All Candles and No Tinsel

Hanukkah is almost over, the seventh candle will be lit tonight. It’s a very different holiday in Israel than in the US. In Israel it’s a minor one, meaning no days off work. There are a few parties – on the kibbutz one for the children and another one for everybody else. There are jelly donuts, chocolate truffles, potato latkes and, let us not forget, the ritual lighting of the candles. But that’s pretty much it, and it’s pretty drab.

In the US Hanukkah is the Jewish Christmas and actually piggy-backs (you should pardon the expression) on the Christian holiday. Houses are decorated with lights inside and out. There are sparkly decorations everywhere. And parties, let’s not forget the parties with all the fare listed above plus eggnog and fruitcake, my personal favorites. Carolers roam the neighborhoods singing for Jews and Christians alike and while they don’t usually know the dreidel song, “Jingle Bells” is ecumenical enough.

In general Israeli holidays could use some zhuzhing up. I miss the glitzy winter blow-out and the warm, fuzzy euphoria that went with it. As joyful as it was, it also had a jubilant denouement: New Year’s Eve. But that’s another story.

The Planting of the Bulbs

Last week I finished planting all the bulbs. I had gone wild in a fit of horticultural frenzy and ordered all sorts of flower bulbs from the garden guy. I was longing for a splash of color in a garden that was too, I’m having trouble finding the word, modest – austere – minimal – boring. You get the picture.

So I planted gladiolas, irises and narcissi (these were a present from the garden guy, bless him!) along the rocks in the back. In the front, hyacinths and tulips. The thing I like about bulbs is you stick them in the ground once and they keep coming up year after year with no intervention required from me. It fits my laziest-gardener-on-the-planet persona. I love plants and seeing them grow and thrive, but whenever I try to garden I just seem to get into trouble. Witness: the calla lilies.

I had this huge terracotta pot that would be perfect for callas, I thought. It’s a great plant – huge green leaves and architectural white flowers. Last year I asked the garden guy to bring me one, but just to be sure he brought me two packages, a total of five bulbs. Like an idiot, I planted them all. They grew beautifully, fantastically, and then alarmingly! They ultimately split the pot and continued to grow. The only reason the pot is not in pieces on the ground is that the roots will not let it go. So now a whole team of gardeners is going to have to come to transfer the callas to a spot in the garden which is probably where they should have been all along.

I’ll be happy if the bulbs I’ve planted will grow and flower the way they’re supposed to, but not more than that. I don’t want to have to machete my way to the front door. Even so, at least that garden wouldn't be boring.

Take Me to the Fair

The kibbutz as an organization tries its best to make life convenient and commodious. One way it does this is to bring in suppliers of goods and services for the members to buy at discount prices. This saves the need to shlep to town and pay full market price while making it possible to survive on a meager kibbutz budget. Every couple of months the dining hall becomes the scene of a clothing or shoe fair, and sometimes there’s something like jewelry or Tupperware.

They usually give you enough advanced warning to consider your options. Do I really need another pair of purple Crocs? But this Thursday I was caught unawares. I walked in to visit my mailbox and there was a display of big-ticket items: refrigerators, dishwashers, microwaves, LCD televisions. I was stunned. You mean we can buy this stuff?

As it happens, my tv is not so old. Why do I say that? Because I can remember buying it. So it can’t be more than 11 or 12, but it has been showing signs of fatigue. A year and a half ago I actually had to send it away for repair, leaving me to cope with separation anxiety for a full week. Now it shows symptoms of jaundice when I turn it on although this usually disappears after an hour or so. Given this and the fact that beautiful flat-screens have lately achieved affordability, I had decided to buy one probably next summer.

What should I do? Wait as I had planned and hunt around the stores until I find the best tv and negotiate the price/installation/delivery fees by myself, or take the kibbutz-negotiated deal now? Of course I opted for now. I don’t yet know when it will be delivered, but I am already anticipating the hours of couch-potato heaven in front of my new, big LCD. I just hope there’ll be something worth watching.

Hamsin Hair

The weather has been glorious for the past week, although I don't think most of my compatriots would agree. Israel's prevailing winds are usually from the west and the sea, meaning mild temperatures and considerable humidity. But every once in a while the winds shift bringing hot, dry air from the desert in the east. This sharav, hamsin in Arabic, inspires fear and loathing in most inhabitants of the region. I, however, think it's fabulous.

I like it hot, as I've mentioned before, and the warm, bone dry air is pleasant enough, but it also carries one big advantage as far as I'm concerned. My hair is naturally curly. I've never liked it. I always wanted it smooth and straight with maybe a hint of flip at the very end, not the frizz-fest I've been cursed with. Every morning I straighten it out with the dryer, but it's an exercise in futility. After a few minutes at normal humidity, the curls are back. During a sharav what I straighten stays straight. How could I not love this weather anomaly?

