Cafe Liz

Ramle, for food and history

I recently took a trip to Ramle with my friend Ben of Savor Israel. Admittedly it was my first time, even though Ramle is quite easily accessible from Tel Aviv — 15 minutes on the train and you’re there. And by there, I mean about a 2-minute walk from the market and the center of town. Couldn’t be easier.

Ramle is known for being the only city founded in the land of Israel during the era when it was under Arab rule. It’s been around since 716 CE, and is full of architectural artifacts. Much of the old city is built from pale stone, Jerusalem style. What struck me most was seeing people living among and literally in ancient buildings — you have minarets sticking out of people’s homes.

As a bonus, the city is small and easily walkable — most things you’ll want to see are within five minutes of the train station, and nothing is more than 20 minutes away.

Nowadays, Ramle is a melting pot of ethnicities and religions, which means the market, located among ancient, arched buildings, is quite colorful in multiple ways. Continue reading Ramle, for food and history…

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Levinsky street market — a blast from the past

The Levinsky Street market always makes me stop. I pass through nearly every day on my way to work, and regularly restock on coffee beans at David’s spice shop and spices at Pereg (no more than 80 grams at a time — that’s what fits into my jars). I get my olive oil from Oded, where they refill my glass bottle from a big metal tank and I leave with nothing more than freshly pressed oil. And if I’m hungry, then I break down and buy a boureka or fat Balkan pita from Panaso, and if there isn’t too much of a line, I indulge in some cured salmon at Haim Rafael.

Negotiating the morass is a bit difficult; the grid of narrow, tree-less one way streets was not made for modern traffic, and it’s generally gridlocked so tightly that it’s a fight to get a bicycle through. In the middle of it all are a handful of synagogues, where men come and go amid the hubbub outside.

But if one thing can be said for the people who frequent the area, it’s that they appreciate the treasures of the market, which starts at Haaliyah Street and ends rather abruptly just before Herzl, in a colorful explosion of toy shops. Coincidentally or not, the traffic jam ends around there, too.

One day I brought my camera with me. As I stopped in front of Pereg to take a photograph, an elderly man pulled up beside me on his bike. Continue reading Levinsky street market — a blast from the past…

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Israeli chopped salad

There’s nothing more debilitating to a food blogger than having no appetite. And frankly, in this oppressive summer heat, not only have I not wanted to cook, I haven’t even wanted to eat. I have a theory that when your body needs less energy to warm itself, you don’t need as many calories. I wonder if science backs me up.

In fact, one of the few things I’ve been eating as of late are Israeli salads. Some people call them Arab salads (it’s all politics, ultimately), while in Hebrew, they’re often simply called chopped salads.

The base is always the same — little chopped cubes of tomatoes and cucumbers. That’s the basic salad you get at falafel shops. In order for cucumbers and tomatoes to carry an entire salad, they have to be fresh and ripe. Now that it’s summer, you can expect to find plenty of these — the cucumbers here are no longer greenhouse-grown, and the tomatoes are bright red and juicy — as they were once, people like to say. Americans, read: No tomatoes picked green and unripe, and then transported two weeks. That will make your salad taste like cardboard.

Once you’ve got your base, you can dress it up with all sorts: Continue reading Israeli chopped salad…

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The cupcake craze

Once there were none. Now, cupcake boutiques are popping up on nearly every major street in Tel Aviv, like mushrooms after the rain (or, if you will, cupcakes at a child’s birthday party).

It all began not long ago, in late 2008, when this blog was still in its infancy. Continue reading The cupcake craze…

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Ice limonana — mint lemonade, the drink of the Israeli summer

Limonana is the quintessential drink of the Israeli summer. Simple and ubiquitous, there’s nothing more refreshing than freshly squeezed lemons and ground sprigs of mint, whether served on ice or blended into a smoothie.

In the summer, limonada becomes my social drink of choice — the drink that captures the spirit of the moment, a pleasant afternoon nestled into a chair in a lively streetside cafe. In the winter, I order a cappuccino; in the spring and early summer, I make that iced coffee; and once even milk is too heavy for the oppressive summer heat, I get limonana. Big, green and frothy, and very cold, please. Continue reading Ice limonana — mint lemonade, the drink of the Israeli summer…

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Greens of the season: What’s in your yard, what’s in the market — and what’s off-limits

The winter rains bring with them an explosion of green growth, much of which filters its way into our markets -- well, some of them, at least. For whatever reason -- wealth? -- many of the wild greens do not play a role in most people's diets. And it's a pity, because native plants are an excellent way to embrace the land, eating local at its best.

However, you can still find them. A few of them may be in your yard, or growing alongside parking lots, or next to roads. Well, any of them could be there -- these are wild plants, after all. But you can save yourself the trouble (and potential danger) of identifying them yourself by buying them after someone else did the foraging -- Arab and interracial locales, as well as less well-off places, are a good bet for this.

There's a potential catch, though. Some plants that have been part of the culinary tradition for hundreds of years are now protected by law due to overpicking, but they're still being sold in the markets. Most likely it's a matter of ignorance. However, there's a reason they're protected -- they've become endangered by the harvesting habits, which in many cases prevent them from reproducing.

