Lone Tree Brewery beers are produced in a small facility in Gush Etzion. I had tasted them at the national beer event in Tel Aviv last winter, and like them very much. So when brewmaster David Shire invited the food bloggers and writers to  the microbrewery last Friday, I was excited to go.

Bloggers Liz Steinberg, Emily Segal,  and Mirj Weiss. Other writers and bloggers were present and eagerly tasting as well – in all, about 30 visitors.

It was a rustic display of Gush Etzion’s gastronomic goodies. Some manufacturers are just starting out and sell mostly in the Gush. Others routinely distribute around Israel, and some sell their products abroad.

There was plenty of chocolate and plenty of liqueurs.

Yekev Lavie produces black and white chocolate liqueurs, coffee cream, honey, cherry, caramel, and crème de cassis.

www.yekevlavie.co.il
kosher medhadrin; some dairy varieties
Tel+972-2-993-123-8
Liqueurs are available in Israeli wine stores.

In friendly rivalry was Chocoholique, a boutique liqueur manufacturer who describe their product as “drinking chocolate.” They offer 8 varieties of chocolate-based liqueurs, some of which are unusual here in Israel, like their peppermint, chili pepper, and peanut butter ones.
www.chocoholique.com
Kosher mehadrin, pareve
Orders: Marc Gottleib +972-2-991-9443

Itamar of the Beit Lechem Bakery put out a sample of their extremely delicious breads. They have whole wheat, sourdough, and spelt breads – all natural, no chemicals.

Beit Lechem Bakery
www.beitlechem.co.il
Itamar, Tel. 054-4769-464
Breads available in Jerusalem health food stores.

Like fancy cookies? The amusing bouquets (first photo on this post) and business cards printed onto cookies caught my eyes. David and Suzie Gross of The Cookie Crave also bake amazingly good tarts and cakes. Hard to resist noshing!

The Cookie Crave
Kosher Mehadrin, pareve
www.thecookiecraveshop.com
thecookiecrave@gmail.com
Tel: +972-2-9933178
Kosher mehadrin, pareve
Local distribution; ships world-wide

We weren’t done with chocolate yet. Zev Stander of Holy Cacao fascinated us with his story. He’s the only one in Israel who imports cocoa beans (some from his own plantation in Peru) and makes the finished product from scratch. The quality of Holy Cacao chocolates is exceptional. And Zev practices fair trade with his cacao suppliers.

Click on the link to Facebook below to view photos of these out-of-the-world chocolates.

Holy Cacao
Zev Stander
Tel: 054-804-1326
+972-2-9913182
info@holycacaochocolate.com
Order via Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/nNAIq2

Ferency Winery is my kind of winery. Small, producing 10,000 bottles yearly at this time, and all-organic. Gershon Ferency is vineyard master and winebrewer, making Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and a blend of the whites that I found particularly refreshing. I liked Gershon’s attitude towards wine-making: going against the current trend of designing the wine to fit a particular profile, he “lets the wine speak for itself.”

I agree. The winemaker really only manages fermentation: the character of the wine will emerge from the grapes themselves.

Kerem Ferency

http://www.gershonferency.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ferencywinery

I have to confess. I’ve always disliked herring. I know – I know. How could I possibly survive a kiddush at shul without tasting the herring? But I always sort of snuck past it.

At the Gush gathering though, was Mordechi Zucker of Kiddush Club. Based in Efrat, Mordechai brines and smokes the most delicious gravelox and herring. I loved his salty herring. Sweet, I can still live without. Yes, lovers of traditional sweet herring will jump down my throat. I am resigned. Mordechai makes 7 different varieties.

Another boutique food manufacturer with slow-food ideas, Mordechai is dedicated to old methods of preserving fish that are vanishing today. When asked, he said that he smokes his fish on his apartment porch. “I give lots of samples out to the neighbors!”

Kiddush Club
Mordechai Zucker
mordyz@bezeqint.net
Tel: 057-315-4794
By order only.