It's December, all the windows are open and it's no struggle to stay warm. Rain is on the way, that much is certain. But for the time being all this gorgeousness must be savored. At the same time I confess I'm kicking myself in the head. Why, oh why didn't I settle in Eilat?

Turkey Day

Sometimes I really miss the US, especially on the forth Thursday in November. There's no point in trying to celebrate Thanksgiving on the kibbutz because it's so specifically tied to the settling of America. Besides, where would you find a whole turkey? In Israel only the legs and wings are grown.

Thanksgiving is the one American holiday a Jew can enjoy guilt-free. At Christmas time you can see the lights and decorations, hear the carols and sip the eggnog and pretend not to like it. Those Christians are so over-the-top. "What about your freakish fondness for fruitcake," you ask? You mean a Jew can't have a sweet tooth? But Thanksgiving has no particular religious component other than the thanking G-d thing. It's just an excuse for families to gather and fabulously over-eat.

My mother would always make the bird with her chestnut stuffing. It was her mother's recipe, she said, and it was the normal bread stuffing flavored with onions and sage plus the heavenly addition of cinnamon and lots of chestnuts. I loved it not only because it smelled and tasted great, but because it was a tangible connection to the grandmother I never knew, she having died before I was born.

When chestnuts arrive at the kibbutz shop, as they should do in a few weeks, I'll try to recreate the stuffing, but in a chicken not a turkey. It won't be the same of course. But at least a chicken will fit in the oven.

Just One Bite

There's nothing I like more than a good vampire story. A sultry blood-sucker looking longingly into your eyes – what could be more appealing than that? "Buffy" was my favorite television series ever. I'm thinking about this because I just heard on the news that vamp lit is all the rage.

Some things you cannot talk to kibbutzniks about. I mean Israeli kibbutzniks, not us born-elsewhere transplants. Mention a fondness for science fiction or, I guess vampire stuff would qualify, occult fiction and they'll look at you as if you're from outer space. It's a subject that has zero resonance and I'm wondering why.

You'd think in a country perpetually at war, burdened with an inept government and leaders for whom mediocrity would be a vast improvement, that people would be desperate to escape into fantasy, although I suppose that's what the peace process is for. Kibbutzniks can't even turn to religion for comfort because they're all devout atheists.

There's something about growing grapefruit that makes people too down-to-earth. Put down the hoe for a while, I say, and think about the stars whizzing above our heads and all the forms of life they may support. Dream of the dark stranger who comes to murmur in your ear as he bites your neck. It's very pleasant.

Coughing Up the Cash

I flipped through the weekend newspaper this morning until I came to my favorite feature, the shopping page. It shows thumbnail pictures with short descriptions of new stuff that has reached the local stores and can be had for a price. Two things caught my eye: a black plywood – plywood! – chair for 18,000 shekels and a cup and saucer for over 400 shekels.

Excuse me? Can I have read this rightly? In this time of economic melt-down complete with weeping and gnashing of teeth, what space alien from the planet Bizarro would charge these prices for these entirely common objects? And who would buy them?

Let me say plainly: I have nothing against rich people. If they want to fork over large sums of money on an opulent life style, I wish them joy. I just resent seeing them exploited by anyone who would take such sums for plywood. On the other hand, it strikes me that I could be missing the boat. I could make a papier mache table to go with the chair and sell that for, I don't know, 20,000 shekels. I could be sitting on a gold mine.

Clearly, I've been on the kibbutz too long. Simple life, simple house. Carefree. I'm out of touch with the fashionable world. Economic crisis or no, life must go on and people must be chic. I just want to know when plywood became chic. What's next, MDF Nouveau?

Leaves of Grass

Just past the back of the garden, after the lawn, the boulders around the perimeter and the rosemary that grows on top of them, is a triangular section of dense, wheat-like ornamental grass. It's more than a meter high with beautiful seed heads that wave in unison in the breeze.

The odd bit is that, like the corn field in the film, "Field of Dreams", things go into it and things come out of it. But you never see them go in and then come out. I've watched pets including my own cats dive into it and since they always turn up for dinner I haven't worried. Yesterday I saw three of the neighbors' children gallantly fight their way in, the grass completely swallowing them up. As I continued with my task, namely, washing dishes, I heard their squeals and laughter so I knew they were in no danger. But I never actually saw them come out.

I don't mean to suggest that this is some Bermuda Triangle wannabe. I just cannot escape the feeling that something captivating or at least entertaining is happening there. Various species, dogs, cats and boys disappear, staying gone for quite a while, apparently having a high old time.

