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Table of Contents
Reaching the Kosher Nexus Return to Kosher Nexus Back Issues From the EditorShalom. It is our hope that you and yours had a wonderful and meaningful Passover. The feedback we received on the Pesah edition of the Kosher Nexus was absolutely wonderful. Many thanks to those who took time to let us know (especially via e-mail) what you enjoyed about this newsletter. Keep those cards and letters coming folks. We are a publication for you! Your input is important to us. This month our special feature is a contest. Look for the details on page 5 of this issue and enter today! There will be one more edition of the Kosher Nexus in June, before our summer hiatus. We will resume publication in mid August, in time for the High Holidays. If you would like to reach either Rabbi Rappoport or myself, or would like to ask a question, or perhaps write a guest editorial, please refer to the box on page 5 for our addresses. We look forward to bringing you new and exciting issues of the Kosher Nexus. Return to Table of Contents NEW FOODS .... OLD FOODS, HIT THE MARK!If it's spring, it must be time for a great salad! Blanchard & Blanchard has introduced new Spa Dressings to their line-up of products. The latest are Russian Tomato, Mexican Pepper and Caesar Parmesan. All carry O-U certification. Attention Blue-light shoppers: K-Mart carries a wonderful brand of salad dressings. Henri's Salad Dressing, comes in Country French, Thousand Island, Sweet & Sour and Italian. They are also O-U and terrific. One more wonderful dressing is Maple Grove Farms - Vermont Sweet 'N Sour Dressing. Try it mixed with dry onion soup baked on chicken. They'll be knocking down the door for more! Certified by Half Moon K. Is Teriyaki your thing? Wan Ja Shan makes a great Teriyaki Barbecue Marinade & Sauce. They also make a great soy sauce! Both certified by Circle K. For those who enjoy a good cup of cocoa, Brothers has introduced a new line of products. "Oh So Cocoa" in four tantilizing flavors: French Vanilla, Hazelnut, Swiss Mocha Almond and Cappuccino Style! Just add hot water and enjoy! They are all O-U dairy. Attention all bakers: Simon Fischer Lekvar Prune butter and Golden Apricot butter, AND all Solo and Baker brand filings will now carry a Kof-K Dairy or Kof-K DE (dairy equipment). DE means that the product is not dairy, but it is made on dairy equipment. Look for Pino-Maggio products certified by the Kof-K. The company produces upscale pastas (in an incredible array of flavors), sauces and oils. By the way, the company insists that they will produce a full line of flavored pastas for Pesah, 1995! The Kosher Nexus looks forward to trying each pasta product! Of course, we shall fully inform you of each culinary hit (or miss)! Fantastic Foods (found in health food stores) produces some wonderful products. Some of the hits are: Instant Refried Beans, Instant Black Beans, Fantastic Tempura Mix, Fantastic Falafil and Quick Couscous Pilaf! All certified by Half Moon-K. From the "Did You Know" file comes this: The US Government allows margarine to contain up to 12% dairy ingredients. Margarine is not pareve unless it states pareve on the label. You had them hot on the streets of New York, now you can (hopefully) find them in the familiar surroundings of your local grocery store. Yes, Gabila's Knishes have gone national! Certified by the Kof-K, the product will be introduced nationally over the next few months! Shicks Bakery in New York now takes phone orders. Call 1-718-436-8020 or fax them at 1-718-438-8244. They are certified by KAJ. For our Southern friends in Austin Texas: H.E.B. Central Market (1-512-206-1000) carries a vast array of kosher products throughout the store. Many products that can be found nowhere else, will be there! Look for Breakstone's Cottage Cheese and Miller Kosher Cheese, and even "spelt" hot dog buns! Plan on spending some time here, as this is a market like none other! Another goodie for our friends in Austin; the H.E.B. at Breaker (512-794-8221) is now carrying assorted cuts of Sinai Meats and Empire Poultry, in the freezer section. Return to Table of Contents AND NOW FOR THAT SWEET TOOTH.....As quickly as they come....they go: The LEAF Candy Company is no longer producing O-U endorsed CHUCKLES. The product has already been reformulated to include gelatin. The new product will carry a K on the label. The O-U has revoked its certification. As far as the Kosher Nexus knows, there is no certification for the new product. Once again, the Kosher Nexus takes the opportunity to remind you that the K can be a less than reliable guide to Kashruth. Any company can "self certify" and put a K on its label. The position of the LEAF Company, may possibly be, that all gelatin is kosher. (Or at least not trefe.) ZAGNUT candy is dairy, even when