The Jewish-Boston mailing list was abuzz last week after someone spotted this listing currently on the OU Job Board:

Job Title: MANAGER
Location: Boston Area
Job Summary: Responsible for all aspects of running a successful SUBWAY® franchise Glatt Kosher
Job Requirements: Impeccable Mashgiach certification and respect of major Kashus organizations; Successful food service experience including managing of staff; Strong business acumen; Willing to do whatever it takes to drive a strong food service brand business to success including working long hours at the start while training other team members; Pleasant and out-going personality.

(We asked for more information from the Subway folks, and were told by e-mail that things are being negotiated and more information would be available “when the time is right.”)

I’m excited by the possibility of a new restaurant, especially one that could be a reasonable value, but my coworkers are pretty pareve on the (treyf) Subway near our office. I’ll adopt a wait-and-see approach.

I have, in fact, been using my ice cream maker quite regularly. I just haven’t posted many recipes, partly because so few of the desserts I’ve made have stuck around long enough to have their pictures taken. It’s a pity, since some of them were quite pretty, but so be it. I may as well post the recipes, anyway. (Several can be made without an ice cream maker; I’ll mention that wherever applicable.)

One of my first dairy desserts was a maple-pecan ice cream from Joy of Baking. It was very good, rich and custardy, with a prominent maple syrup flavor. I served it with bread pudding, but it could easily stand alone.

Lots more after the jump!

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I was pretty excited to hear that Manischewitz — well, that anyone — would be making a ready-to-use pareve frosting, since the supermarket shelves are dominated by dairy frostings ($237-million worth, in fact), which are altogether useless in my kitchen. Frankly, I rarely if ever use frosting of any gender, but for those arms-extended, zombie-voiced, must-have-cupcake moments, non-dairy frosting is far more versatile.

Thanks to the fine folks at Manischewitz, I got my hands on a sample container of their chocolate variety (vanilla is also available, $2.29 for 12 ounces) and cracked open my unnecessarily secret stash of Duncan Hines cake mixes for a cupcake bonanza. The frosting was “rich and creamy” as the labeling promised, and it had a thoroughly pleasing chocolate flavor. It spread nicely, not too thick, not too thin, and the remaining frosting is perfectly happy sitting in the cupboard (refrigeration not required) until its next use, any number of months from now.

That is, if I’d ever use it again. You see, despite all this frosting has going for it, the King of Passover Foods has deigned to combine the worst possible Kosher for Passover vegetable oil — cottonseed — with the worst possible method for solidifying it — partial hydrogenation.

For those unfamiliar with the state of nutritional science today, cottonseed oil is in fact an industrial byproduct. After cotton lint has been removed from the cotton seed, the seed is refined to remove its naturally-occurring toxins. (Without refining, the oil is actually used as a pesticide.) It contains a startlingly unhealthy ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids, so what better process to perform on it for use in kosher food than… hydrogenation!

Hydrogenation is a now disgraced process, patented by German chemist Wilhelm Normann in 1903, which is used to convert liquid oils (unsaturated fats) into solid and semisolid shortenings (trans fats). As beneficial as trans fats are for the commercial baking industry — longer shelf life, higher melting point, better texture — they have been proven to be detrimental to heart health even in minuscule amounts.

I would imagine that, thanks to heimishe kosher food manufacturers, the frum community consumes far more than its fair share of partially-hydrogenated cottonseed oil, and thus enjoys more than its fair share of coronary heart disease. That’s why I get so worked up, because I care.

(Please give me a moment as I step off my horse. It’s harder to dismount from these high ones.)

In summary, Manischewitz has succeeded in producing a pareve frosting that spreads well, tastes good, needs no refrigeration, and will slowly but surely eat away your heart. Consider this review an earnest request for the elimination of both cottonseed oil and trans fats from all Manischewitz products.

As an alternative, try this chocolate frosting recipe from Epicurious, using standard kosher conversions. Grab a stick of Earth Balance, and leave it on the counter a while to get warm. Proceed as directed, and add just enough rice milk for your desired consistency instead of the cream.