Swisskaese

Some people here won't even use candles. They say that the true Hannukiah should be lit using olive oil. Here is a link to the strictest rules of lighting a Hannukiah: Hannukiah Rules The most important thing is observing the holiday, whether it be with olive oil, candles or an electric Hannukiah.

I thought that it is made with green lentils and they are made into a puree. However, I googled and found that some are made with green lentils and some are made with other beans and some are made with chickpea flour. Unfortunately, I do not know any Ethiopians, so I don't have anyone I could ask.

Pontormo, I realised that I forgot to answer you about the fruit and vegetable combinations in dishes here. Most of the salads that they serve here are small separate dishes, such as in the pictures I took at the Moroccan restaurant. Fried eggplant, roasted zucchini, pickled cabbage, carrot salad, baba ganush, etc. You can put fruit in just about any salad. I have had mango salad with a little basil, olive oil, balsamico and lambs lettuce. It is hard to find lambs lettuce in Israel, so you could also use arugula to give the salad a bite. Carrots and pineapple, sweet potato & apricots or prunes. Figs, blue cheese or gorganzola and arugula, with a honey/balsamico and olive oil vinegrette. You can also put spinach leaves and mango; spinach leaves and strawberries. Oranges, avocado, spinach leaves, sesame seeds, almonds, pumpkin seeds with an orange vinegrette. I will try and find you some proper recipes after I finish the blog. I also stuff vegetables with meat and rice and season it with cinnamon or other spices. Here is a picture of my stuffed aubergine: I also stuff butternut squash and small round green striped squashes. I don't know the name in English. One of my favourite things that I have had that was stuffed is Stuffed Dates with Lamb. To die for! Hope this helps.

You are referring to Afternoon Tea, not High Tea. High tea is a working class supper consisting of hot meat, cheese, and egg dishes served around 6 pm. Cream tea means that clotted cream is also served. I would serve scones, clotted cream, cucumber sandwiches, salmon rolls, madeira cake, eccles cakes, mini fruit tarts, my grandmother's cherry cookies and vienna cookies. I would serve Tunisian tea and Jasmine tea.

Here is more information about Marzipan Bakery in Jerusalem. You can buy them in the US. I didn't know that.

Good morning everyone! Well, this is the last day of your visit to Israel. David is going to show you one more dairy and winery that we visited, and we are going to prepare a fish dinner this evening using a fish from Lake Victoria. Any idea what fish we are going to prepare? They weigh up to 200kg (440lb). It is a Fred Flintstone size fish. We didn't get to show you everything we wanted to, but I think we gave you an idea of what is available here. David forgot to mention that we also bought a small bottle of chocolate buffalo milk at the Buffalo farm. It was quite good, but not as good as Yotvata chocolate milk. Yotvata is a Kibbutz dairy in the Negev, near Eilat, and they make very, very good chocolate milk.

Yes, it is true. Ostriches are not Kosher. However, in this particular case, the ostriches are not used for food, nor are their eggs being sold. The Buffalo farm also has a zoo. They are there for show. They also have geese, ducks, turkeys, peacocks, turkeys and rabbits.

I tried to move it! It is the surge supressor for our portable phone. Unfortunately, they do sell electric hanukiahs, but thank G-d most people do not use them.

Tonight is the final night of Hannukah and tomorrow is the last day of our blog. We have thoroughly enjoyed showing off our country's bounty and hope that we have given you a little taste of what we get to enjoy everyday. We will be back from the fat farm sometime in March, in time to show off our designer hamentashen, the three-pointed cookie that we traditionally eat during Purim. Happy Hannukah! David went to our local falafel stand for a late lunch. It was recommended on a blog on Haaretz called Underground. This stand is located on the main road of Hod Hasharon. There is always a long line there and cars are double and tripled parked, so we assumed this might be a good place to try. The falafel balls were definitely fresh and almost straight out of the hot oil; the salad definitely was fresh, but he has had much better. This is the machine that makes the falafel. The chickpeas and herbs are put into the hopper shown above and ground into a coarse mash and then picked up in holes in the dark drum below it, which rotates and drops the mixtures straight into the hot oil. A few minutes later, the falafel comes to the surface and is scooped out. Apart from the standard salad and techina, the condiments at this stall included (L to R) hot green peppers, fenugreek sauce, amba (pickled mango; an Iraqi treat), coleslaw and white cabbage. Other stands often have a bigger selection of optional extras, including fried eggplant, onion rings seasoned with sumac, and fresh tomatoes. Take a bite! We are both so tired from all the festivities this past weekend that neither one of us have the energy to cook tonight. We will make dinner for you tomorrow and then bid our adieu. But please feel free to ask any questions or make a comment to know that someone is out there reading our blog.

Here a few more pictures to entice you to come for a visit. These are some more pictures of Jaffo: Abulafia, an Israeli institution. This is the place to come for hot pita and other goodies. They are open 24 hours a day and people line up and triple-park to buy all of the tasty offerings. A beautiful door in the artist quarter. A lovely view of the Mediterranean Sea. A carpet seller at the Shuk in Jaffo.

Happy New Year, Paula! Thanks for the advice. I will use our other pan and try it again.

