late night confessions...

Still haven't adjusted back to tel aviv time.  giving me many hours to stare into the dark space of my room and think...or rather list. I tend to make insanely long lists in my head when i can't sleep.  when i used to work in fashion i would list in order all of the things i had to do the next day (which would generally number in the hundreds).  tonight i lay awake thinking about chanukah.  Yeh, that's right, chanukah!  the festival of lights. this will be my first chanukah in israel and boy am i excited!

it starts this weekend and without realizing it my israeli roommates and i had already planned to have a big dinner at our house for friends.  they wanted me to make them something akin to a thanksgiving feast, to which i agreed of course.  so that was the beginning of my list making. first, all the dishes i intend to make, and second all the ingredients i will need in order to cook those dishes. 

according to tonight's list i will be making the following:

roast chicken (too hard to find a turkey here) with rosemary, thyme, lemon, etc

roasted root veggies with a touch of balsamic

bourbon mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows

green beans with almonds and lemon (haven't seen brussels sprouts yet)

cornbread stuffing (they don't sell those damn tasty bags of pepperidge farm here)

onion jam

oh...and chanukah cookies that are basically christmas cookies disguised in chanukah shapes. 

now that i got that off my chest maybe i will drift off to sleep finally...

Jet-Lag

Wow, just woke up at 4pm.  Jet-lag is like a crazy hangover without the nausea and diarrhea (oh, that's just me?).  Wishing I had gotten up earlier to accomplish all the things I had intended to do today. 

Sandwiches

pita toasted lightly in a pan with olive oil topped with cream cheese,

                                                                                          slices of fresh tomato, a handful of cilantro and salt and pepper 

I spend most of my day thinking about sandwiches.  I love sandwiches and would argue that the sandwich is the most diverse of all food categories.  There isn't a day that goes by where I'm not slathering something in between two pieces of something (although, since living in Israel its more often slathering something into a pocket of some sort) but that's not the point. The point is that I love them and wish that sandwich places here in Tel Aviv understood the artform with more of a delicate touch and a bit of finesse. 

Most people remember the history of the sandwich from the story of John Mantagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, ordering that his dinner be served between two pieces of bread so that he could eat his meat while continuing to play cards without covering his hands in grease (people ate food with their hands then). It popularized itself almost immediately as people began saying "I'll have what he's having", or rather they would order, "The same as Sandwich, please" and TaDa! the name was coined.  

BUT did you know that in ancient time (whatever that means) it was known that Hillel the Elder (110 bce - 10ce; a famous jewish religious leader and the founder of the House of Hillel), ate lamb and bitter herbs between two pieces of matzah! Jews and sandwiches, who knew?  

On that note, I'm off to make what I hope is a very delicious sandwich.

The Follow Thru

Consistency has never been my strong suit.  I start something, quickly become overly obsessed by it, and then just as quickly I fall out of love and begin to hate whatever 'it' was.  I started this  blog nearly a month ago, thought about it a lot without actually adding to it, and worried that perhaps I was losing interest.  But then I said to myself, "No, not this time!" (actually it was probably more along the lines of - "Stop youtubing old episodes of Kitchen Nightmare's starring Gordon Ramsey and write an entry on your blog!")  

Here I am, and here it goes:

Just got back from a two week trip to New York. I have been living in Israel for 9 months without visiting NY even once, so this was a real treat. I galavanted around the city like an old pro...bopping from place to place, friend to friend. Trying my very best to take in all the things I had missed.  From walking over the Brooklyn Bridge to spending the morning at the Met.  

Halfway thru the trip my aunt gave me a Flip video camera for hanukah - this changed everything (cause I had misplaced my actual camera somewhere between tel aviv and ny) and I began filming my days...often at the chagrin of my friends, trying to capture what it's like to wander the city without a care. 

See, going there on this visit was very different then living there full time (for all the obvious reasons).  Instead of stressing about NY I was able to enjoy it in all its glory.  I might have elbowed a few slowwalkingtouristswearingpinkanduggs in typical new york fashion - but all in all I was in a jolly good mood and walked around the city with a normal face (instead of my usual new york/don't talk to me/i'm in a rush/i'm in more of a rush than YOU are face.)

Videos of visit coming as soon as i can figure out how to edit them properly. making this entry a bit of a failure - but hey! at least i'm trying...

New Beginnings

New blog, new season, new adventures, new thoughts.  This might be a good place to start.  Having just returned from a dream weekend in the tiny but robust Abbirim village I am inspired to begin a new chapter of my life. Which makes this whole thing sound a lot heavier than it is.  Bottom line- I wanted to blog, too!

What's my story?  I sort of, accidentally left New York and moved to Israel nearly 9 months ago.  I say accidentally because I had no intention of moving here when I came on my Taglit trip in March, (although those who know me well enough have apparently predicted all along that I would stay in Israel).  The plan was merely a few weeks of travel with my co-jew/best friend Yonatan in the land of his birth.  One thing led to another and we were suddenly living in Tel Aviv and looking for jobs.  How this happened is a story I will get to another time...

Cut to present day: Yonatan is studying in Akko living inside the old city and I am now happily situated in the Mugen Commune in central Tel Aviv. There are technically 4 of us in the house although at any given time we often swell to 7 or 8. Frankly, this is how we like it.  Its a jam packed adventure-in-living, full of family dinners, impromptu lyrical genius, and of course a built-in support system of friends all around.  This (i hope) will be the fodder for much of this blog.  Let's call it "adventures in jew-land"?  These stories along with guest blogging from my housemates, recipes we've tested, projects we do, trips we go on will also be featured.  More soon my friends.