Different in a Different Place, Ancestral Ways of Life (More Pictures)

It's interesting to experience myself in a place that is so familiar and yet so different in climate, atmosphere, environment and all the rest of the not-quite-synonymous flavors of "place."

In Alaska, I have a hat on my head about 70% of the time, my hair tied back out of the way. Here, with the humidity, my hair stands up like an afro (although the pic doesn't quite show it). Here, my mum is surprised that I seem tall, and hadn't realized my eyes are green.

I don't think I've gotten any taller, but I suppose my eyes could have changed color. Here, I'm known as my mother's daughter, or my grandmother's granddaughter--that's the connection, and everyone is connected to someone. The Hebrew for niece is simply "brother's (or sister's) daughter." I tell stories of Alaska as if it's a fairytale place, as if my life away from here is just story.

In many contexts, I'm the person who gets 'dibs' on precious avocados, because everyone knows I like them and don't eat all kinds of other 'substantial' foods. Here, I've noticed that the one food my grandmother is eating with any kind of enthusiasm is avocado, so I'm hunting for the best ones, have a ripening rotation, and am trying to make sure we have plenty for her.

And here, I'm even eating a little tahini! It's so ubiquitous, and we got a jar specially bread-crumb free for me, and all my ancestors and relatives have thrived on it for so long... I always have several jars of tahini at home but hardly ever use it, because I'm afraid of its high omega-6 content and its high omega-6-to-3 ratio. I have some chia seeds, flax meal and coconut powder here for fats, and the chia and flax at least should help to rectify the omega-6 hit of tiny films of tahini spread on apple or carrot slices.

It excites me to walk around the neighborhood and notice fruiting trees in a more thorough way than before. The many pomegranate trees are unmistakable this time of year, but there are others that are less obvious. These little pecans were all over the ground on one street...

...and the tree is so tall, it was hard to get a shot that showed any detail beyond its height, equal to the apartment buildings on both sides of the narrow streets.

 These topiary swans on a traffic circle are new since I was last here, and are quite graceful.

 When my plane was coming in to land, I saw huge solar arrays in many places, that looked like they were connected to irrigation systems for farming. The uncle who met me at the airport is an electrician, and I asked him about solar energy and how widespread it is. He told me they've been using it here for decades. I just hadn't paid attention--here are solar panels for water heaters on the roof of a building about as old as my grandmother's.

 I mentioned all the specialized stores here, and have a few more pictures of them. It's been so long since I've seen mannequins in store windows--reminds me of when I was little.

 In a place where modesty is quite a big deal, it's surprising to see even underwear mannequins and a whole display of lingerie in a store window--surprising, but common.

 Here's another of those stores with all kinds of bulk goods.

I stocked up on almonds, prunes, dates and pecans to make a spread for visitors. People come to visit any time and it's imperative to have food to offer them, and it has to be food that involves neither meat nor dairy, so as not to interfere with the kosher segregation of the two--guests might have eaten either for lunch, and should still be able to snack. Here's a typical spread--apples, pomegranate, persimmons, dates, prunes, dried cranberries, almonds, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, crackers (both sweet ("biscuits" in British and Hebrew) and savory), and a few wrapped candies. The dates really outshine the candies--it's the season here, and they are just delectable. I try to just enjoy and not worry about the fructose.

 It's interesting to me that the fruit and nuts are by far the most popular of these snacks--the crackers and candies are seldom eaten. My relatives aren't worried about omega-6 or fructose--they don't eat foods with added sugar much, but they eat plenty of fruit (fresh and dried) and lots of nuts and seeds. And really, they're in good shape.

Four of my grandmother's siblings and some other relatives came to visit yesterday. It's interesting to me how they've all changed and how they haven't changed. My grandmother is the oldest of nine, almost all of whom are still alive. They definitely look older, but still "feel" the same to me as when I was a little kid, and all the years in between. And really, they don't look very different. Sure, they've put on weight, lost weight, lost hair, grown hair in other places, and none of them are as tall as my childhood images of them. They must have been so young back then! It feels the same way when I walk around town--there are a lot of people my grandmother's age walking around, or being wheeled around, or driving little golf-cart things around, and there were a lot of people her age walking around when I was a little kid. Back then, I thought they were old people. Now, they really are old people. Many of the same faces.

