As blog is my witness, I'll never be hungry again

Yesterday morning I joined a wonderful group of bloggers for a trip up north, to the Sea of Galilee, to enjoy a preview of the טעם כנרת festival (Sea of Galilee Flavors, if you will) which will be held on Hanukkah (2/12/10-11/12/10). The festival offers some exciting culinary attractions, some of which we visited on this long day. And let me tell you - I consider my self a savvy glutton but visiting 4 restaurants in a raw proved to be too much even for me.

First stop was Marinado - A Golan meat house, with a restaurant and a chain of stores that sell meat and local Golan produce. We had the most amazing breakfast, with their very own young and splendid wine (Marinado 2009, a blend of sirah, merlot and cabernet, so yummy with very little astringency), which was followed by a poyka tutorial that resulted in a tasting of one of the best lamb dishes I have ever had.

Teaching us about the parts of the lamb

Poyka pot filled with all the goods of the country

 

Myself enjoying breakfast

Then, we went to קצה הנחל - a restaurant specializing in Lebanese home cooking, where they set us a table fit for kings.

These are just the starters

Salads and fried pastry filled with meats

Pullet stuffed with meat and rice

and neck of veal stuffed with smoked green wheat

My favorite dish of the day - dumplings filled with chicken breast in yogurt sauce

My mouth is watering just from posting these photos.. Everything was so good!

We continued to our third stop - a Mexican tortilla workshop with chef Itamar Davidof at  מרכז המבקרים תמר בכפר. The chef, who is the owner of the Tres Pesos factory and shop for Mexican foods, showed us all sorts of food I personally didn't know and made tortillas for us, which I was far too stuffed to taste. The homemade Limoncello was wonderful though.

These tomatillos are actually a kind of gooseberry and not real tomatoes. They are used to make Salsa Verde.

I had my very first plantain (לֶחֶך in Hebrew, BTW)! We ate it fried with salt, and I didn't enjoy it like I thought I would.

I did enjoy the limoncello though

Tortilla filled with rice, black beans spread, chillies, chicken breast and guacamole.

At this point, I was truly about to explode. But no, we had one more stop before going back home - גליתא, an ice cream and chocolate house. Galit, the owner, dreamed of such a house for many years before finally opening one on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. She gave us a chocolate workshop, in which we made truffles and pralines. It was so much fun, molding the chocolate and decorating it. We felt like four year olds, up to our elbows in chocolate and nugget.

Welcome to Galita's house

Injecting the truffles with chocolate filling

First stage of my coconut filled praline is done

Second stage of the pralines

Et voila!

After some coffee and some more chocolate (I also bought myself a bar of dark chocolate with dried cranberry, which is divine. I had some just before sitting down to write this) we headed home. The long drive was so pleasant. The minibus was dark and quiet (some fell asleep) and I had good conversation with old and new good friends. The only problem was the occasional speed bump on the road, which I feared would lead to everyone losing the 4 huge meals we had since we left Tel Aviv 10 hours earlier (not to mention the occasional snack).

It was a wonderful day, with wonderful people and loads of wonderful foods and fun. I highly recommend my local readers to pack their families and friends and go up north during the holiday - you will not be disappointed!