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 »
wheat
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 »
Forgetting the Bulgar
Learning Arabic is confoundingly difficult. I have learned languages in my life – Spanish, French and Hebrew – but Arabic is something completely different. I have never invested so much time and effort, with such meager results, as in my study of Arabic. The rules of grammar, the vocabulary, the accent – each of them … Read More »
Breaking Bread in Galilee
I consider it very auspicious timing, that my new book – Breaking Bread in Galilee – A Culinary Journey into the Promised Land – has entered the world during the height of spring. These days, there is gold everywhere you look, in vast waves of wheat stalks rolling in the breeze, or shorn and flattened … Read More »