How to Find my j. Weekly Columns and More (Including Playing Jewish Geography in the Produce Aisle)

For the last five years, I have had a regular Jewish cooking column every other week at the j weekly, a print and on line publication based in San Francisco and covering the Bay area and northern California.

It is a joy to work with my editors and the publication and I get a lot of opportunity to speak to Bay area groups about Jewish food, especially some of its international roots and traditions because of my connection to the j.  I also get to talk to and share recipes with some pretty amazing folks from home cooks to restaurant owners to cookbook authors as part of the research for my j. pieces.

I also get recognized a bit, usually in the supermarket and usually in the produce aisle.  Folks will stop me and we will play "I know I know you, I just don't know how" for a bit and then it will finally dawn on me that we really don't know each other and they have just seen the photo the j prints alongside my column (see photo at left.  The j uses a cropped version of it).

I'll ask if they subscribe to the j.  Then I'll ask if they read the recipes.  If they say yes but still don't have a clue, I'll ask if they ever cut out the recipe columns and hang on the fridge. Bingo. My face is staring down at them as they work in the kitchen and I've become so familiar it seems like I'm an old friend.  

An encounter like this makes my day, to say the least.

I do often get questions from non-subscribers (you really should subscribe, it's a great paper.  For a free four week subscription to the j, click here and be sure to let them know Faith sent you!) out-of-area readers and those who have misplaced their clipped out columns how to find my recipes and other writing on the j. website. 

The easiest way to find a relatively current column is to go to my author archive at the j at

http://www.jweekly.com/article/author/959/faith/ for the last five or six months worth.  If it's longer ago than that, check out the paper's cook archives at http://www.jweekly.com/cook/archives/ and select the appropriate year.  The archives also feature the work of my co-columnist Josie A. G. Shapiro, and the columnists that came before us.

One of the great resources the j (formerly the Jewish Bulletin) offers is the recipe index where you can search my and others' recipes by ingredient (use keyword sort), holiday (use category sort), etc. 

Try it out at  http://www.jweekly.com/search/recipes/

I am always reaching out to folks with ideas for columns and recipes (I especially like to feature locals with a foodie connection, long-time family recipes, or cuisine expertise but always with some sort of Jewish connection).  If you have an idea or question for me - leave a comment on this post or email me at clickblogappetit AT gmail DOT com.