I tried to make the straw potato cake and I failed. Does anyone have a photo of how theirs turned out? Sorry, Paula. See my blog Straw potato cake

Since we won't have time to take you to Jaffa for this blog, I thought I would show you a few pictures of a nice pastry shop in Jaffa. Knaif - This is shredded pastry filled with cheese and sprinkled with sugar syrup. It is gooey and yummy. I dont' know all the names for these. Pistachio baklava

Happy New Year Klary! Those Olliebollen are lovely.

I read that the rule is 1/4 ounce of gelatin to set 16oz of liquid. Did you bloom and dissolve the gelatin? How to bloom and dissolve gelatin.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope that you do not have a hangover from all the festivities. Today is a regular workday as if nothing happened last night. I had my usual muesli and cappucino breakfast. Today, David is going to show you our visit to the wineries and dairies and he is planning to go have some hardcore felafel for lunch. We are going to have non-fried dinner tonight.

Dinner was simple, but nice. My friends brought over: Chili con carne Vegetarian chili Beer bread Green salad Spinach I made roasted cauliflower (some of the group is vegetarian) We also served left over tapenade and the desserts from the Latke party. We had cocktails before dinner, red wine with dinner and champagne to ring in 2006. A few of us put cassis in our champagne and made a kir royale. Bloombear and the rest of the Nordell family wish you and yours a very happy and prosperous 2006. May we see less sorrow and see a future that includes peace. See you tomorrow. Happy 7th night of Hannukah. Lila Tov from Israel and Shavua Tov (have a good week)! Shavua Tov is what we say at the end of Shabbat. Shabbat ended at sundown on Saturday. Our week begins tomorrow. I work Sunday through Thursday.

I am reading that book right now! started this weekend. I love it. I wish I could have those cheeses to munch on while I was reading though... Especially the Sheeps cheese wrapped in bay leaves. ← Klary, we should start an eGullet bookclub!

Randi you are correct. It wasn't that hard to figure out. We pay about .75USD per 40-50 grams of herbs.

Here is some of David's Uncle Peter Rozsa's artwork: This head in this picture is a copy of a Mayan bust that he cast in concrete. The blue pottery is also his, unfortunately the bottom broke.

Hi Barbara, Thanks. I made the pear tart exactly as I make an apple one. I was quite pleased with the results. I would suggest making them with bosc pears.

The Cheeses All of the cheeses are Israeli cheeses and all of them are Kosher. In fact, most of the products on the table are Israeli with the exception of the apricot jam, salmon and the coffee. We buy coffee from a local cafe chain called Ilan's. The coffee we had today is called Torino. The cheeses starting at 1200 and going clockwise are: Nachshon dairy's Tomme, which is a sharp sheep cheese, very nice Smoked Emek, Israeli yellow cheese Sheep cheese that is wrapped in bay leaves Camembert with walnuts Buffalo Farm's Tsfatit with sesame seeds and za'atar. This type of cheese originated in Tsfat, which is in the north and is the birthplace of Kabbalah. Not Madonna's version of it, but the real thing. There are some real crazy people up there. Nachson dairy's Ro'im with nigella seeds, which means Shepherd's cheese. A very mild cheese. Buffalo mozzarella. As good as you get in Italy and I know because I lived in Lugano and bought all of my groceries in Italy at a local farmers market for 2-1/2 years. These are three of over a hundred Israeli white cheeses. Gad dairy makes some nice products, but they are not the best of breed. The best labane I have ever had was at a Druze restaurant in Daliyat el Karmiel and equally best is made by the mother of our green grocer in Tel Aviv. From left to right: Tnuva cottage cheese, Gad Dairy's cow labane, Gad Dairy's Bulgarian Cheese spread Labane is made using cow's milk, goat's milk or sheep's milk. You can buy it plain or topped with olive oil or olive oil and za'atar. As you can see we do not suffer here.

The famous Israeli Breakfast David and I have an Israeli breakfast once a week, usually on Saturday morning. It is nice to sit down and relax at the table and read a good book, talk about life, politics, how to forge peace in the Middle East and read parts of the newspaper that we didn't have time to read on Friday. There are two rules in this house, we sit down and have dinner at the dining room table together and have a leisurely breakfast once-a-week. I highly recommend this book. It is written by one of our best Israeli authors, Amos Oz. Haaretz newspaper Today, we are really showing off, we wanted to show you all of the cheeses we bought on our trip yesterday and show how hedonistic an Israeli breakfast can be. The only thing missing from the table is Israeli salad. I forgot to buy cucumbers and I am also allergic to raw tomato. I started by making an omlette. I made a herb omlette today. Can you guess what herbs I used? How much do fresh herbs cost where you live? How much do you get in a bunch? The omlette. I also added a little sour cream. Usually I add yogurt, but we had sour cream left over from the latke party. This is lowfat sour cream. And here is the spread on the table: The juices: Pomegranate, Mango and Orange Juice Chunky applesauce and marinated black olives and our Kakadu placemats that I love. White cheeses, smoked salmon, apricot jam, blackberry-peach jam and Artisanal bread's whole wheat walnut-pistachio bread One of my favourite drinks is this Mango/Pomegranate breakfast cocktail

Behemoth, I hope you are settling down after your move. Happy New Year! Maybe we can meet someday, I go to Germany about every two months or so for work. Best of luck, Michelle

Klary, they are really easy to make and you can make them sweet by adding a little brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg for a real Dutch dessert or savory by adding curry powder or onion or a little fresh thyme.