Here are (left to right) my mom's cousin Aliza, my mom, my great-aunt Najiba, my great-aunt Salma.

 And here's my grandmother with my great-uncles Eli and Fouad.

 Here are Eli, Fouad and Najiba.

I've been hearing some fascinating stories of life back in the old country (Iraq), of the difficulties of moving here, of all that they went through--really, another kind of holocaust parallel to the one in Europe.

I'm glad to be learning more about my origins. Certain aspects of my grandmother's sufferings are scarily prophetic to me also...

How It's Different Here in Herzlia (Pictures)

I have two posts' worth of pictures at least, so let's get started! Herzlia is an odd mix of colonial and ultra-modern/posh, old-style and ultra-hip. My grandmother still lives in the same apartment that the family moved into, new, after a few years of more minimal accommodations when they first moved here from Iraq. All around this small apartment building, taller, more luxurious ones took the place of trees and single story houses through the course of my childhood and teens.

There are still one or two single story houses on her block, surrounded with a riot of beautiful foliage.

The concept of one-stop shopping has not arrived, in this town, at least. There is a supermarket, but it's pretty small and has nowhere near the breadth of inventory that an American supermarket would have. There are several fruit and vegetable stores--I'm so happy it's persimmon and pomegranate season!

It's also guava season--you can smell them half a block away but they rarely taste as good as they smell.

Several stores, too, with bulk olives, dried fish, fresh cheese...

And this store is perhaps the most bizarre to me of all. It looks like nothing at all on the outside--no sign, opaque glass so you can't see in, dark in the foyer of the central bus station...

...and yet there's almost always a line of people out the door! What are they buying? All kinds of bulk goods--grains, beans and nuts in sacks on the floor, all kinds of spices in glass jars behind the counter, individually wrapped candies in plastic platters, and some shelves of canned goods--the ubiquitous tomato paste, tahini, date syrup, and some canned veggies. So, even foodwise, you don't just go to the supermarket.

And there are specialized stores--for photography (the store is still called "Limonchik," although Mr Limonchik died some time ago), for carpets, for clothes, shoes...even mechanical items have separate stores--radio store, gas grill store, air conditioning store...

I took this picture because it shows the kind of juxtaposition of old and new buildings typical for this town.

The store in front is an old two-story building with a corrugated roof messily tacked on for a shed at the side. Behind it are some slightly newer three-story apartment buildings, prettied up with some roof gardening on top. And behind those, the big white high-rise with the posh modern design.

Here's another picture which really captures the essential spirit of the place--

an abandoned trailer, a mess of sand, walls of unkempt foliage, and a cascade of bright bougainvillea against a tumbledown building.

The occasional leftover single story buildings look like little oases. Otherwise, there's a general impression of a lot of people piled up in not a lot of space. Parking can be a nightmare.

It's olive season. There were olives all over the sidewalk for this stretch of road.

This isn't a great picture, but hopefully you can see the individual olives here.

These trees with their papery Chinese lantern blooms are everywhere.

New since I was last here--recycling! There are signs up around everywhere saying "Keep Herzlia Clean" and "It Pays to Recycle." It's not a fully organized endeavor--the dumpsters outside my grandmother's building still simply take undifferentiated trash--but there are cages like this for plastic bottles at regular intervals. I actually think it looks kind of pretty, and would never have guessed that refuse could be aesthetically pleasing.

I'll share more soon. It's still raining here off and on but there always seems to be a break in the downpour to fit in a walk or run.

In My Grandmother's Kitchen--Smoky Eggplant Salad, Beets, Kibbeh

We spent a good part of yesterday preparing food with my grandmother. This made me happy, because Friday (and often part of Thursday) was traditionally "war on the kitchen" in preparation for Shabbat, when no cooking can happen and when hordes of family would always descend to devour my grandmother's famously fabulous cooking. My grandmother would work up a storm in this tiny, sparsely equipped kitchen.

It's fascinating to notice all the things this kitchen lacks. Measuring cups, or any kind of measuring utensils, for prime example (I think she has an old scale stashed away somewhere for the rare cake-baking occasions). There's only one decent knife. Only one cutting board, about my age. Few work surfaces and very little pantry space. The latter is probably because it's a hot country, food spoils or gets worm-riddled quickly, and the stores are always well-stocked and just a short walk away. (In my next post, I'll share some pictures of town and some typical stores).