Let’s finish with more wine.
At the end of the event, six or so of us traveled on to the Gush Etzion Winery, where we were offered a tour and tastings of their Nahal HaPirim and Emek Bracha series. The winery is located at the Gush Etzion intersection and is well worth the visit.

Apart from Cab Sauv, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Gwwurtztaminer, Riesling, Sauv Blanc, Chardonnay and Viognier – as if the wines weren’t enough – there is a lovely dairy/fish restaurant.

We feasted on hot quiches and egg dishes and a huge variety of salads (Mirj was especially taken with the chickpea/lemon salad). The menu offers a very large variety of dishes, including a red mullet tajine that I’d love to order next time I’m in the Gush.

Gush Etzion Winery

http://www.gushetzion-winery.co.il

Click on the “restaurant” tab to see all the options in English.
Tel: 02-930-9220

What with the high mountain air and beautiful views and good food and drink, that was one of the best Fridays I’ve had in a very long time. Many thanks to David Shire of Lone Tree Breweries and all who helped him get the event together.

Lone Tree Brewery

http://www.lonetreebrewery.com

Kosher mehadrin, pareve
To order beer:
Susan 054-234-5439
David 050-530-6036

To know more about David (who speaks with an intriguing Scots accent) and the brewery, see an interview with him on Foodbridge.

Hurry up and get there! Only one more Monday night left!

Every Monday in July, shuk Machaneh Yehudah throws a huge street party. It’s the rowdy Balabasta festival. The punning name celebrates  basta (produce stand), ba’al ha’basta (owner of the stand), balabusta (housewife), and the culture of the open market in Jerusalem.

I went to see it for myself this week, just me and my camera. The shops and vendors were doing great business.

Here and there bands played and people gathered to listen. In one little space, youngsters sang old songs of aliyah and Eretz Israel. I loved this red-haired girl, who sang in a fresh alto and blew a mean trombone too.

A rooftop concert rocked the crowd (pictured above).The band is called Acharit HaYamin, and sounds were rock, reggae, psalms set to heart-banging Yemenite/jazz fusion – all Israeli, punctuated at intervals by enthusiastic ululations from the crowd or the rooftop stage.

Yes, it was crowded. But it was a friendly crowd, everyone giving way to old folks or women pushing strollers, everyone intent on just having fun. It felt safe, it felt homey.

This band was playing an amusing, cool-jazz version of the “Pink Panther” theme.

Something for everyone: whimsical fairytale figures to entertain the kids

I stood slightly to one side, taking photos and moving with the music and watching the people.

One delicatessen intelligently set up a stand of cheeses and wine by the glass. It was fun to stand in the middle of the shuk and the noise and the surging crowd, savoring Cabernet Sauvignon.

I felt an multi-layered emotion I couldn’t describe.When the musicians sang of peace, of our longing for peace one day, and the people shouted “Amen!” I stood like a fool among all those people, with tears in my eyes.

Sweaty heat and the cooling Jerusalem breeze as the evening set in. Loud, cheerful music, Jerusalemites dancing in the ancient street, the stone buildings that have seen so much of struggle, war, and the everlasting everyday. Smells of fresh bread, sewage, something acrid and smoky, grilled meat.

I longed to suspend the moving, living moment like a scene in a movie. Soon it would dissolve into memory, and our transient wonder and enjoyment, placed fleetingly over the eternal, were already becoming the past.

It came to me so clearly then, how we are born, live, and die, and Jerusalem – Jerusalem is forever.

Get an excellent, printable, English map of the shuk here.

Sometimes I want to eat out but just don’t feel like having to talk to waiters. Especially, I’m sorry to say, in Israel, where so few restaurants trouble to train the staff. So at first, I liked the idea of the computerized menu. Sit down, view the food on the monitor, and press the screen to order. Relax till your meal arrives.

