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 …
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, …
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 …
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 …
This is what borscht might look like if it were a Mediterranean dish. Instead of swimming in a bowl of hot broth, these bright red beets are marinating in lemon juice and topped with fresh parsley, with a bit of olive oil to add flavor. And the sour cream? Fresh …
I attended two weed walks last week. Both had been delayed due to rain. Coincidence? Not at all. We’ve had several years of drought, and the rain came late this year. But once it started, it didn’t stop. When the winter rains begin, the dusty earth quickly comes alive with …
I guess you could call this winter. It’s been raining on and off for days. Drops pitter-patter on my windows. The streets are perpetually wet. The sky is gray. My patio planters are soaked through. The once-dusty ground is full of fresh green growth. Well, we take what we can …
Jachnun is one of those dishes that everyone in Israel loves but few actually make themselves. These rolled sticks of dough are a Yemenite Jewish food. The dish is one of many slow-cooked Jewish foods invented to be prepared a day in advance and baked all night long, so that …
In a nondescript junction in neighboring Givatayim sits a legend of a shop known as Oved’s sabich. Oved rose to fame not due to the quality of his sabich — fried eggplant — but due to his playful use of the Hebrew language. If someone asks, “Have you been to …
This pudding could have been ice cream. In fact, if it hadn’t been for an issue with my ice cream maker, it would have been ice cream. The two desserts are more similar than they may seem at first — take flavored cream and freeze it, and you have ice …
