Rehovot

What an extraordinary blog this is. I love every bit of it. We're hoping to spend 2006-2008 in Paris, postdoc-ing, writing, cooking, eating, and soaking everything in. I miss France....was one of those junior-year-abroad girls.... I miss my host family.....they introduced me to homemade vintage Calvados and many other delicious bites and sips of France.

Yesterday: pear and ginger coffee cake, hot from the oven and...and...and!!! a Godiva Caramel Capuccino. Today: bits of a dark-chocolate-and-hazelnut bar.

Martha Stewart's site has a recipe here. I think I added raisins to the chocolate filling, but that made it difficult to roll and slice (later). Mine looked more like a badly-made speed bump than a babka.

Tell me this isn't what I think it is....No chocolate involved, right?

Over on the Dinner! thread, people cook some amazing things.... We cook in practically every night. Since I'm still pretty green at cooking for two people (and at cooking in a country I don't know too well), it's a challenge, but it's marvelous fun. One big adjustment is that our main meal of the day is lunch (on the weekends), instead of dinner. Meet my American-European marriage. Last night: smoked salmon, tomato-cucumber-balsamic-vinaigrette salad, blue cheese, hardboiled eggs, baguette. (I know, it's post-mall-excursion snacking food, not really cooking.) Saturday lunch: fusilli with meat, eggplant, and squash ragu. Friday lunch: broiled hot wings / drumsticks, asparagus. Crusty bread and some kind of fantastic Israeli cheese feature at almost every meal.

Sigh. I like buttermilk, too, and I'm dying to have a chicken fry-down. Or fry-up. However, I can't find buttermilk in my neck of the woods AT ALL. Is the vinegar-or-lemon-juice in milk trick going to work as a substitute for this? Or do I take the yogurt route, per Eden's post? What say ye, friers?

Oh, I'm completely interested. Especially in those pistachio lime thins!! And those are probably the nicest Easter cookies I've ever seen, too..... I like these; they're kind of simple: Lemon-Currant Cookies Makes 2 and a half dozen. (I think I halved the original recipe.) 1/2 stick butter, softened, plus more for baking sheets 1/2 cup sugar 1/8 cup sour cream 1 large egg 3/4 cup flour 1/8 tsp. baking powder 1/8 tsp. salt 1/4 c. dried currants 1/2 tbsp. to 1 tbsp. grated lemon zest Oven to 350F. Butter two cookie sheets. Mix butter and sugar together in a bowl; beat until creamy. Whisk in the sour cream and the egg. Mix dry ingredients together. Beat them into the butter-sugar mixture until well mixed. Fold in currant and lemon zest. Scoop dough with a teaspoon / tablespoon about 1 and a half inches apart onto cookie sheets. Bake until cookies are golden - approx. 20 minutes. Cool five minutes on cookie sheets and then move to a wire rack. Mmmmm, coooooooookie. Edited because Wendy DeBord's recipe-posting instructions are more logical than mine were.

Yay! Now I know what to do with the leftover coconut milk from tonight's chicken korma! Sweet couscous sounds marvelous...

Don't make soup while wearing sandals. Heck, don't fire up anything on the stove while wearing sandals. Ouch.

Allura, this Easter Pie sounds great. Any chance you could post or PM me the recipe? Then again, it's hard to let go of a family heirloom recipe, so I'm happy to oblige, too.

Lima beans, gag.

Cool blog! I liked your first one, too. Coupla questions: do the girls ever ask for your advice, food- or cooking-wise? Would you ever do a cooking class for them? (I just read an article on Mount Holyoke's "Passport to Reality" program for graduating seniors, where the college's cafeteria chef shows students how to make good food, fast.)