But then, the games. Part of the attraction is supposed to be playing computer games at the table. That’s how you’d while the time away till your order comes. Or get the kids busy while the grownups enjoy uninterrupted conversation.

That’s what bothers me. Aren’t we supposed to go out together in order to be with each other?

How will kids learn to socialize, how to pick up clues for normal behavior from the adults if they’ve got their backs to those adults?

It makes me sad to think: here’s one more way that technology is separating families. Sitting with the grownups, hearing and participating in the adult conversation, kids pick up knowledge and social skills. The art of give and take. Or simply, conversation.

And what kind of intellectual stimulation does a computer game provide that even a worn-out family joke does? Those old stories and jokes strengthen our bonds even as we roll our eyes over them for the thousandth time. How will we remember our family meals out – by the score we got on the computer game?

That’s the saddest part. Families are already disintegrating under the convenience of technology. We have to make greater and greater efforts to meet up, to spend any kind of  time together. Even a firm “Pipe down there and let me hear what Daddy’s saying” reinforces relationships, values, social mores. Mealtimes are a blessed opportunity. The cheap and easy lure of the monitor as babysitter shouldn’t even figure in our plans.

Kids apart, I don’t especially want to look at another monitor in the face when I’m out to enjoy a meal with friends and family. And I certainly don’t want the intrusion of computer games, with their garishly-colored animations in my field of vision and squawking sounds in my ears as I eat.

A solution would be to have several computer stations on stands near the entrance. Once having chosen the table, diners could order, and then sit down. The little inconvenience of not sitting down to view the menu would pay off in the ability to socialize without the golem at the table.

What are your feelings?

Creamy salmon topped with radish sprout stalks on a bed of puréed peas, accompanied by fresh-corn polenta (different from my corn-meal based polenta) – and a Parmesan crisp. Oh my gosh.

It was a fabulous lunch at the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem. The management had invited the English food bloggers to taste and critique the new summer menu. We sat down to feast at the elegant Sofia restaurant and raved over the food.

Chef Moti Buchbut presented each portion, giving us the details for us to identify the layers of flavors as they come up. The theme for this summer at the elegant Italian-dairy restaurant is sweet/salty. It works, especially with the very subtle flavors that Buchbot knows how to combine.

“Melanza” – smoked eggplant with roasted pepper, mozzarela, and a crisp filo envelope, lightly lying on dribbles of balsamic reduction and cream and white wine and pesto. Cubes of tomato, sprinkles of Atlantic sea salt.

We tasted and gasped in delight. This is not home cooking, folks. Unless you’re a multiple medal-winning chef like Buchbut. There was a delicious, lingering aftertaste that reminded me of something I’d eaten long ago…something smoked. I couldn’t place it, but if I get a chance to eat this dish again, I will.

I’m not going to go into ecstatic detail over every dish. I really can’t do justice to the melting flavors, the pleasing texture contrasts, the feeling of gladness that such food gives you.

Like this ceviche, with its marinated tuna and jewel-like vegetables and citrus fruit cubes.

Blogger Ariella Amshalem and I thought that the plump green leaves might be purslane, a summertime wild edible. That would have made this forager happy. But it was equally delicious sunflower sprouts. When I asked chef Buchbut if he wouldn’t consider cooking with wild edibles, he explained that the restrictions of mehadrin kashrut don’t allow it. Never mind, the dish was an entire success.

Beautiful works of culinary art, meant to be destroyed with fork and eaten. Once you’ve finished discussing all the succulent details with fellow bloggers, writing down tasting notes, and taking photos, that is.

Cannelloni stuffed with Swiss chard and four cheeses, with tomato and roast pepper sauces. Um, um, um.

We were served 12 tastings in all. If you’re wondering how we managed to put all that food away, let me say now that our portions were much smaller than average. That allows tasting without getting to the stage where it takes a crane to hoist you out of your chair.