Here's a list of what's what -- the plants I've identified around my house (mallow, sorrel, nettle), the delights in various markets (wild beet, chicory, mustard, and Jerusalem sage) a few that were there but shouldn't be (cyclamen, tumbleweed). Last but not least -- some simple recipes that highlight the vibrant freshness of the season.

But before we begin, a warning: If you're not 100 percent sure you know what you're picking, don't eat it. People have died over misidentifications. At the very least, this guide will give you the satisfaction of knowing what's in your yard. Knowing how to identify the urban flora makes your environment a little bit more familiar -- especially when you see your friend the mallow bush peeking out at every opportunity.

Now, let's go. Continue reading Greens of the season: What’s in your yard, what’s in the market — and what’s off-limits...

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Hatikva market — the other side of Tel Aviv

I don't usually feel like a stranger in my own city. I observe minute changes in the scenery as they occur, and I probably could get around with my eyes closed, that is, if I weren't afraid of walking into a tree or getting hit by a car. Yet there are neighborhoods I don't know very well, and even some where I've never been. Hatikva was one of them.

The neighborhood happens to have a great market, and countless restaurants. It also happens to be the Tel Aviv neighborhood with the worst reputation, one of crime and poverty. But not surprisingly, it's not a bad place at all. In fact, it's a pretty decent place. I could think of at least one Tel Aviv neighborhood that is way grosser than the wrongly defamed Hatikva quarter (ahem, central bus station).

This may be part of the reason that the prices in Hatikva are so reasonable -- to the residents' dismay, the area doesn't have the same draw as yuppified Neve Tzekek, or even the Carmel market and the many Yemenite restaurants nearby.

In fact, the Hatikva market is wider and cleaner than Tel Aviv's more popular Carmel market, thanks to a 2005 renovation. Huh. Continue reading Hatikva market — the other side of Tel Aviv...

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Pasta sauce with mallow and sheep cheese

It doesn't sound like the most unusual dish -- tomato sauce with greens and cheese, pretty standard, right? Well, it is and it isn't. My greens happened to be mallow and wild beet, and my cheese was a traditional Arab sheep cheese known as "jibneh," which, quite creatively, means "cheese" in Arabic. Ingredients you wouldn't usually find in pasta sauce, yet it's the basic mix of greens and cheese. It works.

Wild beet and mallow are among the many wild greens that happen to be in season right now. They can be found in abundance in parks, Arab markets and possibly even your yard. Mallow is called halamit in Hebrew, but is known more popularly by its Arabic name, hubezah. The mallow plant gave its name to the marshmallow, and also the color mauve -- mauve is the French name for the plant, whose flowers happen to be, well, mauve. Continue reading Pasta sauce with mallow and sheep cheese...

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A culinary spin through Wadi Nisnas

Wadi Nisnas is more than a small Christian Arab neighborhood in the northern coastal city of Haifa -- it's a place full of culinary wonders. When I lived in Haifa seven years ago, I would make regular pilgrimages to Conditory Oriental for knafeh, a pastry of oozy goat cheese topped with crispy, bright orange noodles and rosewater syrup. Once, when I was at one of the neighborhood's most famous falafel shops, a Knesset member parked his car in the middle of the one-lane street in order to buy hummus. Honking ensued.

The tiny neighborhood, whose name means "mongoose valley" in Arabic, is home to many churches and a great deal of public art, and is the site of Haifa's annual winter Holiday of Holidays festival, a celebration of Hannukah, Christmas and Ramadan. During the rest of the year, however, the neighborhood is still a pleasant place for a stroll, especially for the hungry.

In the neighborhood's central market, you won't find purple carrots and the other gourmet oddities that appear in the markets of Tel Aviv. You will find all sorts of indigenous greens that feature in Arab cooking, including hubeizeh (mallow), olesh (chicory), mustard stems (apparently, you pickle them), green beet leaves, 10-centimeter-tall lentil sprouts and bags of cyclamen leaves for stuffing. Who knew you can eat cyclamen? Continue reading A culinary spin through Wadi Nisnas...

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Restaurant review: Lunch at Bat Shlomo’s Schwartzman dairy

Every so often, us city dwellers get a craving for a little bit of country, and go scouring the countryside for a place that meets our bucolic idyll.

One such place is the Schwartzman family dairy on Moshav Bat Shlomo, a few kilometers north of Zichron Yaakov. The dairy sits in an 100-year-old stone house on South Bat Shlomo’s only street (one street!). You walk beneath the canopy of trees and enter an unassuming yard full of bric-a-brac, clay pots, Hebron glass and a chicken coop. There you’ll find a small store, and a little seating area for the “restaurant.” Massive clusters of garlic hang everywhere.

As soon as we entered the store, we were bombarded with little slivers of cheese — taste the sfatit, taste the aged goat cheese, here’s a scoop of labaneh and one of yogurt. After all, you’re probably there for the cheese, because this is a dairy, after all, and cheese is the main thing on the restaurant menu. Continue reading Restaurant review: Lunch at Bat Shlomo’s Schwartzman dairy…

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