When I bit into one of these attractive plums, I knew I’d made a mistake. It was plump and juicy. It should have been sweet. Surprise, it was sour. I stood there with the plum in my hand, wondering what to do with a box full of sour fruit. While I stood and pondered, the sour taste took me back in time to my my parent’s house in Caracas.

The house had a small, grassy back yard where my mother grew roses and set up a bird feeder on a pole. Two old mango trees with a hammock strung up between them shaded our outdoor naps. When my parents first took the house, both trees were infested with some tropical fungus and didn’t produce fruit.  Mom hosed them down fiercely, twice a day, and eventually the trees healed and started producing mangoes again.

Lots of mangoes. We would just slice a sweet, juicy, ripe one and eat it over the kitchen sink.  Left a wicker basket full of mangoes by the door and obliged any visitor to take some on their way out.  There were so many, we discovered ways to serve them green. Did you know that you can substitute green mangoes for apples in pie? It’s delicious.

In the evenings after dinner, a neighbor or two would drop by and sit down with my Dad on the front porch. Mom would set shot glasses and a bottle of rum on a small table there, with a plate of sliced green mangoes. The men would dip the sour fruit into salt and savor their drinks with this piquant nibble. The ladies would sit slightly apart with Mom, usually drinking lemonade, sometimes beer. Once in a while one would get up and reach for a slice of  mango biche.

Soft voices of women speaking Spanish, men chuckling together and smoking cigars. Warm night scented with jasmine. Green mangoes, rum, cool drinks. More peaceful times in Venezuela than now.

Well. A lot of memories sprung up from a mouthful of green fruit. But I still needed to do something with those plums.

And I had this chicken that needed roasting. I knew from the mangoes that the plums’ hidden sweetness would emerge with a dusting of salt, so I put them together, adding an encouraging drizzle of date honey as well. Then my eye fell on a big purple plum that I knew was sweet, so I added it to the roasting pan. It turned the cooking juices a lovely wine color.

Roast Chicken With Sour Yellow Plums

serves 5-6

Ingredients:

1 roasting chicken

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

dustings of salt and white pepper

4 sour yellow plums, halved and pitted. Use sour apples or peeled green mangoes if no plums available.

1 large red onion, sliced

1 large, sweet red plum

1/4 cup sweet or semi-sweet white wine

2 tablespoons silan date honey, or maple syrup, or plain honey

Method:

Preheat oven to 350° F – 180° C.

1. Rinse and dry the chicken. Drizzle the olive oil over it, and rub it into the skin and flesh of the chicken thoroughly. Powder the chicken with the dry spices.

2. Place the chicken on the rack of a roasting pan. Put the yellow plums here and there around the bird. Scatter the sliced red onion over it. Place the purple plum on the rack so that it will cook and drip juice onto the bottom of the roasting pan.

3. Pour the wine into the roasting pan. Lightly salt the yellow plums, then drizzle the date honey or other sweet syrup over them. Pour a little olive oil over the onion slices to prevent their drying up.

4. Roast the bird for 1 hour, basting occasionally with the pan juices. Mix the juices up a little with a long-handled spoon or the tip of the basting tube, so that the red plum juice colors them. Make sure to baste the yellow plums with this; it gives them an appetizing reddish tinge.

When the chicken’s roasted through, remove from the oven, allow it to rest 10 minutes, and serve.

Many of my photos I’ve kept in my archives, thinking I’d post them here someday. Some involve stories I’m not at liberty to tell. Some evoke a mood that lives, I guess, in my mind alone. But many are of plain, human faces caught in moments of humor, irritation, thought. The unconscious dignity of labor – smiles layered over sorrow – a challenging gaze behind a coffee cup. I want to share some of these photographs – these people, with you.  Now I’ll tell you some of the stories behind them.

The Disgruntled One. I was taking pictures of my daughter and her friend in the Yaffo flea market. They were standing next to this guy, who possibly thought that I couldn’t resist taking one of him. Look at his hand. He was spoiling for a few sharp words. But he relaxed when he saw I was interested in my teenagers, not him. Only later did I see he still got in the photo.

On the other hand, these two ladies didn’t mind at all. Aren’t they cute? Just two friends, one brunette and one blond, relaxing oh the sidewalk. On antique chairs meant to be sold, but never mind.

Still in Yaffo, cooking shakshoukah at Dr. Shakshuka’s.