Linguini with pesto and strips of zucchini – hey, that could be a song. In fact, people have always sung about food. Well, I’ll refrain from getting poetic here, although this pasta certainly sang in the mouth. It had the characteristic rough texture of home-made pasta, and the mild pesto with vegetables complemented it nicely. We wisely ate only half the portion, though, to leave room for the next.

Blogger Jewlicious live-tweeted the event with photos, till his Twitter followers begged him to stop because it made their stomachs rumble.

Seared red tuna, on a bed of pureed potatoes and accompanied by spinach stuffed with polenta. It looks like a Japanese furoshiki bundle, doesn’t it? The spinach, that is. The tuna was one of the most delicious things I’ve tasted, period.
Blogger Ariella Fixler (Bishul B’ketzev Salsa – Hebrew) received her portion in a beautiful copper pan – she’s a pal of the chef, what can I say.

You must be wondering if we’re ever going to get to the desserts. Well, the first of the two was “Magic Meringue.”

Special and luxurious are inadequate to describe this. An egg-shaped meringue shell concealing passiflora-flavored mascarpone, creme Chantilly and honey, accompanied by coconut sorbet. Raspberry sauce under. You crack the “egg open and the yellow mascarpone comes spilling out…just artistry. Not to mention the sweet deliciousness of it.

The second dessert was an almond twill stuffed with mocha cream and nogatine, on caramelized banana slices with orange sorbet and whipped Belgian chocolate.

The dishes were well balanced for summer eating, with emphasis on bright flavors, light weight, and fresh local produce. Beautiful presentation in the currently fashionable way, with colorful accents from dribbles of coulis and cubes of this and that. I understand there were 10 more offerings at the next day’s tasting, which I didn’t attend.

The managers ate with us, all in their suits and ties (in contrast to the casual bloggers), and very attentive.

I became a little anxious to leave towards the end because I needed to buy a special ingredient for the next night’s dinner at home: duck. Not that I serve duck often – it was going to be a belated birthday party and I got it into my head that only duck would do.

I had planned to buy it in Tel Aviv, but it was getting late. Then I thought, there must be duck in Jerusalem.  So I asked if anyone knew where.

Mr. de Schuyter, general manager, said, “I can find out.” He murmured into his cellphone for a few minutes. Then he told me exactly where I could find duck. I did go there after the event and bought what I needed.

How cool was that?

Now, I’m not getting paid to post this. But if you’re in Jerusalem and get a chance to have a meal at the Inbal hotel, go there and eat. Give chef Moti Buchbut my regards.

Next – interview with the chef, plus a recipe.

There are better and more expensive places to eat, but I liked sitting where local people eat, liked eating popular Middle Eastern food in the night. In Yaffo, next to the sea and in the middle of the Old City.

I hadn’t counted on the street being ripped up for repairs of some kind, but we were a few steps away from the flea market, which was celebrating summer by keeping shops, eateries, and galleries open till midnight.

Behind us on Yefet Street, the illuminated Ottoman clock tower kept time. At nine o’clock it struck nine tinny notes, surprising us. A little later, the muezzin call to prayer echoed and swirled up and down the neighborhood.

There was music in the air while we were eating – loud Moroccan music, coming from somewhere nearby. I got up and wandered past the restaurant and its Moroccan decor, seeking the musicians.

See the guy in the striped shirt?

He’s entering a little cobblestoned alley. Set out in the alley are tables and people are eating fish and drinking wine.

A nargilah and a stack of shesh-besh (backgammon) sets waited for company.

I drew closer to the source of the music, feeling the plaintive oud, shivery violin, and thump of the darboukah drum in my bones.

A sign proclaims: Every Thursday: Moroccan Haflah (get-together)! Every Tuesday, Middle-Eastern  Night! Fridays, Kabbalat Shabbat with Oriental Singers! Fish and Mezze Served Free.

Across from the musicians, an open door. I peek in and behold a magical cavern hung with colorful rugs, set with tables invitingly holding tea glasses and coffee finjans.

