Cafe Liz

Is there such a thing as Israeli beer, and if so, what makes a beer Israeli? I’m not the first person to ask that question, but it comes up again on the occasion of Israel’s second-ever beer expo, Beers 2012. The local industry is young but growing, with a profusion of microbreweries and home breweries — enough of them to fill a stadium (Nokia Stadium, to be precise). But while the beers are brewed here — even the mass-market Danish [...]

There are few experiences more fun than a wine expo. Good wine, cheese and a crowd that gets progressively friendlier as the day (and night) wears on. As a bonus, Israeli wines tend to be particularly alcoholic — the climate makes for sugary grapes, which in turn leads to alcohol content of as much as 14% versus 11% to 12% in Europe. I’d been waiting excitedly for Sommelier 2011, the annual wine expo for the food industry, which was held [...]

I had the pleasure of joining New Orleans chefs John Besh, Alon Shaya, Jacques Leonardi and David Slater 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 [...]

Two men, crouching against the wall just inside the Damascus Gate. Spread out before them were three piles of spring’s freshest bounty — crisp grape leaves, green chickpeas still in their pods, and what was that last one? I squinted. Wheat. Fresh, green wheat berries. Ariella and I stopped. What do you do with it? I asked one man. He turned to his friend — he didn’t speak Hebrew. You eat it, the second man told me. I nibbled a [...]

It’s not so common that I find something new and surprising at the shook, which makes it all the more exciting when it does happen. Poking my nose through one of the herb stands last week, I found a new, unfamiliar leaf. It looked like tarragon. I asked what it was. “Zaatar,” the seller told me. But it doesn’t look like zaatar, I responded. “Taste it,” he said. So I did.

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 a catch. She gave me a call the following morning, and we made plans to meet in half an hour. Did I know where we could find good Ashkenazi food [...]