Archive | Food
Our ‘Canadian Ginger’ gets a taste of the city
By The Canadian Ginger (AKA D’vora Charness)
So there’s a yearly event in Tel Aviv called The Taste of the City (טעם העיר). It is a week long event taking place in one of the massive parks right by Tel Aviv University.
Tel Aviv’s local restaurants come and set up booths all around the park with their famous dishes at half the cost. The event attracts thousands of people a night who come and taste test all the delicious cuisine Tel Aviv has to offer. Bands are brought in and there are even special activities set up all around the park.
It was a super cool experience. Tons and tons of foods ad desserts, basically anything your heart and tummy desire was there and all at a price your wallet can appreciate!
I think my favorite part of the event was the entrance. I am a HUGE chocolate milk drinker, so to have a taste test of all the different flavors of chocolate milk and ice coffee from Yotvata (an Israeli milk products brand from a kibbutz in the south) was such a treat!
Starving myself all day before going was definitely worth it! Cannot wait for next year!
Israelis share a beer at Tel Aviv’s first bar-restaurant co-op
A new bar-restaurant co-op, founded by organizers of last summer’s social justice protests, already has 60 shareholders, and is planning to open its doors next month.
The cooperative enterprise, popular in the early days of Zionism, has made something of a comeback over the past year.
Following last summer’s social justice protests, dozens of cooperatives have been founded. These include the Ha’agala co-op in Mitzpeh Ramon, which competes with the local branch of the Super-Sol grocery store, a social workers’ cooperative and a co-op in northern Israel made up of teachers employed by manpower companies.
Next month, a pub-restaurant co-op is slated to open in Tel Aviv, while in Jerusalem a plan for a cooperative coffee shop is beginning to take shape.
On Sunday, the first members’ assembly will be held for the Tel Aviv co-op, to be called Bar Kayma (Hebrew for “sustainable”), in which its members will vote on its menu, location and design. The original date for the opening was set for May 1, but this was pushed back due to bureaucratic delays.
The prices paid for food and drink at the new co-op will only cover the cost of production, while guests will be charged market prices. A half liter of beer, for example, will cost members NIS 15, while non-members will pay NIS 25. The pub’s seven employees will earn fair wages, and administrative decisions will be make by vote only. The co-op will serve only vegan food, a decision reached during the new institution’s founding conference.
The pub’s founders are Yigal Ramban and Julian Feder, both of whom were leading activists in last summer’s social protests. They sit in an Indian restaurant at Hamashbir Street 22 in south Tel Aviv’s Florentine neighborhood, where the pub is meant to be located, recruiting potential shareholders.
Thus far, 60 people have bought shares, which cost NIS 1,000 each. Thirty more have expressed interested in buying one, but have not yet paid. Rambam and Feder’s goal is to recruit at least 100 shareholders, but Feder noted that Israel’s Securities Law prevents them from selling the shares off publicly in a large-scale sale.
Rambam and Feder’s role models for this very modern enterprise hark back to the beginning of Zionism. They note the symbolism in the fact that the Yishuv’s first cooperative, which was founded in 1916, was called Hamashbir, the same name as the street on which they plan to found their co-op.
“Thanks to these cooperatives, Israel is not a third world country,” according to Rambam. “Since the summer, people understand that cooperative work is a winning proposition.”
When asked if the pair is afraid that the cooperative model will fail to catch on, Feder said, “Unlike a regular business, here hundreds of people help you promote the business, so you don’t take the risk by yourself. When there’s a war over the cost of living, being a member of a co-op means beating the system.”
The cooperative model is widespread in Spain’s Basque region, where the Mondragon Corporation, a federation of worker cooperatives, employs tens of thousands, while Ireland has a cooperative pub-brewery.
As it turns out, one of the reasons why co-ops close is not their failure but rather because of their own economic success, which provides their owners with an incentive to sell the business for a profit. Under existing Israeli law, the Cooperative Societies Ordinance of 1933 allows a successful cooperative to easily let go of its shareholders.
“The law incentivizes the dissolution of cooperatives,” said Yifat Solel, a lawyer who works with co-ops and who aided the founders of the Bar Kayma. “Thus a situation is created in which one hand battles apathy, while the other struggles with the outdated Cooperative Societies Ordinance, which is mainly suited to agricultural or kibbutz enterprises.”
“Once there was a cooperative in almost every field in Israel, from agriculture to credit funds and retail: ‘Hapardes,’ ‘Hamashbir,’ ‘Habima’, ‘Davar,’” added Solel, whose grandfather Raphael Marinov was the CEO of the Hamashbir Latzarchan department store for 30 years.
“There were 2,200 different cooperatives here. And still, when I began dealing with co-ops, people looked at me as if I had just fallen from the moon. Now people interested in opening cooperatives contact me every week,” she said.
