As of this writing, we are well into the king of the Jewish marathon holidays. After the Seder, the gefilte fish and the Had Gadya, the week of Pesach is all about not eating bread. Some people find this difficult. Some even keep a secret stash of buns in the freezer.
I can be sympathetic to this. I also love bread. Have you ever noticed that bread is the one thing you can eat three times a day – breakfast, lunch and dinner – every day and not get sick of it? Still, I have no problem with Pesach because I just adore matzot. Not plain, of course, because that way it tastes like a piece of bread that someone stomped on with a dirty boot. But with the right topping it is really quite tasty.
Chopped liver, chicken, tuna or egg salad all do well as does a thin smear of butter. Of course the traditional spread is schmaltz which is something I have never tried. In fact, I find just the idea of it – rendered chicken fat – a little off-putting. But my very favorite topping is … drum roll, please … spaghetti sauce.
I love spaghetti sauce and have been know to eat it out of the jar on a spoon. Pasta for me is just an excuse to eat more sauce. Imagine my delight some years ago when I dared to put some on a piece of matza and found the result to be entirely palatable. At one time I might have been more circumspect in recommending this. But here in the Middle East they put a variety of sauces and spreads in little bowls in front of you and call them salads.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
The Peacock's Evil Eye
Today I spent some time just gazing out the kitchen window. One of the peacocks from the zoo across the way had perched in the bow of a tree and was sitting in all his magnificence with his iridescent plumage fluttering in the breeze. He was a beautiful sight. But he was not, alas, music to my ears.
If you have never experienced a peacock up close, which I hadn’t until I came here, it may surprise you to learn that the voice does not match the beauty of the bird. In fact, its crow is harsh and very, very loud. I am left wondering if this is a principle of avian existence. Premium songbirds like larks and nightingales are embarrassingly brown and plain while the showy glamour-pusses like peacocks and parrots make your ears bleed.
Of course, everyone knows that peacock feathers supposedly are bad luck because of the “evil eye” portrayed on them. This is a concept I have never understood – the evil eye, I mean. How, I ask myself, in a rational world can anyone bring harm to anyone else just by looking at him? So in the spirit of reasoned investigation, I tried to develop this powerful eye.
I concentrated. I squinted and glared. I glowered. Then – nothing. I never made anybody’s head explode, just gave myself a headache. I guess I just don’t have the talent.
If you have never experienced a peacock up close, which I hadn’t until I came here, it may surprise you to learn that the voice does not match the beauty of the bird. In fact, its crow is harsh and very, very loud. I am left wondering if this is a principle of avian existence. Premium songbirds like larks and nightingales are embarrassingly brown and plain while the showy glamour-pusses like peacocks and parrots make your ears bleed.
Of course, everyone knows that peacock feathers supposedly are bad luck because of the “evil eye” portrayed on them. This is a concept I have never understood – the evil eye, I mean. How, I ask myself, in a rational world can anyone bring harm to anyone else just by looking at him? So in the spirit of reasoned investigation, I tried to develop this powerful eye.
I concentrated. I squinted and glared. I glowered. Then – nothing. I never made anybody’s head explode, just gave myself a headache. I guess I just don’t have the talent.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Two Hours in Limbo
The new administration in Washington is flirting with socialized medicine. I wish them luck. If my experience with Israel’s version of it is anything to go by, they’ll need it.
On Thursday I had an appointment at a local government hospital. This was lucky. If it had been at a Kupat Holim clinic it would have been canceled thanks to a strike. But at the government hospitals it was business-as-usual. I arrived on time for my 11:40 appointment, the sort of thing you would expect to be in-and-out in 10 minutes for, and sat and waited my turn. 2 hours. I waited for 2 hours.
