L ifestyle /C ulture
Blueberry Season Is Upon Us
F OO D
KERI WHITE | JE FOOD COLUMNIST
BLUEBERRIES ARE begin-
ning to appear in local markets,
and that is good news for those
of us who enjoy seasonal fruit. I
have been playing around with
these healthy, delicious orbs,
and have come up with a few
delightful ways to use them.

The version here is suggested
as a composed, plated salad
for a more formal and stylized
presentation, but you can
certainly toss this all in a bowl
for family-style serving.

BLUEBERRY RAINBOW SALAD
Serves 4
This salad is as pretty as it is
tasty — and it can be adjusted
to personal preference. Nut
allergy? Skip them! No beets
in the house? Omit them and
sub in cooked sweet potatoes
or raw carrots. Need a vegan or
pareve dish? Omit the cheese.

You get the idea: This is a
framework. The salad:
4 cups arugula or other
baby lettuce
1 cup blueberries, rinsed
and picked over
½ pound strawberries,
hulled and halved, if large
1 mango, cut in cubes
½ cup shelled pistachios
4 cooked beets, cooled,
peeled and cut into small
pieces 4 ounces goat cheese
The dressing:
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Strictly Kosher
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Blueberry oatmeal cookies
¼ cup good-quality olive oil
Generous grinding of fresh
pepper A pinch or two of kosher salt
Divide the lettuce evenly
among four salad plates to
form a bed. Stack a layer of
beets, a layer of mangoes and
a layer of blueberries on each
plate. Sprinkle nuts over the
stack and around the lettuce.

Surround the stack with straw-
berries. Divide the goat cheese
in four even portions and top
each salad with a round of
cheese. In a measuring cup or small
bowl, mix the dressing ingre-
dients. Just before serving,
drizzle each salad with the
dressing. Blueberry rainbow salad
1 stick butter, softened
¾ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup fresh blueberries
Heat your oven to 350
degrees F, and line a baking
tray with parchment. Set aside.

Whisk together the flour,
oats, baking powder, baking
soda, salt and cinnamon in a
small bowl. Set aside. Cream
the butter with the sugars,
then add the egg and vanilla.

Mix in the dry ingredients
gradually until thoroughly
blended. Gently fold in the
blueberries. Using two spoons, scoop
the dough into balls and
place them on a cookie sheet.

BLUEBERRY OATMEAL
Bake for 10-12 minutes until
COOKIES the edges are golden brown
Makes about 2 dozen cookies
and the centers of the cookies
are set. Cook completely and
This riff on oatmeal raisin store the cookies in an airtight
cookies is a wonderful seasonal container.

twist and a nice way to use
extra berries, especially those a BLUEBERRY CRISP
bit past their prime.

Serves 8
2 cups flour
1½ cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
JEWISH EXPONENT
This version is dairy, but it
can be made pareve by subbing
margarine or other non-dairy
butter and skipping the ice
cream topping, or serving it
with sorbet.

Photos by Claire Batten
Filling: 6 cups fresh blueberries,
rinsed and picked over
Juice of half a lemon
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup brown sugar
Crisp topping:
¾ cup flour
¾ cup brown sugar
2 pinches salt
1 stick butter, cut in pieces
1 cup old-fashioned rolled
oats (not instant or quick
cooking) ¼ cup maple syrup
Optional topping: vanilla
ice cream/cinnamon and
allspice Heat your oven to 375
degrees F.

Mix the filling ingredients
in a large baking dish; set it
aside. In a mixing bowl, blend
the flour, brown sugar, salt,
butter and oats. Blend until
the mixture forms pea-sized
clumps. Crumble it over fruit
mixture and press gently.

Drizzle maple syrup over
the crumble topping and bake
it for 40-45 minutes. When
done, the topping is browned
and crisp.