What with the winding, nasal quarter notes in my ears and the lanterns swaying from their ceiling hooks and being full of shishlik, I felt I had been transported to Morocco itself, or maybe a movie version of it.

The Moroccan Dive, I called it. And went back to the restaurant, asking everyone to come see.

A large man wearing a cap backwards ushered us in, probably expecting us to order an ample meal. But we only had room for tea with sprigs of mint in it, and coffee. It turns out that the Moroccan Dive is managed by the same restaurant where we had dinner.

Four local guys in shorts sat near the front door, clapping and shaking to the music.

This old man wandered back and forth, dancing with gentle verve, stopping sometimes to talk to his friends.

We Anglos sipped our hot drinks and just soaked up the atmosphere…

…confident that we were well protected from the Evil Eye.

As we left the magical Moroccan cavern, we glimpsed this row of nargilah smokers lined up in the street, enjoying their perfumed tobacco, the smoke of which passes through water and is said to be extremely pleasant (if you smoke).

Have a nargilah, have a nargilah, have a nargilah, ve n’smecha…

The streets were moving with people seeking pleasure, music, a cold drink, a hot bourekas, something to gawk at. We moved among them.

No food photos, true. The ones I took were blurry. But you can see the kind of food we had in my previous post on a trip through Yaffo. And you’ll see the street in daylight. As for the restaurant: reasonable prices, food quality good but not exceptional, service obliging but a little lacksadaisical. Once the street gets fixed, it’ll be much more pleasant to sit there. But it was Yaffo, it was a night out with the bloggers, and it was great fun.

The bloggers: Sarah Melamed, Michelle Nordell (and husband Mr. B.T.), Hannah Katsman, Liz Steinberg, Ariella Darsa Amshalem, Mirjam Weiss, Irene Sharon Hodes and myself.

Last Friday, I traveled across the country with a bowlful of dough rising on my lap. In the bag with the dough bowl were my chopping block and a big knife wrapped in a kitchen towel. Sitting in the sherut (fixed-route taxi) with nine other strangers and watching the highway whizz by, I thought, At least no one’s going to stop me and suspiciously ask what I’m doing with such a knife.

I actually did intend to chop heads off with it – for my lunch. The heads of nettles and mallows, that is.

Sarah Melamed and I thought it was a good time to show fellow bloggers how to forage for edible weeds. The wild green things don’t have too many more weeks before summer withers them. Now’s the time, so six hardy bloggers stepped out  behind Sarah, glad to be outdoors such a mild, sunny day. She led us around her neighborhood identifying weeds.

Here’s Sarah talking about amaranth, while Yaelianlooks on.

There were at least 15 edibles and medicinals growing rampant in the overgrown gardens nearby. Some, like Cape sorrel, are delicious. It has a bright, sour taste. Kids love to nibble on the stems. We ate the leaves and flowers as well, sharing with the bees.

Chickweed, a lightly sour, refreshing plant is a great love of mine – I kept finding new things to say about it while Sarah was trying to lead the expedition onward. She is a patient woman.

Notice the line of fine, hairlike fibers twining around the stem. It’s one of the ways to tell chickweed from euphorbia, a toxic look-alike that always grows next to it.

Ariella of AriCooks wanted to hear all about chickweed and took a good handful home.

Sarah told us how her son had fallen out of a nearby mulberry tree – smack onto a patch of nettles, like Winnie the Pooh. He roared for his Mom, and she came running out with her heart in her mouth – to find him covered in nettle rash, poor little guy.

There’s a neat way to harvest nettles with a minimum of stinging – cut the stems with scissors, then use the scissors to pick them up by the stem and drop them into your basket.

Only one or two of the Hardy Foragers was interested in trying the scissors system. Truth is, over the years I’ve gotten tough, and pick most of my nettles bare-handed. This horrified the ladies.