I remember as a child going with my friends to a wooded park near our homes. We would pick out a secluded spot bounded by trees where we could play our games. It was an adult-free, intrusion-free zone where for a few hours we were totally happy. I suspect the grassy triangle may be serving a similar purpose. But it will remain a mystery. I have no wish to intrude. Everyone needs a place to get away to now and then.

Crunchy Soup

One of the finest elements of Israeli cuisine is something called soup almonds. Why they're called this, I don't know since they neither look nor taste like almonds. What they are, are tiny, crisp, puffy squares of stuff that – this part of the name does not mislead – are intended for soup. What do they taste like? Fried wonton is the closest thing I can think of.

Once upon a time – and I am old enough to remember this – meals in the kibbutz dining hall were free. Three times a day you could go and feast on all you could grab for nothing. Then soup almonds were a rarity, trotted out only for the Shabbat evening chicken soup. But of course, socialism has been as big a failure here as it has been everywhere else (Obama supporters be warned) so now most everything has been privatized. It's a testament to capitalism that soup almonds are now readily available in the dining hall. You can buy a little bag of them for a shekel.

I put them in everything. I add them to my rice to make it crunchy. You can add them to broccoli to make it crunchy and lessen the cooked-broccoli taste. In fact, they're so versatile that you'd think their creators would advertise accordingly, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to them. I think they should put me on retainer.

NEWS FLASH: I just heard that a big piece of space junk, a container full of ammonia, having been discarded by the Mir space station a year ago will strike the earth tomorrow. No one knows where it will hit. It's like a great, big lottery. If I were a little more paranoid I'd plan to spend the day hiding in the house with a helmet or two on my head. But I never win anything, so I don't expect my odds here will be any better.

Succot, Oddly

This is the oddest holiday in the Jewish calendar. I thought this as I sat in a succa looking at the stars through the palm fronds. Succot, of course, has just ended. I had a nice time, sitting in some friends' succa with a few other people from the kibbutz, eating, drinking and talking about nothing special.

Still, the holiday is odd. It's another of those marathon holidays, the kind that test your endurance until the timer runs out. Christians don't have these, unless you count Lent which is a Catholic invention. We're supposed to build these huts out of nothing substantial, decorate them with species of the plant kingdom, and sleep or at least eat in them for a week. I have a problem with this from the get-go.

I'm not a builder. As a kid, Lincoln Logs were a mystery to me. As an adult, Ikea fills me with fear and trembling and is pretty much out of the question. So no hut will be built. But if I had a hut I wouldn't want to decorate it with fruits and greenery that have to be perfect to be acceptable. This is simply insulting and if I were a vegetable I would howl in protest. Wildly imperfect human beings demanding plant perfection – it's laughable. Perfection is not for this world, certainly not for anything that lives.

By now all the huts have been taken down and thrown on the compost pile. Succot is over and there are no more holidays until the next marathon one in December. Hanukkah at least features jelly donuts.

Cornbread Heaven

Today I'm baking again, cornbread this time. I have always loved it. Corn muffins have been my favorite breakfast since childhood. But I was in Israel for years before I knew that it could be done here.

There was a restaurant in either Raanana or Kfar Saba, I can't remember which, that was this American expatriate's idea of heaven. They served barbecued steak with barbecued beans – you see where my heart lies – and cornbread. I don't think the place lasted very long because it was just too American. Israelis want their plates of humus and don't seem to like gastronomic experimentation. I asked the proprietor where he gets the cornmeal and he said it's readily available in every supermarket.

Sure enough, they even have it in the tiny kibbutz store. Turns out it's the main ingredient of something called mamalika, a porridge-like concoction similar to polenta. The cornmeal is a finer grind than I would like, but it still makes acceptable cornbread.

The best thing about baking cornbread is that it's so forgiving. You can add one egg or two, milk or water or buttermilk, mix the ingredients in any order you like and the results are infallibly delectable. Served warm with the melting butter just disappearing into it – it's happiness on a plate. And how can anyone have too much happiness?

Blessed Quiet

One day a year everything is blessedly quiet. No street noise, no loud music, no shouting. Just glorious peace and twittering birds. I'm speaking, of course, about Yom Kippur.

This is a secular kibbutz, aggressively so. It's part of a movement that is so left wing that in the early days adoring pictures of Stalin were hung in the children's classrooms, a bit of information I would file under "What the hell were you thinking?" When we got married so many years ago it was forbidden to have a huppa in the public areas – rabbis were forbidden. You could have it at your house, but not at the dining hall. While this rule has since changed, the attitude has not. So it's fair to assume that most people here don't fast.

Still, the day is treated quite respectfully. Why this is, I don't really know. Maybe because it's tradition, or part of Jewish identity, or because the rest of the country has shut down and there's nothing else to do. For whatever reason there are no barbecues and no kayak races on the fish ponds. One day a year, those precious hours of silence. It's marvelous.