The Lilac Lady. I wonder what event she was all dressed up for. A grandson’s bar-mitzvah? A wedding? Or does it take her fancy to dress like that every day, because she’s old enough to do what she dern well pleases?

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Do people still fall for this ancient scam? It’s a variation on the shell game, which has gulled the naive (and the greedy) into parting with their money for centuries.

This elderly Russian lady must have intense stories to tell, but we couldn’t talk because she spoke only Russian and Yiddish. She was selling chocolate rum balls she’d rolled up at home – koosher, she assured me. I paid whatever she asked for them, my heart squeezing in my chest. I hope she has someone to go home to at night, and that they love each other.

The lively Greek music coming from this Levontin Street bar caught my attention. Then I saw the guys sitting and having a little arak together there, and I really had to snap. They were amused at my interest and at my American accent – probably figured me for a tourist – and allowed me to.

I like to see friends together.

The organic market at the renovated Tel Aviv train station. This guy gave me such a knowing smile from behind his lettuces that I got embarrassed. Well, his dreads are cute.

I bought hot fresh chickpeas from this man on one of my trips through Shuk Mahaneh Yehudah in Jerusalem. Did I seem impatient to him? He’s giving me the classic Israeli signal for “wait a second” – tips of fingers bunched together and the wrist turned.

Far from the shuk’s bustle and noise, chef Moshe Basson shows how to make fresh za’atar pesto. I admire Moshe for his dedication to native foods and traditional Israeli cuisine, and for his partnership in Chefs for Peace. I guess if I have a food hero, he’s it.

What do you see in this man’s smile?

He’s a butcher in Shuk Ha Carmel, Tel Aviv. He’d come to shoot the breeze with the lady below. They’re childhood friends, he said. He scolded her for smoking. She heard him out tolerantly.

Then she said, in a hoarse, cracked voice: “He worries because I just finished a round of chemotherapy.”

A fast-food stand in the Shuk Ha Carmel: two brothers sell majadra, soup, and salads. I couldn’t find a good angle for the food photos, so I snapped one of the brothers.

This drink of coffee covers his thoughts up, but doesn’t hide the challenge in his eyes, or his tough stance.

I know that many market vendors suspect photographers of working for the income tax authorities. I’ve given up trying to explain that I’m just a Jewish matron and a food blogger. Eventually they just trust (sometimes my American accent works in my favor).

This is a Tsfat photo. Yaacov sits outside an electrical appliance store, selling blue bead bracelets against the Evil Eye. When you buy, he gives you a sure-fire blessing that’s guaranteed to fix you up in life. But – you must be proactive. Yaacov will tell you which Psalms to say, and at what time of day, because you must do your part too.

No pictures of kids…I have many, but feel tender about exposing their little faces on the Internet. More men than women – that’s natural, since there are more men vendors in the shuk and on the street. And some of my favorite shots stayed in the archives. Well, it’s a long enough post for right now. Sometime I’ll show you the best of the rest.

I’m  loopy over fresh figs; such a seductive fruit. And I love the fig tree, especially on hot summer nights, when the big, coarse leaves smell deliciously like vanilla and cinnamon. I like its sturdy stance, and the branches so generously laden with green and purple-striped fruit. To open a fig plucked right off the tree and see the mysterious red heart that promises a mouthful of sweetness, well…it’s a moment to cherish and come back to when you need to remember how good life can be.

There’s a great big old fig tree in my neighborhood that I visit once in a while, checking if the hard green little figs have ripened yet. I suspect the neighborhood kids and the birds will get most of them, but maybe I’ll get some too, if I’m alert. Till I can forage my figs, the shuk offers plenty of them. So I brought two kilos home.

Two kilos! That’s a lot of delicate figs. Now I had a kitchen dilemma. Could we eat them up before they spoil?

Figs baked with honey; that was good. Chilled fresh figs with frozen arak poured on top; also good. And before Shabbat, a cobbler, to finish them up. The recipe’s easy and it only takes half an hour to bake. The cobbler is light, just sweet enough, and a little different from the usual peach or apple cobblers.

Fig Cobbler

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup sugar, and another 1/2 cup later

2 tablespoons softened butter or margerine

2 tablespoons milk or orange juice

1/2 cup sweet or semi-sweet wine (I used Emerald Reisling)

3-4 cups figs, sliced into quarters

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

optional: whipped cream

Method:

Preheat the oven to 375° F, 190° C. Use a medium cake pan or quiche dish.

