On Thursday, June 11th, after spending the morning berry picking, we continued our day’s theme of food, and spent the afternoon cooking with people in their home.
The person we cooked with is a licensed tour guide and trained chef, and we cooked with her and her husband. It was super fun! She was really nice and had an interesting story. Her parents are Russian immigrants, her dad was in the Knesset, her husband and her both went to Noam (The Masorti/Conservative Movement youth group), her family and her love to travel, and she didn’t like to cook until four years ago, and now she is trained chef! (So don’t say it is bad that Alexandra and I don’t like to cook at this age!)
Her husband and her live in Nachlaot, which is a neighborhood right next to the shuk, which is great for them because they love to cook and are five minutes away from fabulous restaurants and the best produce in Jerusalem.
Because she is a licensed tour guide and a trained chef, she likes to teach people about places in Israel through food. She told us that whenever she travels, she makes sure to either do a cooking class or a food tour, because she learns the most about a place and about people through food. This is a great idea for everyone to try (although who knows when traveling will be safe again…). When we went to Italy and Spain, we went on food tours, and it was the best money we spent on the whole trip!
We met Yael (the chef/tour guide) in the shuk, and tried a laffa-like bread thing that I don’t remember the name of, and passed by the only non-kosher store in Machane Yehuda. Then, we walked to her apartment, and learned a little about the neighborhood as we walked.
In the neighbourhood of Nachlaot there are 32+ smaller neighbourhoods based around courtyards. Nachlaot is a 150 year old neighbourhood, and it used to be very poor. Each ‘courtyard neighbourhood’ would share an oven and water (this was about 100 years ago). There are over 80 shuls in Nachlaot (yes, I also think that that is a lot, even for Israel).
Yael had prepped a lot for all of the dishes ahead of time (which was super helpful and made it so that we could get straight to the actual cooking). We made fried crispy cauliflower, beet carpaccio, crispy eggplant boats with tomato salsa, vegan kube soup – the sour/yellow kind, and a pear and almond tart.
Everything we made was incredible!!! We had so much fun cooking, talking, and most importantly, eating. If you are interested in doing this yourselves, Ima can share Yael’s information with you, and you too, can have a great time cooking and eating.
Don’t worry, there are pictures at this end of this post. I know you have all been eating vicariously through us.
-Naomi
P.S. The trick to getting the eggplant so crispy is spreading oil on it every ten minutes
The laffa-like thing. Garlic
The oven in which the laffa-like thing is cooked in, I am pretty sure it is called ‘The Womb’
The sign of the only non-kosher store in Machane Yehuda
Kube dough
The filling of the Kube. Garlic
Kube soup. Garlic
Crispy eggplant boats. Garlic
Crispy eggplant boats with tomato salsa. Garlic
A delicious dip. I don’t know what is in it, but it was amazing! Garlic
Fried cauliflower before it is fried
Cauliflower in the deep fryer. ? A deep fryer, I’m so jealous!!!
Fried cauliflower. Garlic
Beet carpaccio with feta and walnuts. Beets are one of the few foods that I don’t normally like, but I loved this dish. Garlic
Pear and almond tart before being cooked
Pear and almond tart (after being cooked). So good and so buttery!!! Chocolate
Our delicious meal
Next to almost every photo it either says garlic or chocolate, that is saying which of the two would improve the dish