The Lime Tree

Israel is a country with a long history of growing just about every kind of citrus except one. Stroll through any market I know of and you will not find limes. There are oranges and grapefruit of every description, pomelos and a gazillion lemons, some of which are deceptively green. But if you want limes you pretty much have to grow them yourself.

I loved my lime tree from the moment it was planted. The gardener called the next day to apologize for not checking with me about the price and offered to replace it with a smaller, cheaper one. I said no thanks, we've already bonded. But the tree has never been the kind of lush citrus that I see in other places and I didn't know why.

It has its own watering system controlled by the garden guy's computer and the soil is the same as in the rest of the kibbutz. When I talked to the gardener he said I should give it more fertilizer. This produced more limes but still not so many leaves and branches. The poor thing was looking so scraggly and unloved that I was quite distraught. What could be the problem?

Then it dawned on me. I would never dare besmirch the garden guy's automated system, his knowledge of plants or his computer controls, but maybe it wasn't getting enough water? I started to take a bucket out to it every day. After two weeks it had tiny green leaves sprouting all over. That was a month or two ago and the tree is noticeably better. Still not lush, but better.

New problem: what am I going to do with all these limes? Lime pie, limeade. There are only so many gin-and-tonics one can drink. Margaritas. Does lime go with rosemary garlic chicken?

Rosh Hashana

Wishing everyone a healthy, prosperous and, most importantly, happy new year. Shana tova!

Summer's End

It rained yesterday for the first time since April. Summer is gone and no amount of wishing can bring it back. Those hot, steamy, sunny days – all gone. Sensible people here pray for rain. We depend on it since our benighted government can't seem to manage sufficient desalination. So the water has to come from the heavens.

I don't like rain. It's wet, nasty stuff. It gets under your collar and runs down your neck. It's cold. And just when you think it's over, a great big drop hits you smack in the eye. But, and I realize this might seem like a contradiction, I love water. I love the look of it and relish every glimpse of the sea. When I have enough money for a water feature in the garden, I plan to spend every free minute just sitting and looking at it.

What I don't like is being attacked by those cold little drops from the sky that leave sludgy spots on the windows. This could be because I come from a place where it rained all the time, except when it snowed. We saw the sun once a decade if we were lucky. So Israel's glorious heat and relentless sunshine is a miracle to me.

It rained yesterday and again this morning. As I look out into the garden, the plants look wonderful. They've all been washed of their summer grunge and seem to be grateful for the extra water. I'll try to find comfort in this.

Banana Bread Nostalgia

For comfort food, there's nothing better than banana bread. Why it's called bread when it's clearly cake, I don't know. Maybe because it's eaten unfrosted, like zucchini bread and pumpkin bread. But of this I'm sure: when fall is on the horizon, it's time to bake a batch.

Of course, Israel has it's culinary delights, like humus with zaatar (an herb mixture whose main component is hyssop) and olive oil. Anything with zaatar and olive oil. Warm pita. Halla with raisins. With Rosh Hashana almost upon us, most people here probably dream of honey cake. Not me, I find it usually too dry. And let me add that I cannot swallow much of the Eastern food so common here – coriander tastes like rot and cumin smells like sweaty socks.

Different people have different tastes, that's part of the diversity of humanity. I know this well. When I've shared banana bread with my coworkers it has met with mixed reviews. Some found it good enough, but others thought it inedible. I admit I was taken aback. It's a wonderful cake – bananas, butter, walnuts – what's not to like? It could be an American taste.

There is something about the fall that makes me long for home and the gorgeous leaves and fresh apple cider. So when the summer heat has passed and a stiff breeze whips through the house as it does today, I comfort myself with a little baking. The aroma fills the house and a mug of raspberry tea is ready and waiting. There, the oven just dinged!

The House of Wine

A few years ago the kibbutz decided to open a restaurant/café/wine store called, prosaically, The House of Wine. It is located in a sturdy building that looks like an airplane hanger but was actually a cold storage room used by the kitchen. Why it was located in the middle of the dairy with the cows milling around it is a mystery to this day. But they have long since moved to their new dairy somewhere vaguely in the direction of the Kingdom of Jordan, leaving a nice chunk of land for building houses and a chunky building for the café.

The House of Wine is pleasantly decorated and landscaped with a few tables on the decking and some more on the lawn. Inside is a store that sells domestic and imported wine as well as the harder stuff. The food is acceptable, if not exactly inspiring, and it's a nice place to sit and scarf down a bucket of beer after a hard day's shopping. It's also a reasonable place to hold parties, wedding receptions and anything else that requires celebration.

As luck would have it, my house was built right next to The House of Wine. Convenient, you say? Yes, there's that. But when festivities are going on the noise can be invasive. The problem, of course, is entirely because of loud-speakers, the bane of civilization. I remember once hearing someone opine that the curse of modern civilization is unwanted music, and I have never heard a truer word spoken.