It’s a huge amount of time. I could have watched a whole feature film in that time. Or 3 full episodes of “24”. Or run the 4-minute mile 30 times. Or eaten a plateful of lasagna, polished off a bottle of Chianti and still had time for the tiramisu. Instead, I sat helplessly watching the office door for any sign of life. Oh yes, I was patient. But as some dictionary somewhere defines it, patience is just a form of despair disguised as a minor virtue.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful to live in a society where I can get adequate medical care without having to rob a bank to pay for it. But the flip side is that you wait 2 months for any kind of test or procedure and then when the time has come and you have arrived with all the necessary forms and certificates, all signed, stamped and dated, you then must sit and wait. And wait. And wait.
On Thursday I had an appointment at a local government hospital. This was lucky. If it had been at a Kupat Holim clinic it would have been canceled thanks to a strike. But at the government hospitals it was business-as-usual. I arrived on time for my 11:40 appointment, the sort of thing you would expect to be in-and-out in 10 minutes for, and sat and waited my turn. 2 hours. I waited for 2 hours.
It’s a huge amount of time. I could have watched a whole feature film in that time. Or 3 full episodes of “24”. Or run the 4-minute mile 30 times. Or eaten a plateful of lasagna, polished off a bottle of Chianti and still had time for the tiramisu. Instead, I sat helplessly watching the office door for any sign of life. Oh yes, I was patient. But as some dictionary somewhere defines it, patience is just a form of despair disguised as a minor virtue.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful to live in a society where I can get adequate medical care without having to rob a bank to pay for it. But the flip side is that you wait 2 months for any kind of test or procedure and then when the time has come and you have arrived with all the necessary forms and certificates, all signed, stamped and dated, you then must sit and wait. And wait. And wait.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Once Upon a Time the Sun Gave Off Warmth
Spring officially arrived yesterday at 13:44 local time. Nothing could be more welcomed. The gladiolas are in gorgeous full bloom – note to self: plant more of these next fall – and the wisteria is budding, meaning more gorgeousness is on the way. We are blessed with brilliant, sunny days. The only thing missing is warmth.
I happen to think that global warming would be excellent news if it were true. I mean, here I am in this Mediterranean paradise in late March and it’s still too cold to open a window. This would have been magnificent weather in January, but now we deserve better. With the forecast promising no real improvement for the foreseeable future I can’t escape the feeling that something is not right.
We seem to be experiencing seasonal drift. Summer hung around until November. Winter arrived in February. And now with Pesach fast approaching it should be spring. Yes, it looks like it. It even smells like it, that glorious, sweet fragrance of citrus blossom. But it’s too, too cold. So, waiter, I’d like to order up an extra-large, super-size portion of global warming, and don’t hold the ozone.
I happen to think that global warming would be excellent news if it were true. I mean, here I am in this Mediterranean paradise in late March and it’s still too cold to open a window. This would have been magnificent weather in January, but now we deserve better. With the forecast promising no real improvement for the foreseeable future I can’t escape the feeling that something is not right.
We seem to be experiencing seasonal drift. Summer hung around until November. Winter arrived in February. And now with Pesach fast approaching it should be spring. Yes, it looks like it. It even smells like it, that glorious, sweet fragrance of citrus blossom. But it’s too, too cold. So, waiter, I’d like to order up an extra-large, super-size portion of global warming, and don’t hold the ozone.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Comfort Food
I love tuna, always have. It’s the one thing I could eat everyday and not get sick of it. Nothing is more reliable – you know what you’re going to get every time you open a can.
Some decades ago tuna was something of a rarity in the kibbutz. They had a few tiny cans of it in the store, but you needed protekzia to buy them. I was fairly new then and I remember waiting hopefully at the counter while the shop clerk asked the Lady-In-Charge if I could be permitted to buy one. She looked around the corner to see who had the temerity to ask for it. “No.” This was my first actual encounter with Stalinism.
Those days are thankfully gone. Today I am allowed to buy all the tuna I can hold. So I decided the other day to attempt to recreate my favorite dish from childhood, the staple of Middle America, tuna casserole. My mother, of blessed memory, had many sterling qualities, but cooking skill was not among them. Tuna casserole was the one thing she could make well.