1. Cut the stem end away from the tops of the figs; discard them and quarter the fruit.  Sprinkle the cinnamon over the figs and set aside.

2. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. Beat the eggs; add 1/2  cup of sugar. Add the butter or margarine and the milk.

4. To the wet ingredients, add the flour mixture. Stir gently until the ingredients are just combined. Pour the batter into the pan.

5. In a medium saucepan, boil the wine and the second 1/2 cup of sugar for 5 minutes. Add the figs; turn them over in the hot syrup and pour the mixture over the batter.

Bake 30 minutes.

Serve warm or at room temperature, with whipped cream if you wish.

Gnocchi make a substantial, comforting main dish, like pasta. Often I serve these light gnocchi, based on semolina rather than potatoes, with a good tomato sauce. All I need then is a big mixed salad, and dinner’s ready.

Other times, I make a lighter sage-and-butter dressing and serve one per person as an appetizer. Or again, one or two per person to accompany fish,  or a vegetable stew.

This version of gnocchi is easy to make. It’s handy when you need a good meal prepared ahead, too. Just cover the gnocchi in their baking pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate. They will keep overnight or for a day. Then pop them into a hot oven for 15 minutes – you can set the table or make a salad in the meantime.

Semolina Gnocchi

serves 6

printable version here

Ingredients:

6 cups milk

3 cups semolina

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 tablespoon thinly-chopped chives

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, if liked – this ingredient included because traditional recipes call for it. I prefer a little thyme.

3 egg yolks

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, and another 1/4 cup for later

Method:

1. In a large pan, bring the milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg and chives to a simmer.

2. Pour the semolina in a thin, steady stream, stirring the while to avoid clumping.

3. Keep the flame low and cook for 15 minutes, stirring always, till the mass is thick enough for a spoon to stand up in.

4. Remove from the heat. Stir in the egg yolks, 3 tablespoons of butter, and 1/2 cup of parmesan.

5. Mix everything energetically.

6. Spread the dough 1 inch thick on a floured cutting board or a counter-top.

7. When it’s cool, cut into circles with a biscuit cutter or a the rim of a glass.

8. Butter a baking dish, or put baking paper in it. Put the gnocchi in, overlapping.

9. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter; pour it over the top of the gnocchi. Sprinkle the 1/4 cup of grated parmesan over all.

10. Bake at 400° F – 200ºC for 15 minutes.

Serve as it emerges from the oven, golden and aromatic with chives and cheese. Or top it with a sauce. Tomato sauce, pesto, and sage and butter sauce are all excellent instead of that last topping of melted butter. But always sprinkle the grated cheese over it.

*

Here’s the simple and delicious topping:

Sage and Butter Sauce for Pasta, Gnocchi, or Polenta

…or anything else you can dream up.

1/2 cup unsalted butter or ghee.

6 or 7 large sage leaves, chopped fine, or up to 20 small ones

1 shallot or 2 tablespoons onion, either finely chopped

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 tsp salt, or more to taste

pepper to taste

1. Melt the butter but don’t allow it to brown.

2. Add the shallot or onion; fry till it starts to wilt (about 1 minute)

3. Add the sage leaves and stir. Allow them to infuse the butter for 2 minutes.

4. Add lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Taste to adjust seasoning.

Black Beans

Observant Jews refrain from meat and wine for the first nine days of the month of Av, culminating in the fast of  Tisha B’Av – a catastrophic date in the Jewish calendar. This year, the Nine Days began on Sunday evening, July 11th. Tisha B’Av will start on the evening of Monday, July 19th.

Several readers have written me privately, asking for vegetarian recipes appropriate for these days. (On Shabbat we are allowed to rejoice and eat meat and drink wine.)  So for these last five or so days of mourning, here are four simple meatless ideas. Adjust servings to the size of your family, of course.

Vegetable-Stuffed Potatoes. Serves 4.  Bake 4 potatoes. While they’re baking, steam a small head of broccoli or cauliflower. When the potatoes are cooked through, allow them to cool, then split them in half and remove the flesh. Leave the jackets intact. Mash the cooked potato flesh with cream cheese and plenty of chopped chives; add the chopped, steamed vegetable and salt/pepper/paprika to taste.  Stuff this mixture back into the potato jackets, piling it high. Dot the surface of the potatoes with butter, sparingly. Put the stuffed potatoes back in the oven for 15 minutes to re-heat; serve.

