure salt is kosher by nature and doesn't require a rabbinic imprimature. When you see one, it's usually to say that the processing plant and packaging equipment were clean and appropriate. Salt, the mineral, is kosher by nature. So kosher salt is kosher, but so is all pure salt. In most things Jewish, the practice of an entire community over time has sway. The birds that are kosher (and also have to be correctly slaughtered and prepped) are the ones that a community has been eating from way back. I read that a couple of graduate students in Jerusalem went around to the different communities from around the world and compiled lists. The rules for meat and fish are more standardized, but there will always be different rulings in different places about minutiae. Before halal meat was widely available, muslims would buy from the kosher butchers. That's true. As I heard it, they also require blessings to be said on the taking of a life, and these are similar enough to be acceptable where their own people are not available. I don't know where the differences are in how the animal is handled after that, but muslims are more likely to accept kosher than Jews are to accept halal. If there's no other food, one is allowed to eat whatever one can find and do the best one can to keep it as kosher as possible. So, in that case, I'd think the halal butcher would be a better bet than the ConAgra case at the discount food store, but I don't know what the rabbis would say other than you have to eat to sustain yourself. I also don't know how the halal rules work for other meats and vegetables (yes, while by nature vegetables are fit to eat, you do have to inspect them for certain bugs, and have a care about "hot" veg and questionable cutlery). I do think they have similar fish rules. Way back when, in post-revolution Iran, sturgeons were out. They're smooth skinned. But there were the embargoes, and things were tough. The ayatollahs met and discussed the caviar trade which was so lucrative but forbidden. They inspected the sturgeons. Carefully. And found a sufficient number of scales that it would be okay for them to trade in caviar. (I don't know if they also ate the fish, sold the fish, or whatever.) I seem to remember that they had to have at least seven scales. Re the number of Jews who keep kosher, most Jews are not practicing, period. Like your average American who identifies as "Christian", but whose practice is a Christmas tree and an Easter egg hunt, with the occasional church event for a rite of passage. Among those are are actively engaged in Jewish religious participation, a much higher percentage keep kosher. A lot of it depends on location. There is a tradition, still practiced by some, of only accepting milk and dairy products that have been overseen by Jews the whole way. This is so they don't get adulterated, like the Chinese milk scandal where people were putting melamine in the milk because it would register when tested as having more protein. Even very strictly practicing American Jews believe that the USDA does a good enough job, along with American cultural values, to create confidence that the milk supply is unadulterated. Some still prefer to pay more for "Jewish milk". Similarly, for all the public scandals about this or that outbreak, the American food supply is reliably fine. It's not necessary to keep kosher to be sure of food that won't kill you. So American Jews keep kosher, or have abbreviated practices of kosher origin (e.g., don't combine meat and milk, but don't worry about the provenance of either), as a matter of religious conscience, solidarity with their heritage, or habit, rather than a belief that it's important for temporal reasons. This is all very condensed and simplified. Thousands of years old ritual and practice creates thousands and thousands of pages of discussion and ruling and codification and reinterpretation. If someone wants to learn to keep kosher, the rabbis send them to learn from a friend who keeps kosher, because learning it from the Law would take a lifetime of study.

"To me, when anything is deep fried and crispy, and greasy, my first thought would be the person who did the frying doesn't know how to do it." Thank you, Marilyn_c, I was thinking exactly the same thing! I hadn't thought about the possibilities of a medical issue, but thanks to jkayd, I can understand how that could be a problem. But I know this person well enough to be quite sure she doesn't have any such issue. Mainly I was just wondering if there is a 'proper' way to eat such foods. And I've come to the conclusion that 'proper' depends on the person mainly, also the location and maybe the occasion, too. As for me, I will continue to eat them with my fingers. as long as they are not greasy, overly large, or dripping juices. Lars, knowing you are originally from Texas, I thought for a minute that you were talking about Castroville, Texas. That would be kind of an out of the way route to Monterey for you. LOL. I've never had fried artichokes, but I'd surely try them if I ever saw them offered anywhere. Not likely around here, though. :^) Rusty