Making Israeli Salad

Recipes From Israel

Israeli salad is only called Israeli salad in the US.  In Israel it is called Arabic salad.  I hope someone other than me sees the irony in that.  Whatever its called, this salad is all over Israel, available in most restaurants, all falafel stands, and for takeaway at markets.  I after seeing many of my coworkers bringing it to lunch.  I decided to join them by making a large batch at home, and bundling a bowl to bring for lunch.  I usually topped it with peanuts for a well-rounded meal although that is not typical.

Your eyes, tastebuds, and body will be pleased with this colorful and healthy Israeli salad.

Making Shakshuka

Recipes From Israel

I love shakshuka so much it made my favorite Israeli food post.  Not only does this breakfast dish satisfy any rib-sticking comfort food cravings, but its also healthy.  With each serving offering one to two servings of veggies, it's a great start to a happy and healthy day.  There is no one correct way to make shakshuka.  Even in Israel I would see on the same menu three or four variations.  While the primary ingredients (eggs, tomatoes, onions, and peppers) are always present, seasoning and other mix-ins would vary.  This is how I make shakshuka.

Happy breakfast with my hearty shakshuka.

Making Patatas Bravas

Recipes From Spain

As it turns out Spaniards eat may just about as much mayo as Americans.  I had a Spanish roommate in graduate school (Hi Ana) who would make mayo-inclusive dishes that both mildly disgusted me (Russian Salad) and have me begging for more (her fried potatoes with Aioli).  However, it was on a trip to Spain with Ana that I found my all time favorite saucy Spanish dish Patatas Bravas (roughly translated to potatoes with bravado) or roasted potatoes with a creamy spicy sauce.  I decided to make some at home recently on one of my stateside stints.  It took a lot of online research and a few attempts to get the sauce to taste what I remembered in Spain, spicy, savory, and creamy.  Here's what I wound up with:

The final product of my Patatas Bravas cooking experiment.  Yum!

Ordering a Coffee in Israel

When an Iced Coffee is Made of Ice

Coffee is something both universal and uniquely different in most areas of the world.  Walking into a cafe in Europe, the US, or the Middle East and ordering a coffee will produce pretty different results. Israel is no exception.  In this post I want to share what I got when I ordered different types of coffee in Israel.

An Israeli version of an ice coffee at a cafe in Old Jaffa.

Israeli Favorite Meals

Salty and Sour Israeli Foods

I spent two months in Israel this summer and had enough time to sample a wide variety of traditional Israeli dishes.  In this post I outline a few of the dishes I particularly like for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.


Breakfast
Most days for breakfast I ate hummus and toast or crackers, but my hands down favorite Israeli breakfast is shakshuka.  I had shakshuka three times while in Israel, but I would happily eat it every week.  Shakshuka is a thick stew of tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers cooked on the stove.  A few minutes before finishing a divot is carved out in the stew and an egg cracked into it.  The egg cooks to desired doneness (over medium for me) in the stew.  It's delicious and homey.

Some shakshuka I had at a restaurant in Tel Aviv.

The Food Galley. . . I Mean Gallery

Food-Related Photos From Around the World

I am not person who takes pictures of her food.  I see photos all the time on Facebook of what someone had for lunch or dinner.  I just do not see the appeal in posting photos of a chicken breast with mashed potatoes on social media.  Almost as protest, I try to abstain from taking such photos as often as I can.  Sometimes when traveling though I see something I simply cannot not photograph.  All of those random food and restaurant photos (which I refuse to put in a regular post) have now been deposited here for your enjoyment.  And now the awesome, the disgusting, and the truly random food gallery.

Iguana stew with black beans and rice from Roatan, Honduras.  

World Whiskey Tasting

Expanding My Whiskey Horizons

Whiskey comes in many forms (Tennessee, Bourbon, Scotch, Irish, etc.) and comes from many places.  I am an enjoyer of whiskey, but it was not until glancing at the side of a Maker's Mark bottle that I considered visiting a whiskey distillery.  On the side of any Maker's Mark bottle is an invitation to visit their distillery, which is also a National Historic Landmark, in Kentucky.  Although a few years elapsed between the time I saw the invitation displayed on the side of the Maker's Mark bottle and when I actually visited the distillery, I finally made the visit as part of a side trip to California from Florida in 2010.

Maker's Mark Bourbon

Tasting Maker's Mark in process somewhere between the "mash" and "wort" stages.  Guests can taste the liquid at different stages to taste how the mixture evolves with time.  

Wine Tasting in California Appalachia

The Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Region

When most people think of wine and California, they think of Napa Valley and Sonoma which are located a couple of hours north of San Francisco Bay.  However, wine tasting opportunities abound throughout central and northern California.  Last weekend I visited one of these lesser-known wine regions: The Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Region.  This wine region is one of the oldest in California and it participated in the 1976 Judgement of Paris.  In this event, which brought international accord to California as a wine region of superb quality, California wines were blindly taste tested along side French wines by French judges.  Much to the judge's surprise they rated the California wines higher than their French counterparts. Currently over 200 wineries ferment, age, and bottle their wines within this region.  I am also a little partial to this wine region as I lived in Santa Cruz for four years and tasted at about half of the wineries in the area when I lived there.

A photo from wine tasting in the Santa Cruz area on my most recent trip to California.

Brewery Tours Across the Globe

Why Not Tour. .  a Brewery?

Touring a brewery, distillery, or really any factory is a standby way for me to pass a couple of hours while I am waiting for a flight or need a much needed break on a road trip.  Plus most tours offer samples.  Over the past four years, I have visited five breweries that I will compare and contrast here.  The breweries range over two continents and some very small islands.  However, they are brand names that most folks from the US will be familiar with.  I have listed them here from my personal least to most favorite. 

Budweiser Tour

The Budweiser brewery I visited was in Fairfield, California.  Fairfield is a little city between San Francisco and Sacramento, and I passed through it every time I went snowboarding the in the Lake Tahoe area (Lake Tahoe Snowboarding and More).

Outside the Budweiser brewery in Fairfield, California