Our miniature "war on the kitchen" made me happy also, because my grandmother has experienced such an erosion of her abilities and loss of independence, and you don't need to be able to stand up to be able to cook wonderful food.

So here she is, just outside the kitchen, fully participating and very much in charge. She's preparing kibbeh, which I spell that way because that's how it's always spelled in English, but really the vowels are both wrong, and the right vowels don't exist in English... (I never normally put anything meat-based on this blog, but getting my grandmother to join in on making food was a big deal.) Just in case it wasn't clear, of course I didn't eat the kibbeh myself, never have in my life. It's meat and it's gluten--no go twice over. I handle meat and gluten on a daily basis back home preparing food for other people (I wear a dust mask when I'm handling gluten) but I simply choose not to mention it here. I made an exception for my grandmother's creation.

The kibbeh were steamed in a bed of shredded, seasoned beets, and we saved out a bunch of the beets before adding the meat, for a delicious vegetarian side-dish.

The beets were boiled whole until cooked but still firm. Then I slipped off the skins and grated them.
I saute'ed an onion with turmeric, black pepper a little oil, then added the beets. Let them cook for a while and added the juice of half a lemon and a little salt. It's interesting to me that my grandmother doesn't use a lot of salt--I don't have much of a taste for salt either, and in the US, many people I know add tons of salt. Genetic, or cultural, my feeling that a little salt goes a long way?

 This is the batter/outside part of the kibbeh.

It's semolina flour, oil and a little water. No measuring--my grandmother sat there and put it together, adding water by eye and by feel. Wetter than I would have guessed it needed to be.

Here she is combining the meat part with the batter part. That is quite a trick and I wish I'd watched her more closely. However, of course I was busy making something else at the time.

I was making what we call (approximately translated) "eggplant salad," which is really pretty much baba ghanoush. I thought this eggplant on the stove looked so funny!

It was a monster eggplant, and took quite a lot of my attention. I only burned myself once.

Did I mention that there's no food processor or anything like it in my grandmother's kitchen? There's a pretty good pestle and mortar, but not big enough for pulping the eggplant. Once I'd picked all the burnt skin off, I mashed it with a fork and then grated it.

I was going to add a couple cloves of garlic to the smoky eggplant, and look what my mom found!

I would never have guessed that worms could live in garlic--I thought garlic was antihelminthic...This worm was lively and happy, and probably had a great immune system.

Well, luckily we had plenty of garlic, really good garlic, too. The other important ingredient was tahini, and I ended up running out to the store to get some more, because the tahini that's already here was likely full of breadcrumbs from people's knives and I wanted to be able to eat the eggplant dish without getting sick! One interesting feature of Israeli supermarkets is that they have three big shelves of different kinds of tahini. So, mashed up smoky eggplant, two cloves garlic, a little salt, juice from one and a half lemons (added incrementally to taste) and a good pour of tahini. We wanted to add some cayenne pepper or curry powder but didn't have any (and hadn't realized that before my store-run), so we used black pepper, a pinch of cloves and some cinnamon. My mom was surprised by that choice of spices, but it really worked well.

I cut up carrots, cucumber and fennel to dip.

Right when we sat down to lunch, two of my uncles, one of my aunts and one of my cousins all showed up one after the other! They all claimed to have had lunch already, but they all enjoyed the eggplant dish, the beets and the kibbeh.

Brief Postcard From Israel

I'm here--after a day and a half of flights and an odd compressed arrival. It's fascinating to me how already on the way to somewhere, a cumulative sense of the destination creeps up. My third flight was from New York direct to Tel Aviv and at the gate, I was already getting feelings of Israel. It wasn't just hearing Hebrew--and Russian too--around me, or the Hasids davening at a blank wall around 6 o'clock (with one incongruous, baseball capped young man co-opted to complete the minyan, glancing out from the side of his eyes, embarrassed, swaying half-heartedly). Everyone was interested in what everyone else was doing, dispensing unsolicited advice.There were so many babies! So many. And since I was last here, my grandmother has ten more great-grandchildren.We're all at that age, I guess, so there are a bunch of spouses and babies I'll be meeting, seeing my cousins in new lives.