Salmon In Foil. Serves  4. Make a foil square big enough for 4 salmon fillets or steaks to sit on without crowding. Drizzle olive oil over the foil; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place the salmon on the foil. Squeeze a lemon over the fish. Dust it with salt, pepper, and cumin. Slice a tomato thickly and place the slices on top of the fish. Salt the tomato slices lightly. Chop a good handful of parsley, chives, or cilantro, and scatter the herbs over the fish. Drizzle all with olive oil.

Place another foil square over the fish and pinch all sides of both squares together, creating a package. Bake the fish at 350°F – 180°C for 30 minutes. Remove the package from the oven – carefully, it might leak hot juices. Allow the fish to sit for 10 minutes before opening the package and serving.

Curried Lentils, Rice, and Spicy Yogurt Sauce. Serves 6. Rinse 1 cup of rice and cook it up your favorite way. Cook 1 cup lentils in salted water, with 1 bay leaf and 1 peeled garlic clove, for 30 minutes or until they’re cooked through but still firm. (Cook them covered.) Drain them, but reserve any cooking water. Remove the bay leaf and cooked garlic clove.

In a skillet, fry 1 medium chopped onion, one small bell pepper and one medium chopped carrot in olive oil or butter. When the vegetables are tender, add 2 crushed garlic cloves, 1- 1/2  teaspoon curry powder, and salt/pepper to taste. Stir and cook a few minutes; long enough for the vegetables to take on the seasonings. Add the lentils to the skillet. Stir and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add a few tablespoons of the cooking water if the dish seems dry.

In a bowl, mix unflavored white yogurt with 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint, 1 small crushed clove of garlic, 1 small, finely chopped cucumber, and salt to taste.

Serve the lentils and rice separately, with hard-boiled eggs and the yogurt sauce on the side.

Black Beans. Follow this link to black beans. Serve them with rice, couscous, or bulgur.

May we soon know Tisha B’Av as a day of rejoicing.

Cool kebabs up there, eh? All skewered with their slices of vegetables, ready for the grill. There might be sleeker, fancier places to shop for kosher food in Brooklyn. But when I told my son I wanted to visit a typical kosher supermarket, he took me to Landau’s, on 4510-18th Avenue.

My son asked the owner, a taciturn older man, for permission to take photographs. He explained that I’m from Israel and write a food blog. They spent long minutes talking: my son may have had to explain what a blog is.  I offered my business card. Mr. Landau inspected me mistrustfully but finally decided that I looked legitimate and nodded yes, summoning his own son to show us around.

I was dazzled by the display of gefulte fish.

Now how about this smoked cholent meat? I’d never even heard of smoked cholent meat. My ignorant Israeli eyes were being opened to the true meaning of kosher gourmandaise.

It’s a fairly large place. Lots and lots of products, and lots of different people, too.

A tall blond dressed in a black suit and stiletto heels stood out from the Jewish housewives and kids in strollers. She pushed her shopping cart around in a hurry, probably hungry for dinner after a long day in a high-powered office. A man dressed in an extremely clean striped T-shirt and shorts, dreadlocks bobbing around his face, stopped dead in front of her cart. He started talking in a language that wasn’t English, and may not have been anybody’s language but his own. The blond’s face froze. He gestured and babbled and wouldn’t budge, and the blond was trapped in the back of the shop with him.

My son and I exchanged glances. We’ll help her, we communicated silently. He walked over and put himself between the man and the blond’s shopping cart,  saying, “Excuse me, can I just get this…?” and reached up for something on a shelf. That freed the blond, who freed, fled. The man with the dreads switched to English, mumbling, “Why are you all Jewish? Stop being Jewish.” And went his disoriented way.

In Israel, someone would have led him out of the store. In Brooklyn, nobody even said anything to him. Other people had noticed, but nobody was going to get involved. In Israel, everybody gets involved, all the time. I suppose that in our small society, you can size people up more or less, and know how they’re going to react. In big New York, strangers are unpredictable and may become dangerous.

Talk about culture shock.

Any fresh food

or packaged food

is available at Landau’s, or so it seemed to me. And all kosher.

