In the broadest of strokes, there are basically two seasons in the Galilee, a brief verdant winter that melds into a vast spring- summer-autumn stretch of dry heat. Yet at the cusp between the two – as those who have lived here throughout time have come to understand, one never knows what to expect from … Read More »
Making Hay
When I first started researching for my book, I had a conversation with a very distinguished food historian. As I enthused about the marvels of wheat, she warned me that people who begin to immerse themselves in the history of grain tend to bore everyone around them, as inevitably, no-one finds the subject as fascinating … Read More »
Green Anew
How does one mark the arrival of spring when the entire winter is full of flowers? With more flowers for one thing, and the late-night fragrance of citrus blossoms teasing into my bedroom window. But there are other reminders that, over the thousands of years when survival for the people living in the Galilee was … Read More »
Winter in Eden
In my last post, I talked about the “hakura” – the Arabic term for a kitchen garden next to the home, which was once traditional in rural Arab villages in the Galilee (and is, like so many other such traditions, becoming a thing of the past). Now I’d like to report on our own hakura, … Read More »
The Hakura
I recently received a telephone call from a man named Adel, from the nearby Bedouin village of Ayedat. He is in the final stages of submitting his master’s thesis and needed help with editing the English abstract. I frequently edit English texts on you-name-the-topic, but when he told me the subject of his thesis, I … Read More »