Aside from this cultural flavor that was instantly familiar even before I reached Israel, a lot has changed since I was last here, mostly around my grandmother's aging. I'll write more about that later, maybe. Meanwhile, the surroundings are reassuringly familiar, with an admixture of torrential rain. There was an inch of rain on the runway when we landed, and pictures on television of cars practically swimming in a few places.

I'm looking forward to getting out and seeing what else has changed, but so far have only gone as far as taking the trash out. Here's how it looks from outside my grandmother's apartment.

There are always feral cats here, and one of them (a healthy looking specimen compared to the cats of my childhood) is hunkered down outside my grandmother's next-door neighbors'.

Near the dumpsters, I saw this beetle carrying a dead cockroach. Not the same one I took out in the trash! People who think dates look like cockroaches: you're wrong! I can testify to this, in a land where the dates are ripening on the palms right now, and where every evening there are cockroaches on the stone-tiled floors.

I should go for now, but now I know that I can sit in the far corner of my grandmother's salon and pick up wifi. So much in the airwaves...my Hebrew is rusty, my grandmother and uncles speak Arabic half the time, and then I write in English or talk with my mum in English some of the time, and there's even more confusion.

Much love to all!

Getting Ready to Leave 2 (Challenges)--Driving Away From the Storm

Leslie and I left for Anchorage at 5 this morning. We got her to Anchorage in good time for her flight, despite driving slowly in the blizzard conditions. Actually, we drove right out of the blizzard: we emerged from the snow right around when it started to get light. Things got easier. But I called Phil back at home, and he said there were 70mph winds there and more trees down, including the tree with the eagle nest in it downtown.

For the past two years, eagles have nested in a spruce snag just 100 yards off of the main highway, right by the only traffic light in town, attracting all kinds of fancy camera equipment and gawkers. This year, they raised two young ones. I've always had mixed feelings about the scenario: on the one hand, it's awesome to get to see so much of their private life. On the other hand, it always felt intrusive to me, just a little too close. The avid photographers were a traffic hazard also. I confess I might be just a tiny bit glad that tree blew down.

Metaphorically, I feel I drove away from a storm of a different kind, too. I-in-my-home-environment have been so 'stormy' lately. This couple days of limbo in Anchorage will be an opportunity for quiet and reflection, I hope.

Getting myself packed entailed some extra challenges. Since we're house-sitting for our neighbors (their house is just beyond the trees out of sight in the photo below), my stuff was scattered between two homes. Additionally, Phil put up a rather experimental fence made from discarded seine net, to keep the snowshoe hares out of our raspberry canes. Getting my wheeled carry-on over that was fun.

Oh yes, and the snow also...

I had a challenging moment getting all my pills together. This isn't even all of them.

And by the time I get home, these will be all gone! It's kind of shocking to see such a stack, especially given that I make efforts to avoid 'artificial' things and 'drugs.' And yes, part of the reason why the quantity is so vast is because I don't take pharmaceutical drugs, but it's still a heck of a lot of pills. Some of these are nutritional supplements--enzymes and probiotics, minerals (magnesium) and vitamins (D, B12) that I don't absorb well. Many of them are hormonal replacements and supplements. Many of them are aimed at keeping my self equilibrated, away from one pole or the other.

It's easy to recoil in horror, especially remembering the years that I refused to take any kind of pill, reflecting that in my typical 'one extreme to the other' style, I brought this on myself. But rather than beat up on myself or feel despondent about the pile of pills, I choose to acknowledge that I'm taking them because I am working toward being my best, even when I can't tell that's what I'm doing.

My bag is full of goodies, including three writer magazines (some serious catching up for the plane ride), Vega protein powder packs, various home-made energy bars and kale chips, dried fruit.

I choose to allow this paraphernalia to remind me that I am doing my best.
How do you do your best when traveling? What are your essential travel take-alongs?