Tuesday evening there was a polite knock at the door. A woman told me there would be a wedding reception and apologized in advance for any noisy inconvenience. She then gave me a complementary bottle of Leffe Belgian beer as compensation. It was a nice gesture, much appreciated. It was also my first experience of Leffe, which is quite tasty. As it turned out, given the hemorrhage-inducing volume as the evening wore on, it would have taken a six-pack, no, two to make amends. But what I really don't understand is why you would have that raucous cacophony at your event when you could have a string quartet?

Space, the final frontier

When you immigrate to Israel, especially if you're coming from America, you have to come to grips with the lack of space. Walking down even not-so-crowded Jerusalem streets with people bumping and pressing up against me used to send me screaming for the nearest gin and tonic. I like strangers to keep their distance. It's an alien concept in Israel.

Living quarters are also tiny, even more so on a kibbutz. In the real world you are free to buy the biggest house you can afford. But here on Fantasy Island, somewhere in some dossier there is an actual document that dictates to how many square meters you are entitled according to your age. If you're 30 years old asking to build an extension so your 4 children will have a room to sleep in, you will feel like Oliver Twist asking for more gruel.

When you reach my exalted age, you are entitled to 90 square meters, although you can add another 30 or 40 in the form of a second story if you pay for it yourself. I don't quibble with this. The kibbutz has a finite amount of land and hundreds of people to house and does the best it can with the resources it has. By the time you get your permanent house, leaving behind the flat that was the size of a walk-in closet, 90 meters feels quite spacious. Until, that is, you try to fit furniture into it.

How does one cope? By keeping everything as uncluttered as possible and furniture to the barest minimum. This has the advantage of also being cheaper. There is one thing about finally getting into the permanent house that is both comforting and alarming: you never have to move again.

In praise of wisteria

I first fell in love with wisteria when I was five years old. My family went to visit a friend of my grandmother in Wilmington, North Carolina. The house was a gracious, red brick building with a large veranda covered, I mean covered, with wisteria. I thought it was the most beautiful stuff I had ever seen. It was the first plant I knew I wanted for the new house and had three of them planted to climb up the pergola.

Foliage abundant and chaotic, mauve flower clusters hanging down like bunches of grapes, it is hardy even in this semi-arid climate. The only problem is, it's not the best climber in the world. It sends out long shoots, runners, which can wind around a support or around each other. But they seem to need lots of encouragement before they will cooperate.

Unlike every other house on the kibbutz, my pergola does not have a roof. The plan was for the wisteria to grow and cover it with leaves and flowers forming a canopy. The runners, however, have a habit of hanging down between the beams and not staying on top where they belong. Every day I am out there with my magav – that’s a squeegee on a broom handle for you non-Israelis – pushing them back up, but it's like pushing an overcooked noodle. Then comes a gust of wind, and I'm back where I started. Two and a half years later, the pergola is maybe one quarter covered.

Still, it is the most beautiful stuff I have ever seen. I love to stand at the kitchen window and just gaze at it. I often think back to that first time in North Carolina. I found out much later that the rest of my family hated the wisteria. To me, it's magical.

Rococo Revival

I went to sleep one night and woke up in an alternate universe. How do I know? Because I walked into the furniture store of the kibbutz next door and was instantly transported to the Versailles stock room of the Bourbon kings of France. Or rather, to the prop room for the movie version.

Styles change, this I know. Minimalism and its bare-boned cousins wouldn't last forever, I know this, too. But I was not prepared for a 180-degree, turn-fashion-on-its-head about face of a sea change. (Those of you who spend your time counting mixed metaphors, this last sentence is for you.) The shop was packed to the rafters with rococo gilt mirrors, baroque painting reproductions and gilded settees. It was the sort of stuff King Fahd would have thought was over the top.

All I wanted was a mirror for my Mediterranean farmhouse. I should not have been so surprised. I had noticed that women's fashions had become frillier and that jewelry had gotten big, ornate and expensive. Interior design was the next logical step. But I was not prepared for Rococo Revival.

On my way out of the store I spotted a meter-and-a-half tall Technicolor statue of Bacchus, bunch of grapes in one hand, flagon of wine in the other. I paused for a moment and considered. In the garden by the bamboo? Nah.

Lavender Blue, Lavender Green

I wish I had a green thumb. I love to see vegetation thrive and grow, but a horticulturist I am not. I don't like digging in dirt and I really, really don't like insects. But when you have a house, unless you pave the surrounding area, sooner or later you have to deal with the garden.