Source: Haaretz.com
No matter where it originated, falafel is still Israel’s national food
Middle Eastern food fights aside, Israelis have found their own way to eat the fried chickpea balls. Just in time for Israel’s Independence Day, Vered Guttman gives us the scoop on how to make and eat these delicious treats.
What is the most Israeli food? You’re probably thinking of falafel. And you’re probably right, assuming that the question has one answer.
But as with anything else in the Middle East, politics can’t be left out of the equation. Israelis who argue falafel is their own face strong objections from Egyptians, Palestinians and Lebanese, who themselves claim to be the sole owners of these fried chickpea balls.
The falafel debate has actually turned into a verifiable food fight, much like the Great Hummus War between Israel and Lebanon, ongoing over the last few few years.
Two years ago, 300 Lebanese chefs fried 5 tons of falafel balls. Coincidently, only two weeks later in NYC, an Israeli chef managed to fry a 24 lb. falafel ball. Not appetizing.
So who’s right? Who really owns the falafel?
Falafel most likely originated in Egypt (though others claim it comes from India), where it is called ta’amiya and is made from fava beans.
Jews who lived in Egypt and Syria where exposed to falafel for centuries. Does that give them the right to use it then in their new country?
If a dish becomes popular to the point where you can find it everywhere and it is eaten by everyone in the country, rich and poor, young and old, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, and many see it as their national dish, does it really matter where it came from?
Falafel is so synonymous with Israeli food that the Israeli Ministry of Information and Diaspora Affairs has even asked Israelis to explain to people abroad that Israel has plenty more to offer, and that Israelis do not eat falafel and hummus three times a day!
Since food always traveled with immigrants, and local cuisines were adapted in new places, this discussion seems almost beside the point. I don’t see the Germans accusing Americans of stealing their hamburgers.
If everything was peaceful in our region this probably wouldn’t be an issue worth arguing about. Maybe it would be better to concentrate on the real problems? But then again, food fights might be a better choice.
Falafel was made popular in Israel by Yemeni Jews in the 1950s. They brought with them the chickpea version of the dish from Yemen and introduced the concept of serving falafel balls in pita bread.
And the way the Israeli falafel is served is, in my opinion, the main reason why Israeli falafel is truly, well, Israeli.
The Israeli falafel is served in a pita bread and may include Israeli salad (oops, I meant Arab salad), hummus (did I mention the hummus war?), German sauerkraut, Iraqi fried eggplant and pickled mango sauce, Yemeni hot sauce and French fries (to name just a few of the additions). This combination cannot be any more Israeli.
Israeli or not, falafel in a pita bread with hummus and tahini dip, and with a chopped vegetable salad is a well balanced meal that will work well for vegans, vegetarians and anyone else coming for dinner. It’s cheap and easy to make, so there’s no reason not to prepare it often.
To make it even easier, you can double the recipe and freeze half of the mixture (before adding the flour and baking soda) then thaw it to fry fresh falafel when you’re ready. Chop some tomatoes and Israeli cucumbers (unless if you prefer to call them Persian cucumbers) for a simple salad. Make an easy tahini dip by mixing 1/2 cup tahini with 1/2 cup water and 1/3 cup lemon juice and some salt. Open a can of Israeli pickled cucumbers and serve it all in pita bread filled with the hot falafel balls.
Way better than a 24 lb. falafel ball.
Source: Haaretz.com
Super Israeli sushi chef makes waves across the globe
Chef Shahar Dan’s meteoric rise has seen him rustling up sashimi for Robert De Niro and Jennifer Lopez – but he’s still at home in his mom’s Moroccan kitchen.
These days, when he’s on vacation, Shahar Dan can be found back in his childhood home in Ma’alot, keeping his mom company as she makes couscous in the kitchen. There is not much he likes better, he will tell you, than having his mom cook her Moroccan food for him. It is a rare pleasure for the hotshot sushi fusion chef, who lives a world away, between Saint-Tropez, Paris and London, and who spends his days and nights cooking for others – slicing and dicing for the kind of crowd that doesn’t know a harira soup from a kefta kebab. Not that he is exactly complaining.
“My philosophy is, enjoy the ride. Just follow it wherever it goes,” says the boyish 40-year-old, in jeans and a black, button-down shirt, a silver chain around his neck, as he sips a late-afternoon cappuccino. “There is nowhere like Israel,” he shrugs, “but in the meantime, I am having the time of my life out there.”
Dan’s father, the scion of a rabbinical family who immigrated to Israel in the 1950s and became a high-school teacher in Ma’alot after a long military career, was not, initially, too impressed with his middle son’s choice of profession. “Dad was old-fashioned. He thought cooking was a low-level job. He was thinking more like ‘lawyer,’” says Dan. But it’s not like he grew up dreaming of yellowtail sashimi with jalapenos either.