This Week's Herbal Project--Hops Concluded

There are some things that simply can't be done justice with photographs. Last night, I stayed over at a friend's house. She wasn't there, but she'll be back this afternoon. About five inches of snow fell during the night, and was still falling softly when I got up. So this morning I was out there wearing just a camisole, pants and a hat, shoveling snow from the driveway. When I started, it was too dark to take any kind of picture. By the time I was finished (it took just over an hour), we had gray, snowy daylight, a cleared driveway and high walls of snow on either side. I'm not sure what a picture would have told beyond my words.

In retrospect, I should at least have worn gloves. It was 24 degrees out there and although I was moving almost constantly, the shovel itself was always icy-cold. Mostly the snow was soft and light, easy to scoop up in a big pile, but since it was 24 degrees, if I left a pile for any length of time, it would compress into ice and become harder to move, seem heavier. Out where the driveway met the road, there were chunks of ice buried a couple inches down, thrown there from the road surface when the snow-plow came by earlier. Those were heavy. I sure earned my breakfast this morning! 

I know it's may not seem like a big deal to those of you who've always lived with snowy winters, but this is only my third. I'm still in awe of the choreography needed to make sure that roads are plowed whenever there's a big snowfall, the whole infrastructure, even in a place as self-sufficient as this, that ensures everyone can stay on the move. I'm still in awe that you can't just walk out the door into a familiar landscape: you may have to dig your way through.

Before I left Homer, I managed to finish up my "hops" herbal project. I'd mentioned before that since the active ingredients of hops are partly water-extractable and partly alcohol-extractable, I would probably make a syrup to go with the tincture. And so I did!

I made a reduced decoction of hops, peppermint and a little chamomile by simmering them with a quart of water on our neighbors' wood-burning stove until there was around a pint of liquid. I strained the herbs out of the liquid and made it into a syrup by adding an equal volume of sugar and bringing it just to the boil (I didn't want it to caramelize, so I didn't boil it long). Meanwhile, I had strained the herbs out of the tincture mentioned in the earlier post. When the syrup had cooled, I combined it with the tincture.

I got about three pints! (the two jars on the left)

I took a little taste and I think Phil, and whoever else I share this with, will be able to enjoy a spoonful as a counter to insomnia. There is a bitter aftertaste in there, but the other herbs actually make the overall taste quite pleasant.

On the right of the picture is a hops vinegar! That was a couple cups of hops blossoms steeped in apple cider vinegar for about three weeks. Hops are supposed to be really good for dry skin and dandruff: so much so that some people recommend using beer as a hair rinse! I don't think Phil would approve of that kind of beer-wasting, but I'm game to try a vinegar hair rinse--I've enjoyed them in the past.

I'm feeling the nearness of my journey now, and close here with this image of water flowing under ice--always transition.

Much love.

Getting Ready to Leave--Persimmon Smoothie

Here's how it looks in Homer on 11/11/11.

Very different from how it will be where I'm headed.

I've been transitioning in a pleasant sort of way, though, aided by the recent appearance of one of my favorite fruits of all.

I so love persimmons! The ones we've been getting here are the Fuyu persimmons, flat-bottomed and edible before they're fully mushy. Often, I prefer to let even this kind go to the full jelly stage, but the fun thing about them when they're relatively firm is their wonderful gelling propensity. Probably some good polysaccharide action in there! Yes, definitely an 'eat with a spoon' smoothie.

Like just about everyone who ever writes about food in a blog (it seems), I've enjoyed a few pumpkin smoothies this season. I have to say, persimmon smoothies are even better. And they're a true transition toward being in Israel because another name for this kind of persimmon is "Sharon fruit," where "Sharon" refers not to a girl, but to the Sharon Valley, the part of Israel where most of my family lives! Cold feet notwithstanding, I am on my way.

I made these smoothies out of 'a bit of this and that,' but here's an example of how that might go:
1 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon lecithin
1 teaspoon flax meal
2 tablespoons irish moss gel
handful frozen berries
1/2 scoop protein powder (Life's Basics, or plain Pea Protein)
1/2 cup frozen watermelon
juice of half a lemon
1 fuyu persimmon
1 date and/or stevia to taste

This one, please do try at home!

I'm riding to Anchorage leaving here tomorrow at 5am. Flying out Tuesday, so you'll hear some more from me before I leave. Now I'd better go start getting all those last minute things together--a long list indeed.
Much love.