Lavender was a reasonable choice, I thought, for a low-maintenance garden. At least, that's what the BBC gardening gurus have said repeatedly, and so I had it planted all around the house. Such a lovely fragrance! What I did not know was that in this climate those little, bitty plants grow into huge bushes that quite literally take over the environment, to the point of threatening the neighbors.

I guess I should have been pruning them. Pruning is something I simply hate to do – it seems so cruel. So I apologize to the plants before I snip them which, of course, makes me feel like a complete idiot. When I was a child I was thrilled to have successfully sprouted two pussy willow sprigs which I planted in the backyard. Then I wouldn't let anybody prune them so instead of nice, manageable bushes they grew into great big trees. My father would look at them and shake his head as if to say "Why did I listen to that child?"

So I'm going to have to face up it and cut the lavender way back. I'm dreading it. On the plus side, maybe I can use the cut bits to make lavender essence. How hard can that be?

Chewy centers are the best

This week we, the laboratory staff, took advantage of a production break-for-maintenance and attended a seminar on chocolate. This is the stuff of my dreams. Milk, dark or white, I love it all. I've known people who don't, and I just cannot wrap my mind around it. Who could take that lovely, heavenly confection into their mouths and say, yuk, that tastes terrible? Something must be very, very wrong.

We heard a bit about the history of chocolate, its origins in Central America and how it was mixed with chili and drunk bitter, and how the Spanish brought it to Europe where they started to improve the recipe. This brings me to one of the great geniuses in human history whose name is unfortunately unknown to us: the guy who first thought to add milk and sugar. It's a seminal moment in human history. Life would never be the same again.

Then we got to dig in and pour chocolate into molds, add toasted coconut and nuts and decorate our creations to the highest artistic standards. Lord, it was fun. Mostly. Here is where I ran into trouble. We were presented with a bowl of goo and told to roll gobs of it in our hands to make truffles. I did one. My hands were covered with melty chocolate – and I couldn't stand it. I had to run immediately and wash it off.

I don't know when this happened to me. I never used to be the type who was afraid get my hands dirty. When I worked in the kibbutz kitchen and had to mix several tons of ground beef with my hands, I never had a problem. I just dug in. But now I cannot bear to have anything on them, not even yummy chocolate. Maybe this comes from working in a lab where clean hands can save your life. Or maybe I've just taken to heart all those admonitions that the best way to prevent illnesses like colds and flu is to wash your hands frequently. Whatever. Who said people don't change?

Power can never be taken lightly

Coming home from work is always my favorite part of the day. Stepping through the door into the warmth of orange walls and wood is a pleasure that never disappoints. I admit here to one bad habit that I developed after my husband, may his memory be blessed, passed away. The first thing I do is turn on the television. I like the sound of voices in the house and even if I am not exactly watching, without the TV the house is just too quiet.

On Wednesday afternoon we all got SMS's informing us that the power is out in most of the kibbutz and that the situation is being worked on. Sure enough, when I get home there is no electricity. It won't be long, I thought, so I do all the straightening/wiping/sweeping/weed-pulling I can bear. Still no electricity. Have a shower, lovely and cool. When I get out – still no power.

This is starting to look serious. Catch up on all the unread newspapers. Now what? Around about 6pm my neighbor has news: the power is back in most of the kibbutz but for us it will take a while longer. This is when I start to lose my mind. What on earth am I to do with myself? Read my book? No, that takes concentration, and all I can think about is the ice cream melting in the freezer. 7pm – still nothing. In desperation I start playing with the cell phone just to see the glowing screen.

7:30 – it's starting to get dark, where are the candles? 8 – it is dark and there aren't enough candles in Israel to properly light this barn. There will never be electricity again. It will be like living in the 18th century, only without the pretty clothes. 8:15 – appliances are beeping, the fridge starts to hum. The power is back! Dinner can be cooked, life can be lived, the mind can be entertained. Some things just can't be taken for granted.

The next morning I get an SMS: a broken pipe means there will be no water for a while. Here we go again.

Some like it hot

It's high summer in Israel. Not a cloud in the sky. Hot, hot, fry-your-egg-on-the-pavement hot. And humid in this part of the country. I love it. I love being able to open up all the windows and let the breeze waft. I love the sun-drenched greenery all around. Most of all, I love not having to struggle to keep warm.

I am always amazed by the number of Israelis I hear complaining about the heat. I realize it is human nature to complain about the weather. Sometime around January I do it ad nauseam. However I cannot really understand those who long for the cold, gray, rainy days of winter. Considering human origins somewhere in Africa, you'd think we'd all be hard-wired to love the heat and eschew the glacial fjords of Scandinavia. But it's not so.

To me, this weather is glorious. It's a Saturday afternoon and except for an occasional twitter of birds there is not a sound to be heard. No screaming children, no roaring all-terrain vehicles, nothing but complete quiet. I guess it's hot out there. G-d, I love summer!