Aimless after the requisite post-army South-America-on-a-shoestring trip, Dan moved to New York and, none to keen on schlepping furniture, turned to that other staple of illegal Israelis in the Big Apple in the 1990s – selling women’s clothing at the Soho free market on Wooster and Spring streets. Fate came in the form of a late-night party at the Palladium and a pretty Catholic girl from Barcelona on the dance floor. The two got married a few weeks later at city hall, and her parents – restaurant owners back in Spain – gave him a piece of advice when they called to give their “mazal tovs” over the phone: “She likes to be cooked for.”
Wanting to please, Dan started watching some daytime cooking shows, and from there it was just a few subway stops away to enrolling in the city’s French Culinary Institute, from which he graduated 10 months later at the top of his class. “Turns out I was good. Everything I made always came out tasty,” he grins. “Everyone was in shock, including me.”
Of Japanese food, Dan knew precisely nothing. “I had never eaten sushi in my life,” he admits. But after a few unpaid apprenticeships “chopping stuff” at restaurants around town he walked into the flagship Nobu in the Tribeca neighborhood and asked for a job. He started as a line cook at the takeout section next door, and later moved over to the restaurant and turned into a prep cook. A year and a half later he was promoted to sous chef. “I loved that food. It was simple. Uncomplicated. It spoke to me,” he says.
Kisses and kudos
What followed that meteoric rise were three years filled with kisses from Hollywood actress Liv Tyler, kudos from former President Bill Clinton and so many other celebrity sightings that Dan can’t quite remember who was who. “There was one regular – that guy from ‘Gladiator’ – you know, the one who played the king,” he says, trying to be helpful. Oh, and on the night that Puff Daddy and Jennifer Lopez were breaking up, he confides, coming up with an arguably dubious claim to fame relating to the two music stars, he was peeking out from the kitchen as he put the final touches on his omakase tasting menu for them. “Nah, I didn’t really get to know Robert De Niro,” he says. “It was more like, ‘shalom, shalom,’ if we bumped into each other in the bathroom or something.”
In 2002, having mastered the signature black cod with miso, rocked the rock shrimp tempura, gotten divorced, remarried and divorced again, Dan packed up his chopsticks and moved to Miami, to serve as the executive chef for SushiSamba, the popular Peruvian-Brazilian-Japanese fusion restaurant famous for dishes like lobster with papaya salsa, and guava sorbet and scallops with caper sauce.
“In those years there were almost no other Israelis in the American cooking scene except for us,” says celebrity chef Nitzan Raz, owner of Israel’s own SushiSamba as well as several other trendy Tel Aviv restaurants, whose early career was spent alongside Dan’s across the ocean. “But I think Israelis have the chutzpah to push themselves – and we did just that – and had the time of our lives.”
Next stop for Dan was Monte Carlo, where he opened Pacific, an Italian-Japanese fusion restaurant that at its peak played host to everyone from Prince Albert of Monaco to Paris Hilton, all munching away on his Italian meatballs with miso sauce and sushi mozzarella with salmon. On Grand Prix racing weekends Pacific could achieve a million-euro turnover. “I loved the excitement of the kitchen, the women who walked out of magazines and up to my tables. I just loved the action,” he says. “It was a dream.”
“He is modest,” says Roy Sofer, who also worked with Dan in New York and today is a cookery teacher and a consultant to various restaurants in Israel, including the popular Giraffe chain. “There are several Israelis who have had success abroad in recent years, largely because, having gone through the army, they have both the discipline and inventiveness needed in a kitchen. But you also need talent, and Dan has it.”
In the last few years Dan has been working as a private chef for billionaire Pakistani brothers based in Europe, whom he cannot name publicly because of a confidentially agreement. “I fell into a job with guys who like to party,” he says, describing an extravagant lifestyle that has him traveling by helicopter between his bosses’ homes and yachts, preparing everything from their favorite simple breakfast (“hard-boiled egg with caviar, served on a pewter plate” ) to massive midnight “snacks” (“could be anything – fresh lobster and calamari maybe, or just simple steak and chips” ) for their parties with friends, including American rapper 50 Cent, actor Leonardo DiCaprio or any number of Saudi Arabian sheikhs. “I do everything for them,” shrugs Dan. “I am always on call. I might be in Monte Carlo, and they will call me and tell me to come to them in Saint-Tropez to make mint tea. No problem. That’s the job.”
Having an Israeli chef does not matter a whit to the Pakistanis, he says, and if they discuss Israel at all it’s in the context of, say, an Israeli chopped salad, not the Palestinian question. But Dan has to agree with Sofer and Raz – the Israeli upbringing has been good training. “My ability to get things done and not let my bosses down comes from home. Whatever they want, they get. I never say no, I can’t or I don’t have. There is no such thing. It’s an Israeli mentality.”