I couldn’t exactly recreate the dish. Sadly, there is no Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup in Israel – why doesn’t Campbell export? – and the kibbutz store doesn’t have egg noodles. I had to improvise with real mushrooms, sour cream and pasta shells. Topped with buttered bread crumbs and baked in the fine baking dish my step-daughter gave me as a house-warming gift, it turned out pretty well. In any case, the taste of tuna, mushrooms and pasta was enough to time-warp me back home. Sometimes, nostalgia can be very comforting.
Some decades ago tuna was something of a rarity in the kibbutz. They had a few tiny cans of it in the store, but you needed protekzia to buy them. I was fairly new then and I remember waiting hopefully at the counter while the shop clerk asked the Lady-In-Charge if I could be permitted to buy one. She looked around the corner to see who had the temerity to ask for it. “No.” This was my first actual encounter with Stalinism.
Those days are thankfully gone. Today I am allowed to buy all the tuna I can hold. So I decided the other day to attempt to recreate my favorite dish from childhood, the staple of Middle America, tuna casserole. My mother, of blessed memory, had many sterling qualities, but cooking skill was not among them. Tuna casserole was the one thing she could make well.
I couldn’t exactly recreate the dish. Sadly, there is no Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup in Israel – why doesn’t Campbell export? – and the kibbutz store doesn’t have egg noodles. I had to improvise with real mushrooms, sour cream and pasta shells. Topped with buttered bread crumbs and baked in the fine baking dish my step-daughter gave me as a house-warming gift, it turned out pretty well. In any case, the taste of tuna, mushrooms and pasta was enough to time-warp me back home. Sometimes, nostalgia can be very comforting.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Money Is Just Dirty Paper
I watch the news from America and it is grim. Mostly all they talk about is the deepening economic implosion: plunging stock prices, rising unemployment, foreclosures. It seems there was never a better time to be a kibbutznik.
I don’t have to worry about my portfolio being suddenly worthless. I never met Bernie Madoff. The kibbutz owns my house so I have no mortgage. Of course, I also have no money, so no matter how bad it gets I’m unlikely to be worse off. I find that actually somehow comforting.
What puzzles me is why anyone thought the American economy was so great before this, better than it was, say, forty or fifty years ago. I grew up in a middle class family. My father worked, my mother stayed home and kept house. On one income we had a house, a new car every three years, all the food we could eat and enough gadgets to keep everybody entertained. This is the way it was with everyone I knew. All this changed sometime in the 70’s. Suddenly it took two incomes to keep a family afloat. Few of my generation are living better than our parents did and I think it’s likely that the future one won’t live as well as we are. This is profoundly sad.
Not so on the kibbutz. Fifty years ago people lived in asbestos-roofed shacks. Things are infinitely better now. Socialism may well have failed everywhere it was tried, but capitalists have no cause to gloat at the moment. True, I still have no money, but in this socialist society I don’t deserve any.
I don’t have to worry about my portfolio being suddenly worthless. I never met Bernie Madoff. The kibbutz owns my house so I have no mortgage. Of course, I also have no money, so no matter how bad it gets I’m unlikely to be worse off. I find that actually somehow comforting.
What puzzles me is why anyone thought the American economy was so great before this, better than it was, say, forty or fifty years ago. I grew up in a middle class family. My father worked, my mother stayed home and kept house. On one income we had a house, a new car every three years, all the food we could eat and enough gadgets to keep everybody entertained. This is the way it was with everyone I knew. All this changed sometime in the 70’s. Suddenly it took two incomes to keep a family afloat. Few of my generation are living better than our parents did and I think it’s likely that the future one won’t live as well as we are. This is profoundly sad.
Not so on the kibbutz. Fifty years ago people lived in asbestos-roofed shacks. Things are infinitely better now. Socialism may well have failed everywhere it was tried, but capitalists have no cause to gloat at the moment. True, I still have no money, but in this socialist society I don’t deserve any.
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