Cafe Liz

This is a classic little salad, one of the basics you’ll often find served at falafel stands and lunchtime restaurants. It’s a pleasant, simple creation with a sharp, fiery tang from lemon juice and raw garlic, along with a slight bitterness from the lemon peels. You can make it by grating up some whole carrots, or, say, using the carrot cores left over from my stuffed carrot recipe. As a bonus, if you happen to use brightly colored carrots, then [...]

As Rosh Hashana approaches, the many symbols of the holiday are again appearing in the markets. There are plump pomegranates bursting with seeds, and juicy green and purple figs, one of the biblical seven species. OK, figs have actually been in season for a while now, but as the holiday approaches, they take on new meaning. I love adding them into dishes, as part of a leafy salad in place of tomatoes (I think the flavors clash) or in this [...]

This is a stuffed vegetable for the summer, cool and refreshing. The season’s best produce meld into a light green salad of melon, mint and wheat bulgur, while the baked squash shells add another layer of flavor and turn the salad into finger food.

Rosewater adds a fresh, fragrant hint to this salad, and it turns out to be a lovely complement for roasted squash, too. Who would have known? The Moroccans, apparently. Chef Kamal Albaz at Al Maghreb makes a lovely salad of thin slivers of cucumber seasoned with rosewater. The menu simply lists it as “cucumber salad,” so I almost turned it down — who needs to go to a restaurant for that? Fortunately I didn’t, because it’s the best salad they [...]

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 most of the fennel salads often served with mezzes around here, it’s still incredibly crisp. I whipped up this salad in the mid-afternoon, intending to have it with dinner. After [...]

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, for instance. Cranberries are a perfect addition to many, many dishes — they’re sweet and tangy, and they add a bright flash of color. But they are absolutely not a [...]

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 labneh, or maybe yogurt. Beets aren’t especially cheap at the moment, but I had a craving (yes, it happens) and I managed to find a bunch being sold for half-off [...]

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 Oved?” the appropriate answer is yes. Admitting that you haven’t brings incredulity. Admitting that you’ve been there only once is passable, but still surprising. Oved is such an institution that [...]

Green wheat is one of the oldest methods of eating grains known to mankind. It’s been grown and prepared in this region for thousands of years. It was used in biblical offerings. Before there was rice, there was green wheat. In fact, unlike rice, green wheat is grown and processed locally. When I go to the market, the barrel of green wheat came from the Galilee — not from another continent, like most of our grains and legumes.