The morning was wearing away and Shabbat still starts early, so we returned to Sarah’s kitchen for lunch. She placed her big iron saj over two burners to get hot. A saj is light and dome-shaped, like an upside-down wok. Druze women bake flatbreads on the hot surface, stretching dough out like pizza and slapping the circles down on the hot saj to bake into crisp, tender flatbread in a few minutes.

The plan to was to make flatbread like that. We all pulled pieces out of the dough I’d brought and tried stretching them out deftly. The bread came out, well, rustic. Mine was frankly pretty awful. The really thick one under everyone’s much nicer breads was mine. Liz Steinberg‘s flatbreads were much the thinnest and crispest.

As Liz remarked, it was the first time we English food bloggers had cooked together. It was great fun. And I did chop a mean onion for the greens…

Being the nettle-proof one, I washed and chopped them for cooking, along with a handful of mallows. Into a new pot went all the vegetables, on top of the chopped, sauteed onion. No salt yet – like spinach, nettles absorb a huge amount of it. The greens steamed with no extra water; it took about 10 minutes until they were tender and darker green. Then I salted them lightly, stirred, and covered again.

When the breads were ready and stacked up, the greens were ready too. We stood at the counter, crumbling feta cheese onto them and adding a tablespoon or so of steamed wild greens.

Alternately, we used labneh yogurt mixed with fresh, chopped za’atar from Sarah’s garden.

That was simply delicious. I had never considered just roughly chopping fresh za’atar and adding it to something like that – would have thought it too strong. You can do the same with fresh oregano and cream cheese or with yogurt strained overnight to become thicker (become labneh, actually).

We put the rolled-up, stuffed flatbreads back on the saj to heat them through and let the cheese melt slightly.

Sarah had hospitably bought a lovely spread of pastries, but we were most interested in the saj bread stuffed with nettles and cheese. There was a fruit salad, decorated with edible pansy, allysum, and begonia flowers.

As usual when food bloggers get together to eat, we all stood around the table taking pictures of the food and of each other taking pictures. We laugh when we do it, but we do it. Then we sat down and feasted.

You can see the stack of rolled-up breads in the background of this photo: the rose and shepherd’s purse came from Sarah’s garden. Yaelian took some great photos and put them on her blog. Although it’s in Finnish, the photos speak for themselves. And joy! you get to see my hands, washing the nettles, there. My hands tingled pleasantly from the nettles, till evening. I do believe my Carpal Tunnel tsuris was alleviated somewhat from the repeated stinging.

Thanks for hosting the morning, Sarah!

I smiled; I remember well how exhausted the young soldiers in my own family were, always. And it’s true,  in buses they sleep trustingly against each other’s shoulders, dead to the world until by some miracle they wake up just in time to get off at the right stop.

My friend and I were in line at the neighborhood grocery store, checking our groceries out. The cheerful young Russian cashier waited for me to fill my fabric bags. Distracted for a minute, she looked around. A stout older woman was standing behind her, smiling.

“Just a minute,” the cashier said to me, and jumped up to hug the lady. They rocked together for just that minute and separated, beaming. I didn’t catch who that lady was for my cashier, but the open pleasure they had in each other, and the great hug, made me smile again. I didn’t care that my payment had been delayed so the cashier could greet her friend and she took it for granted that I wouldn’t.

What a contrast to more Western cultures, I thought. Canadians, for example preserve a large halo of space around themselves. You don’t even need to brush past a stranger, just allow a couple of inches passing one another, for them to murmer, “Sorry.” Is it because there’s so much physical space in Canada – and so little here? You’d think that, being as crowded as we are in Israel, we’d be fiercely protective of our personal space. But it seems to be the other way.

Strangers of the same sex don’t get fussed at  casual contact. There are boundaries that everyone knows of course. But if the leg of the lady sitting next to me on the bus presses against mine, neither of us notices  much: buses really don’t give passengers much room. (If I find myself sitting next to a man, it’s different, naturally. I shrink in my seat to avoid contact. But why, I ask myself, do guys take up so much space sitting down, and why is it taken for granted that it’s I, the woman, who must squeeze myself away?)

