I had the pleasure of joining New Orleans chefs John Besh [1], Alon Shaya [2], Jacques Leonardi [3] and David Slater [4] on a base in the Golan Heights last week as they prepared dinner for a battalion, as part of a Jewish Agency program between New Orleans and Rosh Ha’ayin.
So what happens when you dump four top chefs into a military kitchen and force them to work with the limited tools at the army chefs’ disposal? You can read articles I wrote about it at Haaretz [5] and the Israel Food Tours blog [6]. I’d never seen so much food being prepared, but they were completely unfazed by the immensity of the task.
Also worth checking out is my discussion with Alon [7] about what makes Israeli cuisine. Unlike many of this country’s chefs, Alon does indeed believe that there is such a thing as Israeli food, and explains why. I couldn’t have put it better myself.