My Plate or Yours?

Quick Impressions of a Happy Day

Driving back to the hotel, late Saturday night, after a very happy day. Since we have to be at the airport in about 5 hours I am going to get a quick post in with the day's highlights (and there were many!) Forgive the choppy writing.

**Nazareth is a city of vibrant energy and beauty. Waking up in the guesthouse, the open courtyards below us and the blue sky above. A fabulous Arabic breakfast -- hummus and labne and salad with cheese and bread.

**Visiting the Church of the Annunciation -- mosaics of Mary and child from countries all over the world, and a new facade built to pull all the ancient pieces together -- brilliant architecture and the most beautiful stained glass I have seen. A Catholic mass in process and the swell and echo of the music so beautiful it hurts your heart.

**An Arabic market full of shouting and color and wonderful smells and my first visit to a mosque, quiet and spare and solemn.

**A stop in a shop for strong coffee brewed with cardamom and small pastries filled with goat cheese and nuts and honey.

**A spice market smelling like the Middle Eastern shops of my childhood -- reviving long sleeping memories of Saturday morning shopping trips to New York with the family to buy bread and cheese and za'atar. And a shawarma shop with sizzling lamb and warm pita and a million salads and sauces to put on top.

**A kaleidoscope of saturated color and wonderful taste and new memories to savor as we push through the traffic on our way out of the city to the next .

**Sitting on a rock by the Sea of Galilee. Walking through the stunning gardens at the church marking the spot where Christ is said to have given the Sermon on the Mount.

**Heading north across the Jordan River to the Golan Heights to the home of a Druze woman who cooks us a feast of rice and salads and meats and hummus and bread. Talking and laughing with her in a mix of three languages. A really special moment.

Driving through the night with an early morning flight. So tired and so happy. And really grateful to Amir Gadnaor who planned and executed a trip so far beyond our expectations that I am in awe.

Living it Up In the Dead Sea

I am writing this in Nazareth (Nazareth!) where we spent Friday night in a gorgeous old renovated mansion -- once the home of a wealthy Arab, today half hostel, half hotel, all hospitality. The sound-proofing is not so good, but even listening to very earnest and very, very young English-speaking students solving the world's problems until the early hours had its charm. This morning I can see the rooftops of the town from our window. It is going to be a lovely, sunny day.

Yesterday started with a drive from Jerusalem to Masada, a ruined palace high on a hill overlooking the Dead Sea. Amir's storytelling painted it with vivid color, from its days as Herod the Great's desert retreat to its role as refuge for a small band of Jewish rebels who chose mass suicide over capture by the Roman soldiers who stormed their mountain. The views of the vast desert and the shimmering, lifeless sea with the his of Jordan beyond were breathtaking.

From there we went swimming. Or floating, should I say? I am always a cork -- I pop to the surface of the water no matter how I try to stay submerged and I can float on my back and read a book without getting it wet if I want. But the Dead Sea and the mineral baths there are something else again. You relax into the water like a billowy cushion that cradles, supports, and gently rocks you to a blissful state of oblivion. You have to fight to pull yourself out of it -- both physically and psychologically. It was great.

Once we sluiced the sticky salt off our bodies we got back in the car and headed to Nazareth. We haven't seen too much of it yet, but the city is developing a reputation as a food city and we had an absolutely splendid dinner at Alreda.

The setting is magnificent -- a 19th century mansion with high, arched stone walls, wooden tables, and friendly service. The food is even better -- Arabic cuisine with a modern touch. We had a warm eggplant salad -- "stolen eggplant" they call it in English which is a mistranslation, but an endearing one. It is fire roasted eggplant dressed with tahini, covered with diced white cheese, and that description comes nowhere near to describing the blend of fabulous flavors. Also the "Baby Salad" -- baby greens with citrus and pistachios and that doesn't do it justice either. Both salads were magic.

But even more magical was my favorite dish of the night --a cheese "steak," slabs of white goat cheese with a haloumi-like consistency, baked in a copper pan with oil and vegetables and spice I could not identify. It was one of the best things I have ever eaten -- exotic and unctuous and vaguely familiar. It reminded me of an afghan mushroom dish I love that is filled with garlic and cilantro. Anyway, it was truly special.