It happened that the other day, I was drowsing on a long bus ride.  The bus lumbered along, making its progress through blurry tree-lined streets; the mild winter sunshine coming through the window was making me sleepy. Through half-closed eyes, I noticed a young Ethiopian woman running to the stop. She was unusually tall and thin, and moreover had wrapped a white scarf  around her hair, making a strange sort of tower on her head. Probably just had some kind of hair treatment, I thought. She managed to catch the bus and came along the aisle, finally sitting next to me.

I shifted over slightly and continued to gaze out the warm window, getting sleepier and sleepier. I had time to doze off if I wanted to, so I did. And in a few minutes, so did my neighbor. In fact, I woke up because I felt her head on my shoulder – she was sound asleep and the scarf was tickling my cheek.

I didn’t mind. In fact, an unexpected tenderness rose up in my mind. Just sleep, girlfriend, I thought. You’ll be embarrassed when you awake, but meantime, it’s OK to rest on my shoulder. I closed my eyes again.

Look – if it had been a man, or if I suspected that my sleepy friend was faking in order to steal my purse, it would have been different. Very different. But somehow I understood that she was just a tired girl. And she was embarrassed when a sudden jerk of the bus woke her up. I had nothing to say, but gave her a small smile and straightened myself up too, to give her face.

And that was it. Except that I came home bemused. Did I want to pursue an acquaintance with the girl who’d just had her hair done, or with the shaky old lady whose hand I took to guide across the street? No. But I felt that simple trust in the stranger hasn’t quite vanished in this world.

I debated it with myself. Am I’m going to write something about the holocaust of fire that incinerated so much of Israel’s northern forests and forced 17,000 people out of their homes? But look, here I am typing. My gut won’t let me alone.

I live in Petach Tikvah, too far south to see plumes of smoke and smell the burning. I was at the mall this morning, picking up a few last-minute gifts for the grandchildren, who are coming for latkehs tonight – just doing normal things. And the mall was full of people doing normal things. In the center of the mall, there was a clown and a Hannuka sing-along for the children. Jelly donuts distributed everywhere. People walking around with shopping bags in their hands – like me.

I came home in a fairly even mood and put chicken and rice on the stove to heat up. Served myself a small portion because I’m cutting calories, and turned the radio on.  The news came on and before anything else, they broadcast the names of those being buried today, who lost their lives in the fire. The roll call droned on: name, age, and location of funeral. Name, age, and funeral, one after the other. My stomach contracted, but I went back to the stove and filled the plate again.I sat down and ate, and ate, while the radio spun the names and places into the air.

If you can’t say that the other news is good, it’s at least better. The fire is finally under some kind of control and we don’t need help from other countries any more. Some Carmel residents have been allowed to return home, but they’re ordered to stay indoors and keep their air conditioning on to filter out the smoke, dust, and fire-fighting chemicals. Their children mustn’t play outdoors yet.

I finished my chicken and rice and stood listening to the last of the news, nervously picking at leftover cookies even though my stomach was full and tight. I don’t want to eat in this painful way. It doesn’t comfort, doesn’t do me any good. It’s regressive, infantile, a denial mechanism – what have you. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself. My fingers kept searching out one more broken cookie half, a few more crumbs. Finally I just left the kitchen and sat down to think it through.

I’m so grateful to be where I am, with food in my fridge and with plans for normal things in my head. What about the people whose fridges were incinerated, whose computers and kitchen pots and beds and clothes and school books  and toys – are gone? They’ll need all the things that we take for granted, all the big and little things that make up a normal life.

The Knesset has put aside investigation into the causes of the fire for now, and is focusing on starting recovery. But the newly homeless are going to need help for a while yet, folks. I ask you – readers outside of Israel, please find a representative of the Jewish Federation or indeed any Jewish organization that’s organizing donations for the victims of the fire – and donate whatever you can. In Israel, israelgives.org seems to be efficiently making use of citizen’s good will and desire to help.