This month, with some time off, Dan is home, having had a seder meal with his siblings, sitting in Jaffa cafes with old school and army friends, taking his nieces to the playground, and hanging out where he is always happiest. “I love the kitchen in the home I grew up in,” he says. “It is some sort of base for me. Only I don’t touch a thing in there. I don’t want to compete with Mom.”
Source: Haaretz.com
PICTURE: The ‘Canadian Ginger’ teases us with her Israeli Breakfast
“Delish yummy breakfast in 20 degree weather! Israeli style!! YUM!”
Tel Aviv market a bonanza from ordinary to exotic (Chicago Tribune)
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TEL AVIV — Visiting a food market in a far-flung destination is a great way to get a sense of the people who live there. Israel is no exception. The market in Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city, showcases the small desert country’s agricultural innovations and the immigrant backgrounds of many Israeli residents.
Tel Aviv’s Carmel market, also known as Shuk Ha’Carmel, is close to the shore and a short walk down Allenby Street from the city’s hotel area. It’s part flea market, with vendors selling clothes, trinkets, cosmetics and cigarettes — there’s something quirky about seeing Camel cigarettes for sale in a place where you often see real camels — but mostly it’s a foodie haven of dried fruit, exotic spices, local olive oil, imported cheeses and fresh fish, meat and poultry. You also could spend your time dealing with the more immediate needs of an empty stomach by visiting stalls that sell persimmon smoothies, imported chocolates, mounds of colorful candies, fresh falafel, halva, lamb shawarma and borekas, the salty stuffed Turkish puff pastries that seem to be everywhere in Israel.
Tel Aviv chef Yair Feinberg, 35, gives market tours to travelers as part of his culinary business Fein Cook. He also offers cooking classes, specialty dinners and works on an Israeli television version of “Iron Chef.” Feinberg, the son of Argentine immigrants, grew up on a kibbutz in Israel’s Negev region and trained to be a chef at L’Institut Paul Bocuse in France. He later worked in several Michelin-star-receiving restaurants in Paris, Provence, France, and Tuscany, Italy, before returning to Israel in 2005.
It’s easy to wander the market alone and relish your solo discoveries. But a trip with someone like Feinberg can add insight and explanations about what you are seeing.
Take the giant lemons, for instance. After sampling some of the largest and juiciest clementines I’d ever tasted, I was convinced I was in the land of giant fruit when I came across what I was sure were the largest lemons I’d ever seen — about the size of a 16-inch softball.
Feinberg said the fruit actually is a pomelo, a large citrus fruit originally from Asia. The pomelo is now grown in Israel, where it also is crossbred with grapefruit to create Israel’s Sweetie. Sweeties are similar in size to a grapefruit but sweeter, with thick green or yellow skin and a remarkable 40 or fewer calories per fruit.
Feinberg is happy to talk about Israel’s agricultural innovations. He said that when the country was young and dealing with its lack of arable land and water, farmers worked at developing fruits and vegetables that would survive and thrive in the desert climate. The results include special varieties of mushrooms and strawberries that grow large and sweet in greenhouses where insects are used to fight common diseases that limit growth, he said.
If your schedule is flexible, plan to visit the Carmel market on a Tuesday or Friday, when local artisans display and sell their wares on the nearby pedestrian mall and the area is turned into a kind of street fair. Jewelry, wood carvings and stained glass are among the offerings.
If you want to sit down for a meal during your market visit, consider HaBasta restaurant, a favorite of local chefs. Chef Maoz Alonim is known for his use of fresh ingredients.
For a good cup of strong coffee in a funky little storefront, head a few blocks southwest of the Carmel market to Levinsky Street and its spice shops. Stop in at Kaymak, 47 Levinsky St., where the American expat owner will give you something warm to drink, as well as a place to sit and watch the world go by. It’s impossible to walk through a market and not consider the people who shop there. While talking about how Israeli olive oil is different — strong and bold — Feinberg said that the description also might apply to Israelis.
“The culinary world in Israel is a mixture of a lot of influences from all the immigrant communities in Israel and the Arab background of the region,” he said. “One of the main characteristics of the Israeli food is that it has a very pronounced taste. The sweets are very sweet, the coffee is very bitter. … We use a lot of spices, fresh herbs.”
If you go
Tel Aviv is a cosmopolitan city where you can find myriad food choices in restaurants that offer cuisine that spans the globe. The Israel Ministry of Tourism’s website for North America, goisrael.com, offers a lot of good information about the entire country. You can search the site for details on Tel Aviv’s Carmel market and restaurants and night life.
Chef Yair Feinberg’s company website is feincook.co.il, but unless you can read Hebrew you’ll only be able to look at the photos. You can reach him by email, however, at yair@feincook.co.il. He speaks and writes in English.
Source: Chicago Tribune