I wandered around the aisles, enjoying shocks of nostalgia when some product from my childhood caught my eye. Maypo breakfast cereal! I still remember the jingle: “Every single morning, I want my Maypo!”

But what really struck me, forcefully and not for the last time, was how much folks in the States require convenience from their food. It’s becoming like that in Israel, too. I just hope that the kitchen influences of all the grandmas and grandpas linger in the Israeli mind, so that we don’t lose the precious heritages of our ethnic foods.

I was starting to feel a little lonely for the warmth of Hebrew – I, who have never been able to drop my American accent and whose aleph-beit vocabulary shrinks when I get flustered. Not exactly homesick; I was too happy, being with my boy. Who’s 30 years old and a big, scary guy. (What can you do, a Jewish mother is a Jewish mother.)

But my boy knew what to do – he took me to Mansoura Bakery in King’s Highway. There, we found the petite, vivacious Josiane, whose sparkling friendliness and French-accented Hebrew made me feel at home right away.

Not to mention the fabulous confections and pastries in the shop. Like this rich baklava. Enough to drive all thoughts of dieting right out of your mind.

But I was able to withstand temptation because of these hand-made, pistachio-stuffed, sugar-free chocolates.

Magical. In fact, the whole shop was magical, with it’s European air and Mediterranean delicacies.

Another kosher bakery on Kings Highway is Sababa. My son is friends with the owner, who allowed me to photograph his tempting baked goods -

and even to descend a steep staircase to the basement, where the work is done.

We were just leaving Kings Highway, when this sign stopped me in my tracks.

Isn’t it strange to have felt a shock?  I’m used to seeing young soldiers with their rifles everywhere in Israel. I hardly see the guns anymore. Yet realizing that shooting a cop is a common enough crime to warrant this sign – well, it rattled me.

Other things amused me, like the bottles in this Russian liquor store.

Notice the one in the shape of a machine gun, in the back right-hand side. Draw your own conclusions.

I loved this wall mural, a big advertisement for a laundromat. There isn’t much street art in Brooklyn, I noticed. But this mural, cleverly using  protruding bricks for the girl’s ironing board, was great.

One of the highlights of my Brooklyn experience was meeting with my friend Leda Meredith, who has contributed guest posts here at Israeli Kitchen.

Leda – dancer, choreographer, writer,  authority on locavore life and sustainable food, and I – Jewish matron, doulah, soapmaker and writer, have been email friends for ten years. Two women as different as a robin and a hen, but meeting and chatting was natural and easy.  Leda gave me a copy of her latest book, The Locavore’s Handbook. I’ll be blogging about the book and about Leda herself in a later post.

Is that all there was of New York for me? Of course not. There were mornings spent in museums, interviews with people I work for – or just found interesting- a delicious kosher Chinese meal, horrible coffee at Starbucks, tramping around with my son, a kaleidoscope of impressions. But for now, and it’s 4:30 in the jet-lagged morning, it’s enough.

Feel like hearing about my trip to Calgary? I’ll write about it if you like, and that will be Part 3.

It had been 33 years since I’d last set foot on American soil.

Culture shock, I thought. Be prepared for a different U.S. than the one you left three decades ago. Even the English you speak is going to be different – antiquated, maybe.

And you’re going to be moving among thousands of people who don’t consider you their distant cousin, as everyone in small-scale Israel does.

And so things proved to be. In Manhattan I rubbernecked like a yokel.  In Brooklyn I entered a shop and asked, “Would you have such a thing as an umbrella?” and they looked at me as if I’d fallen from outer space. I sometimes felt the alone-ness and paranoia of the subway ride.

A week in New York with my son. A week in Texas to see my Mom. Then a visit with my sister Dina in  in Calgary. Dina is  the author of Alberta Musts, a travel book describing 101 must-see places in Alberta. She took me to Banff, a small gem of a town set among the Rocky Mountains, and to many other places new to me.

I was amazed, amused, awed. Horrified and thrilled. Follow me, gentle reader, and I’ll show you the marvels of my three weeks in North America.

New York: Chinatown

My son took me on a stroll through Chinatown.

Chinese banks, a huge Buddhist temple.

Greengrocers, some set up on the sidewalk

And fishmongers.

A convenient pushcart for lunch in a hurry.