Please comment and give links to any other organizations that you know of.

Bless us…

Image of Carmel Fire December 5, 2010 via Virtual Jerusalem

:: Virtual Jerusalem

Is it absurd to feel guilty every time I wash dishes, put a load in the washing machine, brush my teeth? But I do. Feeling guilty doesn’t stop me from doing those things, but it’s a constructive guilt, because it makes me work consciously and waste less precious water as I soap and rinse.

Sometimes I imagine where that careless flow is going. Down the plumbing, mixing with other “black” waters, rushing along the great sewage pipes, eventually pouring out to sea. Our recycling efforts started late; we’re still wasting so much water.

I’ve taught myself, and my family, to turn the faucets off frequently while doing the washing-up; to choose short washing cycles – all that well-publicized bag of tricks. It takes a little getting used to.

Will these tiny efforts help? I believe they will. And the more talk about water conservation with everyone, even with my hairdresser, (even my blog readers), hopefully the more awareness at large. That’s what I, the individual, can physically do.

Today, though, I’m working on a different level. The Sephardic and Ashekenazic chief rabbis asked Jews in Israel to fast and pray for rain today, Monday. I feel compelled to join those who do. Maybe my tiny strength, the ounce of energy in my voice, bound to the strength and energy of all the others, will make a difference as the prayers rise toward Heaven. It’s a 12-hour fast; basically I’ll skip breakfast and lunch. It can feel difficult towards evening, but I’m sure I’ll manage.

Outside, it’s pleasantly cool, but the heavens are a beautiful, a catastrophic blue, faintly streaked with white cotton candy. I have the childish desire to step out onto my balcony and scan the skies – is it working yet? Are those wisps and tatters of clouds gathering, growing heavy with rain?

Not yet – not yet.

Not yet.

Photo of faucet and water by ScienceHeath via Flickr.

People often paint their houses blue here in the Middle East, to avert the Evil Eye. But I think that it’s also just natural to repeat the blues of the sky and the sea with a paintbrush.

Boats bobbed quietly in the water, roped up to the quay.

A solitary butterfly busied itself on a caper bush growing out of a wall.

I thought we might take a ferry ride around the bay. But the port was empty. No crowds of school kids; few tourists.

Houseboats made me dreamy. Yael and I peered through the iron gate that separates these seaborne dwellings from ordinary folks like us. I wanted to go through for a better look, but a lady approaching said sharply, “These are private homes.” Oh… Didn’t mean to intrude. Well, maybe a little.

A port is very much a man’s world.

The fishermen bring their catch to the port very early in the morning. If I’m ever up early enough to be there by 7:00, I can choose freshly-caught fish for lunch. But the morning was wearing away, and the great nets had been put down to dry already.

The fish market is only open on Shabbat.

Yael and I peered around the warehouses, avoiding the  hall that houses the fish market because of the smell. This place had a grace note, though.

There’s a steep, narrow alley that takes you from the port to the Old City. We climbed up, following a group of French tourists.

And emerged to a view of the wine-dark sea. The rocks in the sea, where the water turns dark, are said to be the ones  ancient Greeks believed that Princess Andromeda was chained to.

Greek mythology and an Oriental restaurant. Not kosher, so Yael and I didn’t go in, but we were looking for lunch.

I know a good fish place between the Old City and the flea market. We headed for there.

Lunch was fresh and tasty – typical mezze and grilled fish.

On our way out, I caught a glimpse of the shesh-besh corner (backgammon). Every market area in Israel seems to have an out-of-the-way place where older people gather, play shesh-besh, gossip. I hadn’t seen narghilot – water pipes – so prominent in any other.

So our walk in Yaffo port ended. We did go on to discover new shops and slurp down halvah ice cream in the flea market…material for another day’s post.