Salad Days in Israel

One of the things I love about spending time in Tel Aviv is the diet. Every meal has salad.

Israel has one of the highest longevity rates of Western Countries, especially for men. Despite military service and the obvious stresses of living in a country that phases in and out of war and nuclear threats, Israel is right up there with Sweden, Iceland, Italy and Switzerland.

According to studies, several factors account for this long life: great national health care available to all, tight and cohesive family and community, varying migrant genetic mixes in the population, low alcohol consumption, physical activity and diet.

But I believe the daily consumption of fresh vegetables is key. The salad come as a side with every restaurant meal, and the open air markets practically beg you to buy fruits and vegetables with their abundant and beautiful displays.

And when I come back from time spent in Israel, I always start off making more fresh salads for my family. Starting off, yes, at breakfast.


Unfortunately this focus fades after a few weeks of being back, but this weekend I am trying to remind myself and reanimate our diet.



 One of my consistent sources of inspiration is my mother-in-law Shulamit's table. No matter what time of the day we pop in to say "hi," there is always a bowl of fresh fruit or some steamed artichokes or other vegetable dish just waiting to be eaten.  Here is a sample of side-dishes from a Friday night meal we had over winter break:

 Vegetables triumph! So back to the cutting board for today's dinner salad...

Vacation Reading: Harry Potter Grown-up Style

 

Before long plane rides I like to have something addictively readable downloaded on to my Kindle so that I am innoculated from all forms of travel frustration: long lines (I read in line), long flights, layovers and unexpected delays. This year's winter break travel had all these and more—but with a good book going it is all the same to me whether I am in my living room armchair or an airport. Well, almost...

Lev Grossman's Magician Trilogy did the trick (pun intended) for me this year.

The first book, The Magicians: A Novel (Magicians Trilogy)introduces us to Quentin Coldwater and his friends, whose adventures continue throughout the series.

The series is a cross between Harry Potter (there is a magic school), the Chronicles of Narnia (there is a magic land that awaits two human kings and two human queens) and a Donna Tart novel (lots of adolescent angst sex, drugs and drinking.) Imagine Harry, Ron, Herione, Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edgar in college with lots of drugs and booze, tats and attitude. And magic.

However the magic itself is wildly imaginative and goes incredible places. Some extraordinary, some dark, and some just random in a very millennial kind of way.


The second book The Magician King: A Novel (Magicians Trilogy)was such a Catcher-in-the-Rye parade of angry attitude that it got a little tiresome, but it was worth sticking it out through the third book The Magician's Land: A Novel (Magicians Trilogy),because it is not just great story telling, but a radical act of imagination.

If you like coming of age fiction you will love this. If you like fantasy you will love this. And even if you just like first class writing about serious ideas you will love this. The series got me through Cleveland Hopkins, Newark, Munich, Tel Aviv and the initial sleepless nights of jetlag!

And in the interest of transparency, if you click on the links, you can buy the books directly from Amazon under my affiliate number. And I will know someone reads my recommendations!

Tel Aviv 2014-The Malabie Days

Tel Aviv is a wildly vibrant and constantly moving environment. Every time I go, I discover something new. Malabie was my new culinary fetish from this year's holiday visit.



My first hit of malabie was while returning to Hummus Asli in Jaffo (see former blogpost).
At the end of the meal we were served malabie. It is a milk pudding, covered with radioactive sweet red sauce, rosewater, peanuts, pistachios and coconut, or some variation thereof.

After Amnon, Irad and I each had a portion, Amnon and I ordered another one. It was that good! Thomas Keller (of French Laundry and Per se fame) started a whole new food movement with the contention that after three bites of any food one exhausts the freshness/pop of the taste, so no need for more.

Not so malabie. One is not enough. Three bites is just the awakening stage.

And we discovered there is a place called the Malabi-ah right around the corner from our apartment!!! A few steps out our doorway, open seemingly 24 hours a day as we visited it after breakfast and after midnight.






It is a dumpy little third-world looking, well, to call it a storefront would be an exaggeration.  You either sit inside a little porch, or go out to the tables in the street. Many of which have chess and checker sets to keep you occupied while savoring your malabie.

You basically get your malabie—customized at the counter —you choose your flavor of radioactive red (classic, cinammon lemon, and two other flavors I can't recall)



















and choose your toppings—peanuts, sugared peanuts, coconut, toasted coconut and homemade cookie crumbs.

And because Tel Aviv is so hip and really not third world at all despite its grunge, grit and deterioration (the romance of decay,) there is even VEGAN malabie! And a malabie punch card so that your 10th one is free.


Needless to say our visit was punctuated with frequent refueling trips to the Malabiah.