Serve warm topped with
vanilla ice cream sprinkled
with cinnamon and allspice. l
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



L ifestyle /C ulture
Conversation Explores Parallels Between Jews, Blues
M USIC
ELEANOR LINAFELT |
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
LIKE JUDAISM, the musical
form of the blues is steeped in
tradition. That was just one of the many
connections that the rabbi,
activist and musician Sandra
Lawson and blues musician
and historian Jerron “Blind
Boy” Paxton made between
the blues and Judaism in their
virtual discussion, “The Torah
of Blues.”
“The biggest things that blues
teaches me are what, for Jewish
culture, are already there, like
love and respect and tradition,”
Paxton said.

The event was hosted by The
National Museum of American
Jewish History on May 26 as
part of its Jewish American
Heritage Month programming.

In an organic, expansive and
laughter-filled conversation,
Paxton and Lawson connected
over their shared Black and
Jewish identities and their
individual relationships to blues
music and the Torah.

Dan Samuels, the public
programs manager at NMAJH,
was inspired to organize the
program after coming across
Lawson’s blog, also called The
Torah of Blues. She picks blues
songs to learn and analyzes
the way that the Torah
appears in them.

“I know I am not the first
Jewish person to make a
connection between Jews and
the blues, but I do bring a
unique perspective as a black
rabbi with Southern roots,”
Lawson wrote in her first blog
post. “I see blues music as a
window to my heritage, my
culture and I see it as a legacy
that was left for me by my
ancestors to discover.”
Lawson, the inaugural
director of racial diver-
sity, equity and inclusion at
Reconstructing Judaism, the
central organization of the
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM From left: Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton and Rabbi Sandra Lawton
Reconstructionist movement,
told Paxton that one of the
many ways she personally
connects to Judaism is through
the Torah that appears in Black
spiritual music, the musical
predecessor to the blues.

“Our ancestors who were
brought here and enslaved, even
though they weren’t allowed to
read, found a way to connect
through music,” she said. “They
found hope in the stories from
the Hebrew Bible, which then
gets turned into spirituals
and blues.”
The program included
prerecorded musical perfor-
mances from
Pa xton
interspersed throughout the
conversation. The multi-in-
strumentalist, who draws from
1920s and ’30s music, has toured
internationally and opened for
blues legends including Buddy
Guy and Robert Cray.

He sang and played solo
banjo for the first two songs.

For the final song, an upbeat
instrumental, he was accom-
panied by two other musicians
playing washboard and piano.

The first song Paxton
performed was called “How Did
Screenshot by Eleanor Linafelt
You Feel When You Come Out
of the Wilderness.” He described
it as a song that helped enslaved
people get through their strug-
gles in American cotton fields,
but that it could also connect to
the Jewish experience.

He noted the parallels
between the history of Jewish
and Black people.

“Jewish people and Black
people have perseverance,” Paxton
said. “If it wasn’t for perseverance,
we wouldn’t be here.”
Paxton described the second
song he performed as having a
“Mizrahi-type mood to it,” but
performed in the picking style
of players of the akonting, a
West African instrument that
predated the banjo.

Paxton and
Lawson discussed the way that both
spirituals and the chanting of
the Torah has helped preserve
knowledge throughout history.

“In the Jewish tradition
when Jews were not literate,
someone in the public square
would open the Torah scroll
and loudly read the Torah,”
Lawson said, to which Paxton
responded, “That’s why we sing
so much Torah. That solidifies
things in your memory.”
The two also talked about
the role of music in prayer.

“Certain things are hard to
articulate, but when you sing
you do not have to articu-
late,” Paxton said. “That’s the
beautiful thing about prayer,
chanting and meditation.”
Lawson said that she never
used to sing, but prayer has
offered her an avenue to do so.

“Prayer opens up my heart to
sing,” she said. “I see blues often
as a prayer.”
“The Torah of Blues” was
co-sponsored by Jews in ALL
Hues, an organization that
supports Jews of color, and
Reconstructing Judaism. l
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