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March 2011

Sweet pickled garlic

Did you know garlic has a season? Well, you do if you frequent the country’s markets, where massive stalks of purple-green garlic are out in all their glory. ‘Tis the season for garlic, the time to stock up for an entire year. China is the world’s largest garlic producer, with …

Spicy fennel-carrot salad

This salad almost killed me. It’s a lovely mix of two spring vegetables — fennel and carrot. It gets its zest from fresh lemon juice, and a bite from hot pepper. It’s somewhere between a salad and a pickle — it sits long enough to absorb the flavors, but unlike …

Pici — handmade Italian pasta

The next best thing to going to Italy and learning to make pasta from an Italian mother is having your cousins go and then teach you. (And the next best thing after that — hopefully — is learning about it on my blog.) Paul was my friend before he became …

Cauliflower with hibiscus and balsamic vinegar

This recipe is about an attempt to eat local, and it’s also a bit about appearances. See, here in Israel we have lots of dried fruit. Some of it is imported, and some isn’t. Some is imported from near, and some travels a long way. Cranberries from the United States, …

How I adapted my blog to Google’s recipe search

Disclaimer: This is likely of interest primarily to other food bloggers. Those who follow tech news may have heard of Google’s new recipe search, which was launched two weeks ago. Google has created a tab to search specifically for recipes, much like its searches for photos or news. The catch? …

Winter’s bounty: Mallow leaves stuffed with nettle

If I’m stuffing foraged mallow leaves, I might as well stuff them with foraged nettle. I acquired both my mallow and my nettle through the not-so-socially-acceptable (or should I say hippie trendy?) method of picking them from the city’s streets. Both have a long culinary history, but most people aren’t …

Exploring Bnei Brak with Joan Nathan

Late Thursday night, I received an e-mail from cookbook author Joan Nathan, telling me she’d canceled her plans for Friday. Would I like to visit the Tel Aviv farmer’s market and Bnei Brak with her? Geez, what a question! Of course I would. But there was a catch. There’s always …