A traditional herbal pharmacy where the doctor sits in the back room, ready to feel your pulses and prescribe herbs.  The pharmacist measures the dried leaves and roots and twists up an origami envelope in a second. I bought a moxa stick in one of those pharmacies.

And stared wistfully down basement doors that advertised 15-minute foot massages and acupuncture. I would have liked a foot massage, but there was no time.

A grocery store displayed these heavy mortars without pestles. I wonder why no pestles. Too dangerous if dropped, breaking a customer’s toe? Theft prevention? Although it would have to be a muscular thief to spirit one of those granite mortars away.

I loved the red and gold in the shops. In this Westernized bakery, the decorations were rather sparse.

Although some of their goodies seemed very traditional.

Keeping kosher as I do, I ate nothing from Chinatown. But I enjoyed looking, and asking, and talking to the shop owners if they were willing. The owner of a diner allowed me to take photographs, although I wasn’t buying anything.

Are those mounds of white stuff tofu?

Leaving Chinatown, I snapped these friendly movers. I wonder why guys on trucks smile at me and give me thumbs-up…maybe it’s just nice to be appreciated.

movers-new-york

Tomorrow another phase of my travels – Brooklyn and its kosher eateries. Stay tuned for Part Two.

By this time of year, foraging is thin for Israelis. All the tender, juicy wild edibles of late winter and spring have disappeared. Chickweed, nettles, mallows…the wild greens I foraged in March and April are just dried-up skeletons that rustle when the afternoon breeze makes them move.  I think of  dormant seeds dropped on the ground,  roots conserving their strength till the winter rains come again to revive and green the land. And take another big shlook of water, because it’s hot and dry now.

Still, there’s purslane. Purslane loves the heat.  Plenty of purslane in my window boxes every summer. That’s no surprise, because it’s a stubborn weed that’s determined to take over the world. Give it enough water and it’ll grow so big and strong you’ll have to wrestle it out of the ground.

It’s  a low-growing, sprawling succulent with many reddish branches. The fleshy, dark-green leaves show a reddish underside. They’re small, flat, and oblong, growing alternately on the stem and topped by a yellow flower at the end of the stem. The flowers open only in the hottest part of the day. They produce lots of black, sand-sized seeds that are nutritious too.

But I allow purslane to  grow in my window boxes because I like its lemony, salty taste.

It’s amazingly high in vitamins and minerals. A portion of 100 grams will provide you with 2,500 IU of vitamin A raw (2,100 cooked); yet it has only 21 calories. More nutritional goodies in purslane are calcium, iron, thiamin, Vitamin C (raw), and Omega-3 fatty acids.

Traditionally, native peoples eat it to treat arthritis, anemia, Vitamin C deficiency and inflammations. Drinking tea from the leaves is said to bring down fever. Crushed and applied externally, folk medicine uses it to relieve all kinds of inflamed conditions of eyes, gums, even gout.

But let’s get back to purslane as food.

“I have made a satisfactory dinner off a dish of Purslane which I gathered and boiled…” said Henry David Thoreau, adding: “Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not from want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.”

How to eat Purslane.

My own favorite way is to add well-washed, raw leaves  to the salad.

But try purslane one (or more) of these ways:

• Chuck a handful of leaves or two into any soup or stew.
• Steam leaves and tender stems briefly and drizzle a little olive oil over them; serve hot.
• Stir fry them with other vegetables.
• Pickle the thick, mature stems.
• A well-known Mexican dish, Verdolaga con Queso, calls for steaming Purslane then adding garlic, onion, a chopped tomato and  one chile. To the hot pan, add minced salty white cheese; stir a couple of eggs into the mixture and scramble them loosely. Season with salt and black pepper to taste. Verdolaga con Queso can be served in a folded tortilla (or warm pitta).
• Batter and fry the tender tips.
• Substitute young, raw Purslane for lettuce in sandwiches.
• Add the leaves to chicken, pasta or tuna salads.

The whole above-ground portion of the plant may be eaten, as long as it’s tender. The tough, mature stems are best pickled or made into relish. Always wash Purslane carefully; as it grows right on the ground, it will have dirt on it. And don’t cook it more than 2-5 minutes unless it goes into soup; it will release its beneficial mucilage and get slippery, which is not as pleasant to eat as it is healthy.

Enjoy!

