I went to the Middle East...
Israel to be exact.
I love traveling so much. I love the new sights and smells, the chaos and the confusion... I love feeling like the world has been put in a blender, turned upside down, and mixed all around.
So, yes... Israel. Oh the things I saw... the desserts, the mountains, the Med, the Dead, and the Red... The people, all olive with bright blue eyes smelling like tangerines and filo dough... The sunsets... The deep red Israeli wine... Sigh.
And of course there was the food. I ate my way through the entire country and it was bone chillingly good... I had fabulous, fabulous food.
If I absolutely had to choose one cuisine to eat for the rest of my days I may have to choose Israeli cuisine.
I mean, maybe I'm still high on vacation (or the Valium I took to "sleep on the plane") but Israeli food seems to be in a state of complete balance. There are vegetables galore, protein in the form of beans and meats, seeds and nuts out the a-hole, all sorts of delicious breads, and a zillion and one ways to indulge without feeling like you just ate something... well... indulgent. Vegetarians and meat eaters rejoice... there's something for every taste.
I could go on forever and a day about all the wonderful things that I ate, but there were undoubtedly some highlights:
Bamba
Oh sweet gentle Jebus, I was seeing Magen Davids when I put the first puffy piece of Bamba in my mouth. It's salty-peanut-buttery-sweetness is certainly an exception to that healthy balance bull shit I mentioned above, but it's an exception that I will gladly make.
I'm told it's available in some ethnic supermarkets here in the States but please don't tell me how to get to them. Bamba is far too dangerously good for me to posses that knowledge. I'm glad to live in a naive state of being in which I believe that I have to travel back to Israel to experience the glory.
As a side note, I'm actually thinking about getting a tattoo of the Bamba baby on my ass.
What else?
Passiflora
Most of the houses that we visited had a Passion Fruit (or Passiflora) vine growing outside. The fruit is harvested twice a year and we came just at the end of the second Passiflora harvest.
You cut open the fruit and inside is this sweet-crunchy-tropical Passiflora caviar. It is SOOO damn delicious that I shake my fist at the heavens for not having it grow as weeds here in the US.
And then there were the Burekas...
Imagine warm potato and cheese gently wrapped in a tender little pastry blanket... or instead of potato try spinach, or feta... they've thought of it all but let's face it, you could probably put cat shit inside of these heavenly little pockets and it would be the best god damn thing you ever tasted.
Tahini
Not much to say here other then I fell madly in love. I will now be eating it on my cereal.
Finally there was the Rugelach
I think I took about 104 photographs of the Rugelach alone. I would like to be surrounded by Rugelach at all times... Like, maybe I carry it in my pockets so I can pet it when things get tough... or maybe I make a Rugelach hat and mittens to keep me warm when it's cold... or maybe I could just burn it instead of firewood in my home.
There were all those things and then there was nana tea, malawah bread, Israeli salad, etc. etc. etc. times infinity.
Yeah for the Israelis. They're really doing something.
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