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!

Olive oil

What do you think of when you hear of olive oil? The sunny shores of Spain? Healthy non saturated fats?A fresh salad?

many people think of this.

Last Friday, I was invited to join the most cheerful friendly bunch of food bloggers on a tour of the Yad Mordechai kibbutz. First there was a lovely drive down south, where a lovely breakfast was waiting for us.

After breakfast we headed to the observation post, where we heard about the proud history of the kibbutz. The kibbutz is named after the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and sits on the Gaza border and often suffers missile attacks from Palestine. They withheld the Yad Mordechai battle, one of the most terrifying battles of the Israeli Independence War, suffering huge losses, which haunted the families who refused to leave for many years.

The fallen water tower. A monument to the 1948 battle

Then it was time for olive oil tasting and a very interesting lecture on olive oil. The kibbutz produces honey and olive oil from plantations spread across the country, mostly in the deep south, where the land is bright enough to reflect the sunlight back to the fruit, making it ripe and wholesome.

Let me tell you, the oil tasting made me sick to my stomach

Here are facts you probably didn't know about olive oil:

• Olive oil is right for both seasoning and cooking. 
• Professional olive oil tastings are performed with blue glasses, in order to avoid any deviation caused by the color of the oil, which is irrelevant to its quality.
• Today, most excellent olive oils are blends of several types of olives, which ensures you will get the best of all worlds.
• Olive oil quality derives from the time it took the fruit to arrive the olive press, the pressing process and temperature and the olive variety.
• The sharper the taste - the more antioxidants the oil contains.
• Israelis consume 1 liter of olive oil per year by average. Greeks, who are the world champions in olive oil consumption, consume 21 liters of oil per year by average.

After the tasting, we enjoyed a wonderful Umami cooking workshop with chef Amir Ilan of the famous Hudson restaurant in Tel Aviv. He showed us how to use the kibbutz's premium olive oil in savory sauces for fresh fish and salads. It was to die for!

Chef Amir Ilan in action

 

Fresh tuna with Tiradito vinaigrette and tobikko 

Finally, we received a gift of beautiful premium olive oil and orange flavored honey (I wish we got the ginger honey we had at the tasting, it was divine!) and went on to a nearby hill to plant a little olive tree.

The view from the hill top

I got a baby olive tree, which I named Motti (to remind me of the wonderful experience in the kibbutz). We then headed back to the center, happy and well nourished. I will certainly be joining more events of this beautiful group of people.

Motti and his mommy

You will be happy to know Motti is now happily setup on my roof garden. I expect to be producing my own little premium olive oil label in about 3 to 5 months, on which event I will surely invite the lovely people I met on Friday for a tasting and probably some cake as well.

הקאפקייק הציוני

כל כך הרבה נכתב לאחרונה על קאפקייקס, אותן עוגות אישיות חמודות בזיגוג קרמי חמאתי ונימוך. יש מיני חקייני קאקפייקס מקומיים שמתרגמים את העוגה החמודה למאפין בציפוי קרם דליל ובלה. אחרי שאכלתי את הדבר האמיתי בלונדון הבנתי שמדובר בפריט חמדה שכשהוא טוב הוא נהדר וכשהוא רע, אלוהים ישמור.

בכל מקרה, קמתי ממיטת חוליי לקיים הבטחה. ביום חמישי נסעתי לשוק האכרים בהרצליה כדי להעמיס אבוקדו וגבינות עיזים ונתקלתי שני ילדים נחמדים שחילקו טעימות לדוכן חדש של קאפקייקס. הטעימות היו טעימות, ולכן בסיום ענייני הלכתי לבדוק את הענין מקרוב ונתקלתי לתדהמתי במראה הבא.

מצלמה סלולרית, חושך בחוץ, תארו לעצמכם כמה טוב זה נראה באמת

הטעמים מגוונים, הבסיס ברב המקרים שוקולדי (פרט לטירמיסו הקטן, שהתחפש לקאקפייק) וטעים והקרם כמו שצריך להיות - סמיך, נגיס, מתוק במידה, טרי ויפה. הבטחתי להם שאם יהיה טעים אני אחרוג ממנהגי לכתוב באנגלית ואציין אותם לטובה בבלוג, וכך אני עושה (בתקווה לקבל שוחד שמן בביקור הבא שלי). הבעיה היחידה היא המחיר השערורייתי של העוגות - אחת בעשרים, שלוש בחמישים, חמש בתשעים. בכסף שהוצאתי על שלוש חמודיות יכולתי לקנות עוגה משפחתית ולקבל עודף (אחח, הייתי מאד שמחה לגרסה גדולה של הקאפקייק שוקולד עם קרם תות. הייתי טורפת חצי ממנה עכשיו וחצי אחרי ארוחת הערב). מה שכן, הם באמת טעימים להפליא. אני חושבת שאם הם יורידו את המחירים הם יוכלו להפוך ללהיט. אפילו חיברתי עליהם שיר קטן:

