Bagel Bagel

Back home in America there was no nicer way to spend a lazy Sunday morning than by reading the paper while munching freshly baked bagels bought from the neighborhood bakery. Bagels are the quintessential Jewish food and one of oddest things about Israel is how rare they are here in the Jewish homeland. It’s counter-intuitive.

Of course, there’s no end of round bread. But dense, chewy bagels are as rare as water in a desert. I’ve heard that there are a couple of places in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem where they can be had, but that’s too far to shlep. Once upon a time a local baker delivered lots of them to the kibbutz shop. These were golden days for me. There were plain bagels, onion bagels, garlic bagels, raisin bagels and – my personal favorite – blueberry bagels. But they stopped making them, no demand. I’ve been bereft since.

Then along came “The Jerusalem Post” with a bagel recipe which of course I had to try. I spent most of this afternoon kneading, shaping, boiling, glazing, baking and hoping for the best. Shaping them was the hardest part. After bagel number 8 I started getting the hang of it. 9 through 12 are ok, but the others are the ugliest things ever baked by man. How do they taste? Reasonable, but still not chewy enough. Maybe I’ll try again, but intensity of the labor is a little off-putting. Laziness after all is my weekend objective. I think I’ll go lie down.

January Blahs

I am struggling with a fit of January gloom and doom. I blame the weather: I woke this morning to find the air heavy with – what is that? – it looks like fog but I think it’s dust. The promised rain has not arrived and there’s nothing to clear the air of this stuff.

January is the hardest month. Long, bleak days. Sunless, doomy skies. Nothing to do but wait for spring. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to be. But this year is different. Not so cold, plenty of sunshine which sometimes also gives off heat. As Januarys go, this one is not the worst.

Complaining about the weather is my winter ritual. I can gripe about the Siberian temperatures and the rainwater in my shoes and always find a willing ear among my fellow sufferers. Then at the appointed hour spring appears, sort of. The odd thing about spring and fall in Israel is that they consist mainly of alternations between winter and summer. A few days of each back and forth until one day somebody pushes a button and it stays summer. Or winter.

But this year’s mild temperatures and virtual rainlessness – worrisome in itself – have not saved me from the January blahs. Just one week to go until February arrives with its promise of better days ahead. There, I think I’ve almost cheered myself up.

The Kingfisher

A kingfisher was hanging around my house the other day. I don’t know why. There are no fishing opportunities in the immediate area so I can’t imagine what was here to interest him. He perched for a long while on the pergola and then later I saw him out front on the signpost. He was absolutely gorgeous – bright turquoise with a red breast.

I remembered hearing a saying from the American South that if there’s a bluebird on your porch on New Year’s Day it portends financial difficulties for the year. Like you’d need a bird to tell you that. Given the global crisis you’d have to be crazy not to be at least a little nervous. But, I told myself, this was not a bluebird and it wasn’t New Year’s Day, and this isn’t even any kind of South. And anyway, I don’t believe in portents.

I realize it’s human nature to look for patterns in random events. In a big, scary world being able to see the signs and predict the future would be a considerable advantage. But it’s just an illusion, the sort of matrixing and pattern recognition that’s hard-wired into our brains. The bird represents nothing but his beautiful self.

I haven’t seen him since, but he’s welcome to come back. Maybe a fish pond would tempt him back. I’ll have to think about this because clearly, a splash of turquoise is just what the garden needs.

At Last a Palm

I’ve always had a soft spot for neathebella palms. It was the first houseplant I ever bought way back when I was in college. I cared for it tenderly year after year as it grew from a little thing to a quite reasonable size. Then my heart was broken when it was stolen from my front porch back in hometown America. I never got over it and I never replaced it, until this New Year’s Day.

For months I had noticed a palm in the kibbutz store stuck against a wall far from any light source. It was in the place where they put orders that will be picked up later so I always assumed that a) someone was coming to get it or b) it was part of the décor – I don’t know what I was thinking here, the place has no décor. On New Year’s Day I was buying provisions for the weekend and I could not get my mind off this plant. It was bone dry and begging to be rescued so I asked if it was for sale. There were two staffers on hand, one said yes, the other no.

Then as luck would have it the manager happened to call for reasons of her own and said I could have the palm for 35 shekels. I bundled up my prize and flew home without the faintest idea where I was going to put it. But as soon as I walked in the front door the answer was obvious: by the back door where the cats have their water bowl. It’s a place just crying out for a point of interest. All I had to do was move the bowl forward a few inches.

Cats can be difficult to live with – very demanding – and as it happens, they don’t like to drink where they eat. So to accommodate this idiosyncrasy their water is on the opposite side of the kitchen. I moved it into its new position, carefully leaving enough clearance for bowl, cats and plant. I innocently believed there would be no problem. Wrong!

Usually when a new object comes into the house the cats sniff it thoroughly and maybe insert a claw or two to gauge the reaction. But this time all three just sat in a row and stared at the invader that was menacing their water bowl. This showdown was not going to be pretty. The cats were mean and thirsty, and the palm was not giving an inch. I put one cat by the bowl, defusing the situation when they all saw he could drink without interference. But it was touch and go for a while there.

Sylvester Who?

Now that we’ve survived Hanukkah and the grease-fest of jelly donuts and potato latkes we might expect an enjoyable, uncomplicated New Year’s Eve. I mean, at this time who couldn’t use a drink? But no. In Israel it’s officially forbidden and unofficially celebrated and herein lies the rub.

New Year’s Eve is called Sylvester in Israel as it supposedly is somewhere in central or eastern Europe. This story is spread by word of mouth: the reason it’s forbidden is that it’s named after a Christian saint who may or may not have also been Pope and therefore the rabbis will not allow the celebration. My solution is simple…rename it! Call it New Year’s like everywhere else and problem solved.

Before I came to Israel I had only heard of two Sylvesters, Stallone and the cartoon-cat nemesis of Tweetie Pie. Beyond the name issue, the real problem is that the holiday is unofficial. That means you still have to work on New Year’s Day which for people like me means there’ll be no ringing-in the New Year at midnight. Of course, most people just take the day off. Whole departments are gone from the kibbutz enterprises leaving only a smattering of kibbutzniks here and there working like the drudges we are.

It’s unfair. More than that, Israel needs and deserves one holiday that we can celebrate with the rest of the world. The Jewish New Year is heavy with the consciousness of sin and prayers to the Almighty to be allowed to live for one more year. But the secular New Year is just fun, a party to lavish good wishes on friends and family, and celebrating it should constitute no threat to the Jewish soul or the rabbis. One secular holiday should not be too much to ask.

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous 2009!