Volunteers prepare goodies for this Sunday's redefined Carrot Festival pick-up. (Provided)
Provided
Volunteers prepare goodies for this Sunday's redefined Carrot Festival pick-up. (Provided)
Provided
Volunteers prepare goodies for this Sunday's redefined Carrot Festival pick-up. (Provided)
Provided
A happy festival-goer from a previous Carrot Festival in Niskayuna. (Provided)
Provided
Volunteers prepare goodies for this Sunday's redefined Carrot Festival pick-up. (Provided)
Provided
Frosting the carrot cake. (Provided)
ProvidedLike most events in 2020, Congregation Agudat Achim’s 42nd annual Carrot Festival this coming week will look very different than it has for the past two decades. But one thing remains the same: the synagogue’s signature carrot cake that brings people to Niskayuna year after year, driving for miles and lining up early in the morning of festival day to secure their slices.
“What makes our cake unique is the praline filling,” said Risé Routenberg, a pillar of the synagogue’s catering company, As You Like It, and co-author of CAA’s cookbook, “Divine Kosher Cuisine,” which includes a section of Carrot Festival recipes. “We put the praline between two layers of cake with pecans and raisins and spices, and then it has a traditional cream cheese frosting—nice and rich and buttery. It’s the perfect formula.” There’s a gluten-free version this year, too.
Baked by a team of dedicated (and socially distanced) volunteers, the cake is the only familiar element of the Carrot Festival, which has been transformed for the age of COVID. It’s typically CAA’s biggest fundraiser, supporting the synagogue’s adult education programs and its Religious School for pre-K through high school. But “this year is less about making money and more about making a difference,” said Hillary Fink, who has been chairing the event for the past 13 years.
As she and her committee began reimagining the festival, they settled on a theme of “Celebrating and Serving Our Community.” In lieu of a gathering, they have organized a variety of volunteer and charitable opportunities for CAA’s 230 member families and the greater community. For Sunday’s “Stuff the Bus” challenge, a CDTA bus will be parked in CAA’s lot, to be filled with supplies for the Animal Protective Foundation, Bethesda House, the MoonCatcher Project and RISSE. The synagogue has also partnered with the United Way of the Capital Region to offer an array of volunteer projects in the area during the week of Sept. 13–18, ranging from garden maintenance to food pantry assistance.
“There will be projects that are indoors, outdoors and virtual to cover all comfort levels and keep all of us socially distant,” Fink said. “What we’re really hoping will come out of it is that people will build lasting relationships with these organizations as volunteers.”
Launched back in 1978 as a way to raise money to pave the synagogue’s parking lot, the Carrot Festival was the brainchild of CAA members Paul and Rose Westheimer, then the owners of the Carrot Barn at Schoharie Valley Farms. (Although the Westheimers no longer live in the area, they remain honorary festival committee members.) Over the years, the carrot-themed fundraiser grew to encompass family activities, vendors, live music and entertainment and, of course, all kinds of food and desserts with carrots as the star ingredient.
This year, bags of produce from the Carrot Barn are available for pre-order, and can be picked up on Sunday between 10 am and 3 pm along with carrot cake (also available only by pre-order) and items purchased from the festival’s selection of virtual vendors. CAA is also working with the Capital Region Chamber and the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation to create a listing of local restaurants and businesses to share with festival-goers.
“Since they can’t come to the grounds to eat the delicious food we always provide, they can patronize these businesses instead,” Fink said. “This is another way for us to thank our community that has been supporting us for so many years.”
The approach supports the Jewish concept of “tikkun olam,” or “repairing the world,” explained CAA’s Rabbi Rafi Spitzer, who has been with the congregation since July of 2019.
“The idea is that there is a brokenness, a sense of incompleteness, in the world, and it’s our task to repair that through ‘ma’asim tovim,’ which can be translated as ‘sacred obligation,’” Spitzer explained. “It seemed like the way to have a safe and meaningful Carrot Festival this year was to deeply respond to that call of sacred obligation. We can’t gather on the lawn and have vendors and music and a petting zoo and pony rides, but we can use this opportunity to showcase the possibility for change and growth, and for making the world a better place.”
Tresca Weinstein is a frequent contributor to the Times Union.
2020 Carrot Festival
When: Sunday–Sept. 18; drive-through pickup of pre-ordered cake, produce and vendor items on Sunday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Where: Congregation Agudat Achim, 2117 Union St., Schenectady
Info and orders: https://www.agudatachim.org/carrot-festival
September 08, 2020 at 08:06PM
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Deep-rooted Carrot Festival keeps on delivering - Times Union
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