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 …
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" …
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 …
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 …
Here I am, making zhug, even though I’ve never really been a big fan. Not liking something has never kept me from trying to make it myself. Plus, I find something intrinsically interesting about making condiments. Things like mustard and mayonnaise, they’re usually considered ingredients in their own right, something …
Brunch is beyond a tradition in Tel Aviv -- it's a culture. Every self-respecting restaurant offers a breakfast menu, which invariably includes "Israeli breakfast" -- generally speaking, some form of eggs, a leafy or chopped vegetable salad, assorted white cheeses, a few other spreads, some bread, coffee and/or fresh juice. …
My friend Kazue is visiting from Japan, and her favorite food here just happens to be hummus. So I whipped up a batch or three. Hummus is quite possibly one of the simplest things to make, full of rich, creamy flavor — so long as you use fresh chickpeas. That …
We're used to seeing capers sold in little gourmet jars, and served in gourmet dishes at gourmet restaurants. Capers, it turns out, are a weed. They grow wild around the Mediterranean, and Israel is no exception. Capers are referenced in the bible, and hung from the walls of Jerusalem over …
For the past few weeks I’ve been working on a side project, and it’s finally been published. The whole thing started after I noticed a few lonely bunches of white asparagus at the Carmel market, as if the sellers were testing the waters to see if anyone would buy. This …
Now is the season to pick grape leaves. Not that I have access to a grapevine; but plenty of other people do, it seems. One of them apparently dumped a pile of fresh leaves next to the scales at some stall buried deep in the Carmel market this past weekend. …