If I hadn't just had tomato-lentil soup last night, I'd try this soup! (The recipe appeared in today's Jerusalem Post.) My question about lentils.........do they always need to be soaked overnight? For example, this recipe doesn't mention anything about soaking..... But it sounds great, no? Cumin-scented lentil soup with noodles (Serves 4) You can use brown lentils for this soup, but red lentils are better to use because they cook to a puree. 11/2 cups lentils, any kind 2 or 3 Tbsp. olive oil or vegetable oil 1 large onion, chopped 4 large garlic cloves, chopped 1 tsp. ground cumin 2 celery ribs, sliced (optional) 1 carrot, diced (optional) 4 cups water 2 zucchini or pale-green squash, diced Salt and freshly ground pepper 75 gr. linguine, vermicelli, spaghettini or extra-fine egg noodles, broken in 7.5-10-cm. lengths (about 1 cup) 2 Tbsp. snipped or chopped fresh dill or 2 tsp. dried Cayenne pepper or other hot red pepper to taste (optional) Pick through, rinse, and drain lentils. Saute onion in oil until golden; garlic and cumin go in, too, for one minute. Take out half the onion mix and set it aside. To onion mix left in pan, add lentils, optional celery and carrot, and water. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer on low for half an hour. You can add up to 2 cups more water if the consistency thickens too much. Add zucchini, s&p, and simmer for 10 minutes, or until lentils are tender. Cook pasta/noodles until al dente, and drain. At this point, you can blend all or part of the soup, if you want; or you can leave it in chunks. Add the onion mixture you initially set aside, add the pasta/noodles, and dill or red pepper.

Thanks, chefzadi! Is this for a 9 inch crust? (Don't really know what the standard size is, and I use an oversized tin, anyway......) Must...make...quiche!

Could someone share his/her recipe for one of these fabled quick pate brisee crusts, please? How about some alternate instructions for someone who doesn't have a food processor, blender, etc.? (And for someone who's pretty bad at cutting butter into flour.) Thanks..... Edited to add manners.

Yay! A blog from the Middle East! Great pics and stories. I can't remember if you covered this, arbuclo, but one of my questions was: do you speak and/or read Arabic? How does this affect what you buy, foodwise? It looks like you have such a variety of choices that you couldn't go wrong..... Great blog!

Yes, please! My recipe for cake with jam invariably ends up with jam only on the bottom of the cake. Any other recipes you feel like passing on would be good, too. Around here, we like cake a lot. Any way, any kind, as long as it's tasty.

Mr. Rehovot surprised me by taking me out for Valentine's Day, to a great sushi place. I hadn't had sushi in 6+ months! So last night, I cooked what would have been V-Day dinner, had we eaten in: poached salmon, green beans w/ browned butter and toasted walnuts, potatoes a la Mr. Robuchon (man is a genius with spuds); something that looked like a Napoleon but wasn't (still good!) and berries for dessert. Cassoulet's on the menu for this weekend.

I always liked Bob Hope's character's line in one of the "Road to..." movies, where he's in some kind of parody-of-a-Western scene in a saloon and he growls, "Give me milk....in a dirty glass!"

Here's one that would work with canned stuff; last time I made it, I topped it with sauteed chicken to keep the carnivore happy. Garden Pasta with Ricotta 2 tbsp. salt 1 lb. fava beans, shelled/canned 1 lb. peas, shelled/canned 1 lb. linguine/bucatini/spaghetti 1 cup ricotta cheese 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese 1/4 cup coarsely chopped mint leaves 1/4 tsp. pepper 2 tbsp. olive oil Cook pasta until al dente. If using fresh beans and peas, blanch 'em. If not, rinse beans; set both beans and peas aside. Mix together ricotta, Parmesan, mint, and pepper. Steal one cup of pasta cooking water and add to this cheese mix. Drain pasta, toss with olive oil; add cheese mix, beans, and peas, and toss it all together. Season, and sprinkle with mint.

My first shot at gumbo was a success! I stood over the roux and stirred for about 20-25 minutes, thinking, It's changing color/No, it isn't/Yes, it is/No, it isn't.....But I got it at the starting edge of mahogany (pot was beginning to send up smoke, but there weren't any black, burned bits), and then threw in the Trinity. After that, it was clear sailing. 'Cept now the apartment smells of roux; not bad, just different. Purists, skip the rest.....I had to use turkey sausage because I couldn't find anything else, and should've cubed it, maybe, because the halves were kind of large. And, with no cayenne in sight, Hot Hungarian Paprika gave it a decent kick. Boy, was it good. Thanks to fifi for sharing the "South of I-10" recipe.

These are terrific brownies! I might have to make more....soon. Say, in an hour. Edited for html snag.

Well, my pot is heavy because I have to haul it off the top shelf of the cupboard..... (Ok, it's on the thin side, but it's survived so far.) Don't know about procuring sausages, but it'll be a good challenge. I'm in! Edited to defend said pot.

Aha, thanks. This will prevent future sauces from having that inside-of-a-cave look.

This looks and sounds fantastic. We, too, had steak with portobella and red-wine sauce over the weekend. Is there a reason / secret stroke of genius for scraping out the insides of the portobellas?