We also had lamb stuffed artichokes for the meat-eaters, with heavenly fragrant rice, and a flatbread with vegetables and cheese that was wonderful but by then I was getting just a tiny bit full.

But not too full for dessert. We had something that translated roughly to "17 secrets cream" and was a custardy affair in a nutty syrup. A little soupy, not too sweet, very delicious.

And then a starlit stroll through narrow Nazarene streets to our own mansion home for the night. Another phenomenal day of this phenomenal trip. One more to go.

Thankful

A short post today because I am an idiot and didn't watch my step yesterday on ancient cobblestones and took a spill. Feeling every year of my age today -- a little creaky and moving slow with an hour to be ready to hit the road for a trip to the Dead Sea and Nazareth where we spend the night.

Yesterday began on the Mount of Olives, took us into the city on the Via Dolorosa , stopped in an ancient cistern filled with the echoes of the past (unfortunately wasted on this claustrophobe,) and ended back in the old city, crossing the roof tops and navigating twisty stone staircases.

Amir is a remarkable storyteller and biblical tales that had never meant much more to me than a fairytale became the stuff of real drama and intrigue, heroism and betrayal. My mind is still grappling with it all but I think it's safe to say that I look at the world differently today than I did yesterday, and that's the best you can ask for from a teacher. I cannot recommend him highly enough as a guide.

The day was supposed to end in Bethlehem, cooking what would in essence be our Thanksgiving dinner in the kitchen of a Palestinian family. But once I found myself lying flat on the streets of old Jerusalem, staring up at the blue sky, I reevaluated and thought a little rest would not come amiss. So Thanksgiving dinner turned out to be a very good burger for Jer and mac 'n cheese for me at a bistro across the street from our hotel, and we had an early night.

There were some culinary high points, though. Freshly squeezed pomegranate and orange juice, tart and refreshing. Brilliant orange kanefeh, a fabulous dessert of syrup-soaked semolina pastry over melted goat cheese with pistachio sprinkles. Maybe the best falafel I have ever had and phenomenal hummus at the tiniest ever hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

Super, super day, crowned with a FaceTime conversation with my dear mom and other special family members. Really so very thankful for so many things. And that's what the day is all about, after all.

Jerusalem

Went to sleep last night with the window open and the sound of young people singing in the cafe across the road filtering into our room. Parts of Jerusalem seem lighthearted and joyous, filled with the energy of youth. But we saw another side too -- the intensity of religious devotion as men and women, their faces raw with passion, were forcibly dragged from Christ's tomb to make way for others, and as, devoutly absorbed in prayer, they kissed an ancient wall that held the hopes and fears and absolute faith of an ancient people.

For me it was different from the peace I feel sitting in a place of worship and sharing the quiet spirituality of the ages. Last night I felt like a voyeur, spying on some intimate act that should be protected from a nonbeliever's eyes. When Jerry and Amir walked up to the wall, I could not go.

Perhaps my favorite part of Jerusalem was walking through the old city in the star-studded dark, when most of the shops in the souk were closed, the people were going home, and the ghosts were starting to emerge. I am not a mystic but for me the places of the past hold the energy of those who once walked there and in the quiet moments that energy feels real.

Yikes -- where is the food in all of this? Don't worry -- it was there too. Because I skipped breakfast, my food day began with a fabulous falafel from a roadside stand Amir knew about. Fresh falafel fried to order, stuffed into bread with hummus, salad, and a killer lemon sauce made from a whole lemon, cilantro and spices, blended to a frothy, tart and slightly bitter, purée. Yum.

And then, the market! My nose will remember this day forever. I have been to many markets in my time and they are all so different, culinary mirrors of the people who shop there. This one stood out for the glorious aroma of spice that must linger in the air here always, the warm taste of freshly ground tahini, the sweet tartness of clementine, the sugary nuttiness of halva, the briny bite of olives, and the herby chewiness of bread and za'atar.

