As I put the final touches on my soon-to-be-published book – Breaking Bread in Galilee – A Culinary Journey into the Promised Land – bread seems to be looming large in my consciousness. Yesterday, on a particularly enjoyable visit with the Murad family in Kfar Manda, I was lucky enough to watch Samakh baking hubs … Read More »
wheat
Pure Gold
One Friday morning a few weeks ago, I arrived at Kfar Manda for my weekly Arabic lesson, and as I climbed the stairs to my teacher, Malek’s apartment, on the porch/roof I noticed piles of wheat laid out on a canvas drying in the sun (where was my camera when I needed it?). Um Malek … Read More »
The Wheat Harvest
Bucking tradition, I chose Spring to go into hibernation, focusing just about all my energies on my current project, which is researching and writing about wheat as one of the Galilee’s local foods. And while I was buried in books and traipsing around from one fascinating encounter to another, the culinary landscape made its own … Read More »
Pick While It’s Not Hot
The last meeting of our edible wild plants class took place on one of these rare, cool spring days before the oppressive heat sets in, bringing out the snakes and making foraging in the tall grass seem like not such a good idea. We convened up on Mount Gilboa, where we were treated to a … Read More »