Hot-weather recipes. Living in the hot, humid center of Israel, I naturally accumulated a bunch of them. Easy-going chicken recipes; lots of fish; some breads. Desserts that sit lightly. Here’s a roundup of the best, for your hot-weather cooking.

Soup:

Eggplant Soup

Chicken:

Nut/Herb-Crusted Chicken Fillets

Roast Chicken with Figs

Meatballs with Swiss Chard

Vegetables:

Peperonata

Majadra

Golden Herbed Potato Wedges

Eggs:

Shakshoukah

Fish:

Moroccan Shabbat Fish

Grilled Sea Bass in Spicy Lemon Marinade

Baked Fish in a Walnut Crust

Quick Breads:

Peach Cobbler Muffins

Cornbread-covered Ratatouille

Desserts:

Cherry Cobbler

Flim-Flam Flan

Orange Rolls

Malabi, Middle-Eastern Milk Pudding

Fruit Soup

Photo of Lemon Verbena by Miriam Kresh

Leda Meredith is the the author of The Locavore’s Handbook: The Busy Person’s Guide to Local Eating on a Budget. She’s also my good friend. Leda gave us an excellent post on food preservation last year when I was moving house. Now I’m excited to present her ideas on growing herbs in places you might never have considered. Leda, take it away…

When asked, “If I could grow just one edible, what would you recommend?” my first response is always, “Herbs.” They tolerate a wide range of conditions, many are perennials that will come back year after year even in containers, and while a lot of people don’t have enough space to grow the bulk of their food, fresh herbs can enliven their meals daily. As an added plus almost every herb, including those we usually think of as culinary, has excellent medicinal properties.

I’ve grown herbs in window boxes, indoors, on the back steps of my apartment, in hanging baskets attached to a chain-link fence, and even in cracks in pavement.

Growing Herbs in Containers

Almost every herb can be grown in a container provided that it has a depth of at least six inches and—this is important!—drainage holes. It is essential that the plant’s roots do not sit in mud, and the only way to ensure that is to provide a way for excess water to drain out of the container. Use a potting mix rather than topsoil or garden soil. Potting mixes include ingredients such as perlite, which are additional insurance for good drainage.

I’ve made containers out of almost everything, including old vegetable cans that I punched holes in the bottom of!

Where to Grow Herbs

The first consideration is to make sure you plant your herbs (or place their container) in a location that matches the light requirements of the plants. Some herbs such as oregano, lavender, and rosemary thrive in full sun. Others, including chervil, lemon balm, and cilantro prefer part sun or even part shade. Miriam reminds me that in climates that are dry, as well as hot in the summer, even herbs that are usually described as needing full sun might prefer a little shade. Information on the light requirements of individual herbs can be found online.

Windowsills and paved-over areas are obvious candidates for container herbs, but there are other options. I have some potted thyme and cilantro that I grow in pots I’ve hung on a chain-link fence, for example.

Photo by Leda Meredith

Low-growing herbs such as thyme tend to have shallower root systems than larger, upright herbs. These can be grown in the spaces between stepping-stones or pavement. Put a little good potting mix into the space and keep your plants well watered for the first two weeks to give them a chance to start growing new roots (the shallow soil will dry out quicker than in other growing situations.

Photo by Leda Meredith

In addition to hanging containers from fences and handrails, there are many innovative containers available for vertical gardening. The simplest of these looks like those shoe racks that are made to hang in a closet, the ones with lots of pouches on a flat piece of fabric. And in fact, you can use one of the ones made for shoes. Hang the whole arrangement flat against a wall. Cut some small holes in the bottom of each pouch for drainage, fill with potting mix, and plant an herb in each pouch.

If you have no outdoor space at all, some herbs can be successfully grown indoors. I’ve had the best luck with parsley, chives, cayenne and other chile peppers, and cilantro. Indoor herbs require much more light than they do when grown outdoors. If you don’t have a window that can provide at least six hours of direct sunlight, opt for plant lights. There’s no need to buy the expensive ones marketed as being specifically for plants: a cheap fluorescent light works just as well (incandescent light bulbs, however, do not). Make sure that the light is no further than eight inches from the tops of your plants. To make your life easier, you can put the light on a timer (set it to be on for at least ten hours).

I wish you much success with your delicious, aromatic, homegrown herbs…wherever you decide to grow them!

Leda’s book is available at Amazon.com. She blogs about her food adventures at www.ledameredith.com.