Somehow we were not so hungry when we emerged from the market and the religious tourism that followed didn't do much to fire up my appetite. I was happy to have a sampling of salads (and some very good hummus) in the gorgeous and ornate Armenian restaurant where we had dinner, while Jerry and Amir shared a special dish of meat and vegetables cooked in a tahini sauce. The sauce was mellow and rich and really wonderful. I am thinking of ways to play with it when I get home.

Then it was a walk back to the hotel in a light rain for three very tired people. The Harmony Hotel, is delightful and sooooo much nicer than the Dan Panorama TLV. Amir took off and Jerry and I went to our room, opened the window to let in the happy night sounds and slept soundly through til the dawn.

Just Deserts

Not a spelling error. Today was pretty much a day of just deserts. The first was Gaza. Not a desert in the conventional sense perhaps, but a barren and desolate-looking place nonetheless, where living conditions are needlessly harsh and inhospitable. We stood on a hill and trained our binoculars at the closed-off city not an hour from the bustling and prosperous streets of Tel Aviv, Jaffa and the port of Ashdod. Good work, Hamas.

The second desert of the day was a real one, the Negev. All afternoon the last lines of Ozymandias have run through my mind like a tune I can't forget: "...boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away." Not so level, maybe, but it is stark and huge and eternal, and like the stars in a bottomless heaven it dwarfs the problems of such small beings as we are.

It is truly humbling. BUT -- that's not to say that some human concerns aren't pretty important. Like lunch. Amir, our terrific guide, took us to a Bedouin family who lives way out in the desert and with whom he does business (they do camel tours, although I couldn't talk Jerry into thinking we needed to take one.). We sat on colorful woven mats in a wide open tent -- the family living room -- within earshot of the occasional camel snort, but cool and fresh and breezy despite the hot day. It was lovely in a wholly unexpected way.

Our hostess brought us a tray with glasses of minty sweet tea, loaves of flat, chewy fatir (unleavened bread), and bowls of pickles, mashed potato with za'atar, goat yogurt with za'atar, pickles and chopped vegetables. The desert produces food grudgingly, and it wasn't rich or bounteous, but it was good. We lay back on our cushions, ripping off hunks of bread and scooping up the herby spreads and it was a fine, fine lunch.

Man, I really fell for that bread! So good and chewy and flavorful. An embarrassed request for the recipe earned me a full scale cooking lesson. Invited into the kitchen, we sat on more mats on a dirt floor by a domed, wood burning oven and I was tutored by two kind women bemused by my ignorance, through the steps of mixing the dough (flour, salt, and water), turning and kneading it in the bowl until the gluten was developed and it was supple and stretchy, though still wet. They showed me how to twist off knots of dough, flatten them out and throw them from hand to hand until they were, in theory, anyway, paper thin, before draping them on the hot griddle. In seconds they were ready to be flipped, by hand (ouch!), and flipped again. It was totally, totally fun. Goofy, adorable little kids ran around and pushed the buttons on Jerry's camera and pretended to call him on an old, broken cell phone while I had an absolute blast, up to my elbows in sticky dough. As soon as I get home I am taking the wooden handle off my wok, flipping it upside down on our ceramic grill, and getting to work.

In the afternoon we had a long drive through more beautiful desert, climbed down into an ancient cistern, drove through more Bedouin towns, and ended up in a tiny village consisting of one clan -- not Bedouins this time but Arab farmers -- the children, grandchildren and great and great great grandchildren of one man who moved to the area on the strength of a vision over a hundred years ago. The families all used to live in caves in the hills, in the winter with their animals wedged in with them for mutual warmth. Now most of the families have homes, some have mansions, and one has made the old caves a stop for travelers in search of a good home cooked Arabic meal.

That, of course, would be us. We sat on the ground again. Stone this time, covered with mats. On a table the family arranged bowls of food -- a rice dish filled with spice and studded with chunks of vegetables and chick peas. Bowls of hummus, and cuminy carrot salad, savory eggplant salad, spicy tomato jam, cabbage slaw, corn with dill, olives and pickled vegetables and an enormous flat loaf of bread, leavened this time. I kid you not, as my dad liked to say, it was one of the best meals I've ever had.

