A few days ago, Balkees and I spent the day with a journalist from Israel’s top food magazine, as she prepared an article about the edible wild plants that are now in season. We started the morning in the village that Balkees grew up in, tromping through the lush greenery in the vast field behind … Read More »
foods of the bible
A Time to Pick Olives
Once again the olive harvest. I like to speculate that not an autumn has passed since they were first cultivated, back in obscure pre-history, that people haven’t gathered olives here in this place that I live. Taking part in this ritual makes me feel like the tiniest link in a very long chain. But the … Read More »
Paradox with a P
It seems like one of the paradoxes of adult life is how to interject variety into a healthy but potentially boring routine. I was thinking about this just this morning as I prepared, yet again, the same breakfast I have been eating for years – yogurt, a few tablespoons of raw rolled oats, some chopped … Read More »
The Yoreh
While family and friends in North America are already in sweaters, here in the Galilee the temperatures are still in the 30’s (high 80’s F). It’s not that we don’t sense the passing of season – the evenings are significantly cooler, and fat, billowy clouds have started to reappear in the sky after months of … Read More »
Defying Closure
Looking out my window at the full-grown green olives weighing down the branches of our tree, I am reminded that the Jewish New Year does not begin neatly at the end of one traditional agricultural year and the beginning of another. These olives, last of the summer fruit to ripen, will only be harvested in … Read More »