there is only an O-U on the label. Grandma's Recipe Rugelach are now certified Kof-K (dairy). You can order by calling 1-800-538-5055, or fax them at (212) 431-8564. Under the heading of "Double Your Hechsher, Double Your Fun", comes the following info. Austin Cheese Crackers have an O-U D on the outside box. Inside, however, the Triangle K appears on each package. The product is under double hashgacha! Don't forget that Austin also produces a wonderful box of assorted packaged cookies. Great for lunch boxes, snacks and picnics! Looking for a new way to sugar up the kids? Here it is. Sprinkle Spangles cereal (kid tested and kid endorsed in this household!) and Bunuelitos cereal (both made by General Mills) are now O-U endorsed, even when no O-U appears on the box. Nestle's Chocolate Quick, Strawberry Quick and Banana Quick are O-U certified, and they are DAIRY, even though no dairy ingredients appear on the label. On the other hand, Hershey's Chocolate and Strawberry syrups are O-U DE. Finally, Nestle's Chocolate Syrup is NOT certified. And now for the best news of the day! Remember when you were a kid and you could take five cents into the candy store and come out with a ton of candy? Remember the best "stuff" like wax lips, candy corn, spice candy, jelly beans and jelly fish? Well now you can have instant childhood flashbacks! If you live in the continental U.S. (sorry to our friends up North), you can call Candy Land and they can send you enough kosher candy to put your entire family into sugar shock! Their numbers are: 1-800-777-NOSH (what a great number!) or 1-718-436-9308. Their fax line is 1-718-436-2337. Return to Table of Contents CONSUMER BEWARE!This month there are a number of items of which the kosher consumer needs to be aware. The first comes from the KVH (Vaad Harabonim) of Boston. Kellogg Company has sold its interest in Mrs. Smith's Pie Company. As of April 1, 1994, the KVH is no longer responsible for the kashruth of Mrs. Smith's Pie Company Pies and Pie products of Pottstown, PA. The Kosher Nexus will attempt to reach Mrs. Smith's Pie Company to see if they will be working to become certified once again. Until then let them eat cake! Have you ever noticed a little K on Budweiser cans? Well, many people have and they have asked if the K stands for Kosher. Budweiser is not under any supervision and the K does not stand for Kosher according to spokesmen for the Anheuser Busch Company. The following brands of Lite Sour Cream all show the KVH on the label by mistake. The KVH does not endorse any product with gelatin, and the following all contain gelatin: Stop n Shop, Shaw's, National and Sweet Life. Look in your freezer. If you have a bag of McCain Ultimate Seasoned Crinkle Cut Fried Potatoes marked with an O-U, check the production code. If the code starts with the letter O, the product is "mamash" trefe. See your local grocer about a refund. To our good friends out in St. Louis, once again we must alert you to an unauthorized OV on all products by Lochhead Vanilla Corp. Nothing they make is certified by the OV. Not all Drakes products are kosher. Yes, it is true. Sad, but true! Drake Pecan Swirls are made in more than one plant, and not all of them are Kosher. Only buy the ones that carry the OUD on the label. Please note that Kemps Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt has been known to print an OUD on products that contain gelatin. The O-U does not certify any products that list gelatin. Also, Weight Watcher Yogurt with a plain K on the label has gelatin in it. Similarly, some Yoplait yogurt with a plain K on the label also contains gelatin. The Kosher Nexus recommends reading those labels! On a serious note, the Kosher Nexus wants you to be aware of a serious violation of kasruth standards. Recently it was noticed in a supermarket that the bakery was baking and repackaging desserts that were shipped to them frozen and labeled OUD. The items in question were baked in the store's ovens, and repackaged in a plastic container with a label showing OU-D. After an hour long discussion, the products in question were removed from the racks. But, consumer beware! It is a blatant violation of the O-U's standards to open and repackage anything certified by the O-U. Thankfully, upon further inspection a few weeks later, the OU-D has been removed from the label. One can never be too careful. Return to Table of Contents ADULT BEVERAGES