The hunt for purslane

When I was a child there were two bushes in front of our house. Along with needle-like thorns they bore the very reddest of berries. My parents impressed upon me that these berries were not to be touched. I was not to eat them. I was not to give them to anybody else to eat. They were poison.

Some children might have found them irresistible as a result, the delicious temptation of the forbidden fruit (and wouldn't you have expected G-d to know better as he stocked his Garden of Eden, but I digress.) I however had the opposite reaction. I developed an aversion to eating anything I see growing in anybody's garden. Don't bring me your home-grown tomatoes or zucchini, I won't touch them. And I would never, ever eat a mushroom that didn't come wrapped in cellophane, no matter how expert the hand that picked it.

So one day last week a friend, a fellow American expatriate, breezed in to tell me all about her new discovery of purslane. It's a common weed that's edible, she said, and what is more, it's a good source of omega-3. This got my attention. Omega-3 is the stuff we're all encouraged to eat fish for or at least to plop down hundreds of shekels for the capsule form. And purslane is free. After providing me with a sample of what to look for growing in the dirt, she breezed out, leaving me with a dilemma.

After some searching, I found what I think may be purslane growing by the lamp post in front of a neighbor's house. I pulled a few plants out of the ground and stuck them in a pot of dirt where they are growing nicely. And quickly. They're tough little plants to be doing so well after such rough treatment, all of which makes me suspicious. What if I got the wrong plants? What if they're not edible at all? What if they're poison? You can see my dilemma: on the one hand, free omega-3. On the other hand, agonizing death by alkaloid poisoning. Do I dare try it? Tonight I chopped and sprinkled a bit of it on my cottage cheese. The taste is rather lawnish, but no worse that parsley. Did I get it right? Only time will tell.

How many kibbutzniks does it take to change a light bulb?

One of the conveniences of kibbutz life is the availability of trained professionals, like electricians, to help with any problem you might have. Living in Real World, America I never actually saw an electrician in the flesh. They were the guys who worked in your apartment before you moved in, and then you had no more use for them. If you had a light bulb on the ceiling that had to be changed, you either climbed the ladder and did it yourself -- in my case, not likely -- or you cultivated friendships with tall people who could be imposed upon to do it for you.

But in the kibbutz, you phone the electrician or today just put in a request through the website, and a good-natured guy shows up with a ladder and quickly solves the problem, kindly asking if anything else needs doing before he leaves. It may be the American in me, but this is a privilege I don't like to abuse. So I will do whatever it takes to avoid making that call.

All this came to mind the other night when I turned on the bedside light. There was a pop, there were sparks, and the light bulb came shooting out of the lamp, landing in my sandal. I was amazed. This was the first time I had seen the electrical equivalent of projectile vomiting. Then came the realization that I was in real trouble: the glass bulb had separated from the metal base which was still in the lamp.

How to get it out? Pliers? Too big. Fingers? Too tender. I remembered hearing that a raw potato could be jammed onto the base letting you unscrew it, but this seemed like a wanton waste of food at today's prices. Thank G-d for eyebrow tweezers! With this divinely inspired tool I was able to grab and gently turn the base, getting it out. And that is how one kibbutznik changed a light bulb without the help of an electrician.

Of gardeners and trees

Getting a new house is the brass ring of kibbutz life. When you join a kibbutz your name goes on the bottom of a list. Every time the kibbutz decides to build new houses, the next people on the list get the call and so it goes. Year after year you inch your way up until you get the call.

Then comes a year and a half of frenzied, obsessive activity: deciding on a floor plan, choosing tiles, a kitchen, cupboards and closets, and where on earth am I supposed to stick the computer? After dealing with the parade of carpenters, electricians, plumbers and brick layers, the last one to deal with is the Garden Guy.

The negotiations with Garden Guy were good training if I ever decide to join the diplomatic corps. Now, I am not a gardener. I love to see growing things, but I don't want to spend my afternoons with my hands in the dirt. So low-maintenance was the key. I definitely wanted wisteria on the pergola. "No point," said Garden Guy, "the flowers will all be on the roof." My pergola won't have a roof. I wanted some lime trees. "You can have one, and you'll have to pay for it." Lavender around the house and bamboo out back. "No problem." What about the front of the house, something beautiful and colorful like bougainvillea? "No. Bougainvillea grows too big and it has thorns, not very welcoming." (This last bit was a good point.) So what can I have? "Cypress trees."

Before I came to Israel the only cypresses I knew were the kind that grow in the swamps of Florida dripping with Spanish moss. I didn't know that the tall, skinny trees you see in Italian renaissance paintings are also cypresses. It's a wonderful choice for the front of the house -- architectural and elegant. I think of this as I look out my window. I'm happy to see that they've doubled in size in the past two years, and I have to doff my hat in thanks to the Garden Guy.