It's almost as if the taste of middle eastern food is embedded in my DNA. It fills parts of me that have nothing to do with my stomach, and it makes me very happy indeed.

Another perfect day, thanks to Amir. I asked him and the guy who owns the company he works with if I could mention their names and they said sure. So, if you are planning a trip to Israel (or Jordan or Turkey or any number of places in the region) find Amir Gadnaor or Zel Lederman, owner of the Israeli Travel Company, and they will set you right up! http://www.israeltravelcompany.com/

Tomorrow we leave this idiot hotel with whom I still have not settled my differences, and we go to Jerusalem for two nights. Sooo excited!! For all the obvious reasons, of course, but also ... markets!!! My favorite thing!

Tel Aviv and the First Hummus

We are here, it is amazing, and I feel fine. So glad I did not turn tail and come home.

Got in around 4 pm yesterday. It is WARM here. Nice after chilly Paris. Our hotel, the Dan Panorama, is on the sea, which is the only nice thing I can say about it. This a food blog so I will save my kvetching for Trip Advisor, but the short version is -- nice enough hotel in a nickel-and-diming kind of way, but the management stinks. Won't honor the actual reservation we made with Delta Vacation, which I have in writing, because it doesn't click with what their local agent says we paid for. It would cost them nothing to honor it but it is the principle, the manager says. Fine. I can stand on principle too, and will when I make my next reservation in Israel.

Which I will, because I love this place already.

That I do is in no small part due to our guide, Amir Gadnaor. We really just lucked into him -- he works with a guide that took a friend around last summer -- but he suits us exactly. Bearded, in jeans and sandals, he is laid back, flexible, knowledgeable, and interesting. He's in his early fifties, grew up in Tel Aviv, lives with his family in the desert now, where he finds a kind of solace I don't understand but that he promises to show us. The itinerary he has planned takes us all over the country. I said we wanted to focus on politics and food and so far that's what we've gotten. Fascinating. And delicious.

So. Last night Amir met us at the hotel and suggested a walk along the shore to Jaffa -- not far away -- with a tour of the old port city and dinner by the water. It was balmy and breezy and we walked right along the beach on a concrete boardwalk structure, listening to waves and imagining centuries of pilgrims arriving on these shores to make the trek to their holy places.

It was lovely to see Jaffa at night. An old Arab city, many of the buildings are now trendy night clubs or artist hangouts. But there is still a working waterfront and we had a superb dinner at The Fisherman's Restaurant.

Naturally we ordered too much food. I am writing about hummus for my Bloom column (more on that later) so we had some of that. It was good. Pretty close to Grandma's version, but she used more lemon, garlic and salt. But it was the real, non-gussied up deal. Came with good pita bread -- some warm, some split, toasted, and sprinkled with za'atar (a middle eastern dried herb blend.)

Bread and za'atar is special for me -- one of the tastes that summons my dad. Shut my eyes as I savored it and there he was, Saturday noontimes, recreating the snack of his own youth, taught him by his dad. Three generations of Lebanese food memories, untethered to any real knowledge of the country (Grandpa was one when he left), but there you are. Food is a powerful part of our heart's geography.

The star of dinner, for me, was the grilled haloumi cheese -- love that stuff -- and a grilled eggplant, smoky and just slightly bitter, dressed with tahini. Yum. Also had an Arabic salad -- diced up and dressed vegetables. Very refreshing and and a good tart contrast to all the tahini-ness of the other starters.

And those WERE just the starters. We also had a seafood platter to share. Small fish, grilled whole, sweet and tasty. Fried calamari, tender and succulent, grilled shrimp, cracked crabs, and some mussels in the prettiest luminous greeny shells. We sat, picked at the seafood, talked about the history and politics of the region, and watched fish jump and feed in the harbor.

