Cafe Liz

Pici — handmade Italian pasta

The next best thing to going to Italy and learning to make pasta from an Italian mother is having your cousins go and then teach you. (And the next best thing after that — hopefully — is learning about it on my blog.)

Paul was my friend before he became my cousin — my cousin-in-law, really. I suppose I’m to blame for that, because I’m the one who introduced him to my cousin, and they haven’t separated since. Eitan calls it all a nefarious, complex plot to make Paul into a relative — they married a pair of cousins and became cousins themselves.

So it was that my friend became a cousin, and it so happened that my cousins spent two weeks in Tuscany, touring the countryside and scouring for excellent food. Continue reading Pici — handmade Italian pasta …

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Jachnun — Yemenite breakfast

Jachnun is one of those dishes that everyone in Israel loves but few actually make themselves. These rolled sticks of dough are a Yemenite Jewish food. The dish is one of many slow-cooked Jewish foods invented to be prepared a day in advance and baked all night long, so that there would be hot food on the sabbath, when lighting fires is prohibited. Brought over by Yemenite immigrants, jachnun was warmly embraced by Israeli society as a whole. It’s traditionally [...]

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Sprouted lentils in olive oil and herbs

The combination of sprouted lentils and herb-infused oil produces a dish with a rich, nutty taste. I was inspired by a very similar dish we had at a brunch in Zichron Yaakov.

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