On a scale of 1 to 5...

Once every few days it seems I get a call from a poll taker. They're not interested in my political opinions. They want to know how I spend my money: what kind of frozen vegetables do I buy, how much cola, did I see the ad featuring the practically nude model selling kosher wine spritzer? They say the poll will only take 10 minutes. Of course that's 10 Israeli minutes for native Hebrew speakers. For me, having to have every question repeated 2 to 7 times, it balloons to the better part of the evening.

I always try to be nice. I respect that this person has a job to do and it's not his/her fault that I've just added the spaghetti to the water. This last time the pollster promised it would only take 1 minute. How could I refuse? True to her word, this poll consisted of only two questions. Did I favor a new coastal road which would cut through the only decent park in the area, or did I prefer upgrading and expanding the existing road? A no-brainer, I thought, fix the road we've already got and keep your grubby mitts off our park. Did I think the head of the municipality should push for this option in Jerusalem? Well yeah, it's about time he did something useful.

Then come the dreaded statistical questions. My age, education and marital status, I don't care who knows. My income? "I'm a kibbutznik." Sometimes the pollster doesn't understand what this means and still wants me to pick a number. "But I'm a kibbutznik. I have no income."

The plastic bag thing

I should have known we were in for trouble a few weeks ago. We walked into the dining hall and were confronted with a huge representation of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" constructed entirely out of plastic bags. It was cleverly and faithfully done, and astonishingly ugly. But I thought it was just art.

No, no, no! This week the other shoe dropped. The kibbutz now wants to charge us for every plastic bag taken from the shops, and the members approved this by more than a two-to-one margin.

Now here's my problem: plastic bags are useful. They keep food fresh, they keep the onions away from the peaches, and they are irreplaceable for the disposal of garbage. If ecology is really the problem, the kibbutz can pry open its collective wallet and buy the bio-degradable kind. But no. Instead, they pass the bag tax, further taxing my already stressed budget. It's unforgivable.

The murder of crows

A sizable murder of crows, I think I've counted 5 or 6 of them, has taken over my backyard. They like the relatively large lawn and seem to find plenty to eat in it. These are big, aggressive Israeli crows -- think American crows on steroids -- with grey bodies and black wings. They are so tough that even Finnegan, my most ferocious cat who never met a dog he couldn't take, does not mess with them.

Most distressingly, the crows have a particular fondness for my pergola. Normally I wouldn't mind. But I'm anxious for my precious wisteria to grow and cover it. I love wisteria, having first experienced its gorgeousness as a small child at a friend of my grandmother's in North Carolina. The crows keep breaking off the tender, new branches with their claws. At least I think that's what is happening.

What can I do? I can't scare them away. They just laugh at me, circle around for a few seconds then return to the pergola. Maybe what I need is a bigger, tougher bird to stand guard. Now, how do I tempt an eagle to take up residence in the kibbutz?

I gave at the office

Last week several children came to my door. Immediate anxiety, whenever The Children appear. The first problem involves understanding what it is they actually want. Hebrew is not my mother-tongue and it's not just that they speak indistinctly but that they speak so darned fast. The younger they are, the faster they speak. So it took several passes before I understood they were not asking for money.

What a relief! Now, I am not stingy and I am not without sympathy for a good cause. Or even a mediocre cause. It's only that I have so little actual cash on hand. I have just about enough to get myself home if I am abducted by aliens and they leave me stranded on the highway. Assuming they let me take my purse.

But it wasn't about money. The children wanted me to sign a pledge not to pick wildflowers. Easily done. I'm not much of a flower picker, not even out of other people's gardens. I happily signed their paper with the crayon provided and sent them on their way with my praises for their environmental responsibility. Or, given my proven ability to mangle the Hebrew language, for their spinning clarity. But I suppose they got it.

Starting out

So what am I doing here, you ask? My step-daughter, who by the way is one of the finest women who ever lived, has encouraged me to set up a blog. She's sure people will enjoy reading this stuff because she likes the messages I send her each week. I have my doubts. But here goes.

I've spent the last few decades on this kibbutz in central Israel after considerable wandering. It can be a very quiet place to live, except when it's not. And for as long as I've been here there has been a children's zoo that comprised some animals roaming through the ramshacklest of shacks.

Then last year the whole thing was revamped. They built hexagonal pavilions, a duck pond, put in some nice landscaping complete with trees. It had everything, except animals. Then they came: bunnies, guinea hens, ducks, a rooster that starts crowing at 3am -- obviously maladjusted, any chicken-whisperers out there? -- and some amazingly chatty peacocks. Like I said, this is a quiet place to live, but there are times I think I've woken up on the Serengeti Plain.