קאפקייקים נחמדים עם קרם תות
כל כך טעימים, שבא לי למות

שני הילדים האלה הם אנשי מכירות כל כך טובים, אני צריכה לדבר עם המנכ"ל שלנו שיציע להם עבודה

אקיצר, הקאפקייקים של נאדין, לכו תטעמו ותביאו לי כמה מתנה. אני חולה ומסכנה ונואשת לעוגת שוקולד.

עדכון - החבר'ה מנאדין עדכנו אותי שבעקבות מה שנכתב כאן, הם יורידו את המחירים החל מיום חמישי הקרוב. אם טרם תכננתם לבקר אותם השבוע, זאת סיבה נהדרת לרוץ! תודה וכל הכבוד לכם חבר'ה.

Sweet memories of London

No one can spend four straight days just shopping and drooling over Glenn Carter. Obviously, I had to eat every few hours to keep my strength!

Apart for my main food supplier, Pret a Manger, who had a very nice big branch right across the street from my hotel with the loveliest sandwiches and fresh made sushi (not to mention, soy milk cappuccinos that were pretty hard to find elsewhere) I had some other wonderful meals on the streets of London.

Nifty and I (and Pinky and a whole lot of meerkats) met for a fun day on Covent Garden, which started with a highly recoomended full English breakfast at Diana's Diner.

We then headed to the Covent Garden market building itself, where Pinky and his new meerkat buddy (who has since then been named Sunny, since in Africa meerkats are nicknamed "sun angels") found lots of treats to stare at (Pinky can't eat carbohydrates, he's training for a new ballet).

One of the above photos is focused on the right thing, not sure which is which though

After some shopping, we decided it's time for a cupcake and headed on to the tiny Ella's Bakehouse, that offers a small yet beautiful collection of cupcakes. I chose red velvet (my first!) and Nifty took a lemon raspberry cupcake. Both were deliciously moist and fresh with a delicate creamy topping. Not to mention the sweet sugar flowers and sparkles covering them.

Obviously, meerkats can eat as many carbs as they please

We ended the day making toasts at Punch & Judy, my favorite Covent Garden pub. I had a lovely pear ale that was a perfect refreshment.

The guys giving my ale a little sip

Here are Nifty's notes of the same lovely day.

The following day, I went shopping on Carnaby St. and had high tea at Liberty, which is a very luxurious department store that opened back in the 19th century. Tea was absolutely outrageous, with a pot of beautifully scented black tea with rose petals, traditional finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and rose petal marmalade, and assorted cakes. It was so tasty, and so abundant I took half of it back to the hotel with me, being too full to try everything on house.

I wish I could have clotted cream each day

On Tuesday night I met my friend, who planned a cool night out on the Soho pubs for us. Unforgettably, I was so tired of the day I had I asked her to come to my hotel instead, so we ended up eating at Giraffe which was okay, but not as good as the company.

At noon of my last day, I went back to Covent Garden to spend some time at my favorite place (and buy some jeans). I was horribly hungry, but decided to listen to my inner child and have cake for lunch. I started at the colorfully lovely Candy Cakes coffee shop. I bought an espresso and an apple-raspberry cupcake, which didn't taste as good as it looked and the topping was way too sweet for me.

How sweet is that? Very very sweet

So I had no choice but go back to Ella's and try another cupcake, this time - the wonderful lemon-raspberry one Nifty had two days earlier. It was simply wonderful. I have no idea why local cupcake makers (Which I can count on the fingers of a single hand) pride themselves on exchanging the original cupcake toppings with cream based ones. I for one love the original whipped butter and sugar based toppings and could eat them all day everyday (till I die of acute heart failure that is, from all the sugar and fats).

Some more sparkles powder for my nose

After all that, I went back to the hotel and bought some cheese, cake, and pastry to take home on Tesco's supermarket. Then I bought some extra Christmas special sandwiches on Pret (chicken, stuffing, and cherry sauce with watercress) and headed to the hotel to pack my bags for the trip home, with a burning desire to diet once I get back home.