Portions of Children and Other Israeli Menu Items

Above: Street in Rosh Pinna

We are in Jerusalem eating breakfast this morning in our tiny studio apartment, "Ariella's Place"(also recommended by the ladies in Jaffa who referred us to Safed Inn), just about ten blocks from the Old City. I find that I miss having salad for breakfast. After doing without fresh fruits and veggies for several days, Israel's menu offerings have more than satisfied my cravings, as most meals are loaded with salads, including breakfast. This morning we only had banana and fresh pita with hummus and hinni (both pronounced with a 'cchh' sound at the beginning) - the first made with chickpeas, and the latter made with sesame seeds. Alan walked to the corner market to purchase those items along with copious amounts of water.

One night we had dinner in Jish (near Tzfat) - fabulous meal that was mostly salads - and the menu had such sections as "Portions of Children." One might wonder how they prepared the children, but then realize it was their selections FOR children (i.e., smaller portions suitable for children to eat). Later that night we walked from Safed Inn to the pizzeria just around the corner, where Alan ordered salad and was told their only salad item was 'Grease' salad, meaning of course, 'Greek' salad, but we had a chuckle between us as we each pictured a refreshing salad made of crisp grease - from the pepperoni perhaps?

The most irresistable eating establishment was Chocolatte in Rosh Pinna. Yes, an entire restaurant based around the ingredient, chocolate! We could not resist. Their menu offered 'chocolatte' (self-expanatory) and 'spicy chocolatte' (the former plus Tabasco and Chili). There was a soup like that too, as well as any drink you could imagine - hot and cold/alcoholic and non- - adapted for chocolate - 'pina colada chocolate' anyone? There was a whole room devoted to desserts and confections in glass cases that I am pretty sure they had to clean often to get all the drool marks off them. We settled for: 1. Deb - quiche (no chocolate added) and salad; and 2. Alan - Shakshuka (a Mediterranean dish of poached eggs in thick tomato and veggie sauce); and 3. Shared - the inevitable piece of decadent chocolate cake, pictured below.

While driving through the Golan Heights and Hula Valley (northeast corner of the country, bordering Syria and Lebanon), we saw such verdant fields of olives, every kind of fruit imagineable (bananas, cherries, dates, peaches, apples...), and we stopped to buy cherries (one of Alan's favorites) and an apple. Our innkeeper back in Tzfat told us we must bless the cherries, as they were the first of the crop this year, so we did. She prepared a nice platter of them to have with our after-dinner herb tea.

Yesterday we drove south from Tzfat, through Cana and Nazareth, where we did not stop, because it was an oppressively hot and humid day with wind coming like the worst Santa Annas in California. Besides it seems the most sacred spots of Nazareth are commercialized past any chance of a spiritual experience. What used to be a quiet isolated town is quite a busy metropolis - a lot can change in 2000 years. It was interesting, however, to get a geographic perspective of the location of the various places mentioned in the New Testament. Cana is in such close proximity to Nazareth, there is almost no delineation between the two cities in modern day. It would have been quite a long walk from Nazareth to the Galilee area. No wonder having ones feet washed was such a treat!

After that I fell asleep, telling Alan to just stay on route 60 all the way to Jerusalem. He woke me up saying he did not like continuing on that route - just did not feel good about it. When I asked why, he said he just had a bad feeling come over him - thought we might be headed for the West Bank. (You have to realize that most of the road signs are in Hebrew and Arabic, so we are somewhat illiterate as drivers.) It was clearly the shortest route to Jerusalem according to the map. Shortly after Alan's "bad feeling," we saw up ahead a checkpoint - a clear border-crossing just before Jenin. Alan asked me to name some of the other towns along the route ahead, and I said, "Ramallah" - and at that point we made a quick u-turn and backtracked back almost to Afula and took the route to Tel Aviv, where we dropped off the rental car and took the bus to Jerusalem. We did not want to be at the mercy of whatever mood the Palestinians were in at the moment. The experience reminded me that in ancient times Jews traveling to Jerusalem went around Samaria, because they did not get along. It was Jesus who traveled through Samaria and there encountered the 'woman at the well.'

Today we are off to explore Jerusalem. Stay tuned...

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