Don't forget to enter the Contest! Details on Page 5 Return to Table of Contents THE CANADIAN WONDERLAND!And now a few words for our brothers and sisters up north in Canada. We at the Kosher Nexus forget that our reach is very long: from Northern Canada to Southern Florida (or in other words, from the land of the frozen to the land of the chosen!). The following information is just for our Canadian friends! Kraft/General Foods Canada can be reached at 1-800-268-7808. Amara Meats says that their 800 number works in Canada. The problem is Customs. To Wit: Fedex will not take packages through for its customers. Amara Meats suggests that you call them to see if something can be worked out on an individual basis. For example, one family has meat shipped to Detroit to a friend there, and then they cross over to get it and bring it back into Canada. Cachet Gourmet has the same problem: Customs! However, you can call them at 1-718-645-0700 to see if something can be worked out. Cachet Gourmet has indicated that they would be willing to do the paper work to ship to Canada provided they had ongoing orders, etc. Hershey Canada is under the COR. They are in the process of making new labels. In the near future, all kosher Canadian Hershey products will carry the COR on the label. At the moment there is no "800" number, but Mindy Solomon (of the Penn. office) assures us that as soon as they have one they will get it to the Nexus for publication. Last of all, Rabbi Wayne Allen of Toronto informs the Kosher Nexus that kosher Canadian Kellogg products no longer have a K. Instead, the COR is printed on the box. Thank you Rabbi Allen. Return to Table of Contents HONEYMOON AT NIAGARA FALLSFor all you lovers who plan on seeing Niagara Falls, not to mention beautiful down-town Tonawanda, here are places supervised by the Vaad HaKashruth of Buffalo (716-634-3990):
Happy Honeymoon! Return to Table of Contents FIT FOR LIFEOur special feature this month is vitamins! Freeda Company is a name long known in certain segments of the Kosher community. Dr. Zimmerman is a pharmacist, chemist and nutritionist whose products are known for purity and quality. You may not know it, but Dr. Zimmerman is also a Rabbi. Together with his wife, the Zimmermans live an observant Jewish life. They run a company that seeks to show how Yiddishkeit and business ethics go hand in hand. In fact, every bottle of Freeda product contains at least one tablet/pill over the label count because the Zimmermans believe that no consumer should ever be cheated! All Freeda products are certified by the O-U, and are pareve. They only use pure ingredients. Recently, Freeda has been cited by the U.S. Government for their superior plant conditions and manufacturing standards. Recently, the Kosher Nexus spent a wonderful thirty minutes "visiting" with Mrs. Zimmerman and we were struck by the obvious sincerity the Zimmermans have for their work. Dr. Zimmerman leads a mincha shiur every day during the week. Mrs. Zimmerman cares about every customer and loves to tell you about their product and their company. Both the Zimmermans and Freeda Company are involved in Tzedakah, Hesed and Gemilut Hasadim. They also make some wonderful products. The phone number is valid not only in the U.S. but Canada as well, and there seem to be no shipping problems. You can reach the Freeda Company at 1-800-777-3737. Return to Table of Contents HAM IT UP...Here at the Kosher Nexus office we often errupt into peals of laughter. Often, however, no one else understands why we are laughing. What can we say except that we like to laugh? Here is an example of a product that reduced us to tears: Cains Ham Glaze, certified by the O-U! Now, needless to say, there is nothing wrong with a kosher product called ham glaze. It fits right in along with Fonee Shrimp and (mock) lobster Newberger! We decided to have some fun with the OU certified ham glaze. The Kosher Nexus is pleased to announnce our very first International contest! Send us your best Kosher recipe using Cains Ham Glaze. We will publish the three best recipes as judged by our highly biased panel of gourmands. In addition, the best judged recipe will receive, hot off the presses, a copy of "Tomeikah ka Halakah", the responsa of the UTJ. Either e-mail your entry to rebrapp@aol.com or mail it to UTJ 241 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, NJ 07666. All entries become the property of the UTJ. Decision of the judges is final unless we are over-ruled by our panel of Jewish Mothers! Deadline is June 30, 1994. Our words may be (glazed) tongue in cheek, but the contest is real. If you think a kosher certified product called Ham Glaze is as funny as we do, then by all means, enter today! So you don't forget, write before midnight tonight.......... Return to Table of Contents HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS?Great News! Hagahelet and the Kosher Nexus are available through the Internet! All you need is a computer and modem, and you too can join in on the information highway. All you have to do is send an email message to majordomo@utj.org with the body of the message reading: subscribe hagahelet Return to Table of Contents Copyright 1995-2001 Union for Traditional Judaism
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