For a food and politics junkie, it could not have been a better evening. Bittersweet, because my mom is very ill and my sister texted me some not-good news while we were out, but lovely too.

This morning I am looking across the blue Mediterranean, on a sunny day that promises to get to 90. We pick up the car at 9:00 and Amir has a day planned that starts with a glimpse of Gaza and ends with dinner with a Druze family in a cave. I will report back.

So glad I am here.

Hanging In

Fast, cheap, and easy. In the US that describes the way we eat. In France the way they eat is way more time consuming and complex but, boy, the medical system here is a snap.

I am still feeling kind of punk. My hotel called a doctor for me and they apologized that it would take an hour before he got here. Here. To the hotel. And it was just about an hour too. For a house call. Cost 100€, or about $135. Then the lab came by to do some tests. Here. To the hotel. 89€. Results phoned in four hours later and prescriptions in hand (26€.) You know the punch line -- feeling better and reassured? Priceless.

Given a choice between fast food and fast medicine, I'll take the latter every time.

I didn't eat much today. Jer had the wonderful breakfast downstairs and then a Niçoise salad and Cochon de lait poche, grilled, from room service.

Tomorrow we head out to Israel. Hoping for better days and better meals. If I keep saying that, it will happen, I know!!

Amazing Food Day, All Considered

Amazing food day, and I barely even got out of bed, once I got myself into it.

We flew into Paris at about 6 am and it was pitch dark. Still dark when our train got into the city about an hour later. Walked to the Relais St. Germain from the St. Michel stop and passed a chocolate shop (Patrick Roger) with a life-size ape, carved out of an enormous block of chocolate. The photo isn't great because it was so dark, but it was amazing.

Even though we arrived at the hotel so early, our room was ready because we had paid for the night before (see my Facebook page for the sad tale of why we arrived a day later than planned. It involves me getting sick on the plane to Paris pre-takeoff, making it take me back to the gate, spending the night in an Atlanta ER and trying it all over again the next day with greater success.)

Anyway, our room was ready and, more importantly, since we'd paid for the previous night, breakfast was ours. The Relais St.-Germain makes the best breakfast ever -- simple, simple, simple, but everything is sourced carefully and beautifully. The best croissants (from Gerald Mulot), perfect baguette with creamy sweet butter and luscious jams, ham from Spain, French mountain cheese, rich yogurt and farm fresh eggs. Oh, and fresh squeezed orange juice, orange segments, spiced prunes poached in red wine, walnut bread, and probably something I am forgetting. Cafe au lait and chocolat chaud in huge morning cups.

I am on such a weird cocktail of meds I couldn't do it my usual justice, but I buttered crusty bread and slathered on tart sweet apricot jam. Heaven. Followed up with an amazing croissant. Sipped from an enormous cup of rich, rich, rich hot chocolate.

Stumbled upstairs and scrambled into my jammies for a nap that turned into an all day affair. Jer got up and took a long walk around the Jardin du Luxembourg. I kept sleeping. Probably smart given the bugs that have taken up residence in my system and the pain killers meant to dull their effect. I felt kind of bad sleeping through a whole day of Paris but this way I'll have a fighting chance to be fit for the rest of the trip. So I slept some more.

We had dinner reservations at Le Comptoir, downstairs, but I was far too queasy to make that happen so we switched them to tomorrow night. Instead, Jer went a few streets over to our favorite Italian place in the 6th (da Pietro) and brought back a couple of the best pizzas ever. Mine had eggplant, onions and mushrooms, and Jer's was covered in Parma ham. Pretty spectacular. My only regret is that I couldn't eat much of it.

And then! Jer had stopped at Maison Larnicol, the koignette shop across the street on his first trip out and we split a couple of the sticky, decadent pastries -- one just caramel, made with sweet salted butter, the other pistachio. These little pastries are killer delicious, layer after gooey layer coiled into a sweet bundle of chewy syrupy goodness. There is nothing like them.

I am falling asleep as I type this (all typos are due to that and the Percocet!). Going to cut out the pain meds tomorrow and hope for a more normal (but equally delectable) day. Bonne nuit!