Tu B’shvat was here
Filed under: Environment, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness
The Levinski market in TLV (photo credit: FreeIsraelPhotos.com)
Seriously, though, a one-day, minor holiday became a four-day celebration in our life and my kids’ gan, beginning Tuesday, into the actual day on Wednesday, and then bringing home the ‘fruits’ of creation today, including ‘potted’ trees made of styrofoam peanuts and the de rigeur plastic cup full of dates, figs and raisins. To complete the season, tomorrow is the gan trip to a citrus fruit orchard at Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, where they will sum up a month-long lesson plan on trees, fruits and how things grow.
In truth, unless you’re invited to a Tu B’shvat seder or have a child bringing home the signs and symbols of the day — sometimes the only connection you have to Tu B’shvat is seeing and buying mounds of dried fruit (Ynet reported NIS 200 million in sales of dried fruit over the holiday) from the store. Unless you actually went out and planted a tree, as many do, really. But despite my gentle cynicism, it’s been interesting to note its comings and goings and see how people relate to it.
I noted on Facebook that some of my more religious friends were discussing the issue of eating dried fruit as opposed to fresh fruit on Tu B’shvat. This blogger comments that we eat dried fruit because our ancestors did, given the lack of fresh fruit during the winter, when Tu B’shvat is celebrated. Makes sense, and as I passed a carob tree on the way home, I picked a piece off — it’s not really the season now — and munched on it.
And, in the spirit of the day, I took myself out to our backyard, where I haven’t spent much time lately, and wandered around, appreciating the fresh pink blossoms on the peach tree and the various winter bulbs that are starting to peek out of the ground. The shkedia, the almond tree, that is sung about during Tu B’shvat is in full bloom right now, and there are pink-blossomed trees all over the place.
Finally, I am thinking about making this chicken recipe, or a version of it, for dinner on Friday night, even though it’s days after the actual ‘chag’, it’s still good to celebrate. As the Israelites like to say, ‘siba l’mesiba’, a reason for a party.
From Cookkosher.com via Ha’aretz:
Tu Bishvat dried fruit chicken rollup
Prep time: 20 minutes
Level: Medium
Serving/Yields: 4-6 servingsIngredients:
4 whole boneless skinless chicken breasts (double)
¾ cup diced assorted dried fruit (apricots, dates, raisins, figs)
4 tbsp pine nuts
2 eggs
½ tsp paprika
1 cup flavored cornflake crumbs
Oil, for fryingPreparation:
1. Pound each double chicken breast thin, and set them aside.
2. Combine diced dried fruit with the pine nuts and set aside.
3. In a bowl, beat the eggs with a fork. Mix in, adding paprika, and set aside.
4. To assemble: Place a pounded chicken cutlet in front of you; position it lengthwise. Place two Tablespoons of dried fruit filling across the middle of the chicken. Roll up the chicken breast tightly and carefully; beginning from the narrower end. Make sure all the filling stays inside.
5. Using both hands, transfer the roll into the beaten egg mixture and then into the cornflake crumbs. Coat it well. Place the roll on a clean surface. You can now secure any ends with 1 or 2 toothpicks if necessary.
6. Repeat with the remaining cutlets.
7. Heat the oil in a frying pan. When the oil is hot, place the rolls seam side down into the pan. Fry them until they are golden brown, turning the rolls so all sides are done. If necessary you can leave the toothpicks in place.
8. Make sure the flame isn’t too high; you want to be sure that the filling is cooked without burning the outside. When the rollups are ready, remove them from the pan and drain them on paper towel.
9. Let them cool slightly, cut them on a diagonal into round slices, and serve.
In the Red South
Filed under: Environment, General, Israeliness, Life, Travel
After consecutive weeks of rainy weekends, Israelis flocked outdoors this weekend to feel the nature.
Several went to the beach. Some headed north to the Galilee and Golan Heights. But based on the traffic jams we encountered, the majority went to the North Negev to the Red South Anemone Festival.
Red South Anemone Festival (Photo: Viva Sarah Press)
With cameras at the ready you could hear “cheese” in just about every language.
The Anemone Festival is my favorite event of the year – and it takes place every weekend in February. These little red flowers carpet the northern Negev area (and can usually be found in the western part as well) and make getting in touch with nature all the more fun.
There are hiking options, biking routes, four-by-four tracks, guided tours and cultural activities.
Our group opted for just sitting down and enjoying a picnic. Our kids loved running and jumping among the flowers.
Jumping over anemones at Red South festival. (Photo: Viva Sarah Press)
And though there were thousands of other families at each field we visited, the flowers managed to keep the spotlight. It truly was a great day out.
Foto Friday – Winter Wildflower Wonderland
Filed under: education, Environment, Foto Friday, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Travel
I am not a great fan of rain and so this winter has been a particularly miserable one. Rain, rain, rain and more rain. However, even a sun worshiper such as myself can admit upside to the horrible, awful, gray, chilly, soggy, foggy, never-ending wet and damp: the landscape is green, the waterline at Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) has risen and the winter wildflowers are coming into full bloom.
This month, Israel’s nature-lovers will take their annual trek through field and forest in search of their favorite flowers. The Society for the Preservation of Nature (SPNI) is hosting a series of tours in celebration of the season and the upcoming Tu b’Shvat holiday. As always, they will seek out the shy and elusive Persian Cyclamen…
Photo by Sara Gold – Wildflowers of Israel
Fields dotted with blood red Crown Anemones are always a magnificent sight, but their light purple cousins are no less lovely…
Photo by Amikam Shoob – Wildflowers of Israel
The Common Narcissus, whose fragrance is nothing if not controversial…
Photo by Sara Gold – Wildflowers of Israel
The elegant and stately Wild Hyacinth…
Photo by Sara Gold – Wildflowers of Israel
And of course, Tu b’Shvat wouldn’t be complete without the blossoming almond tree!
Photo by Mike Livne – Wildflowers of Israel
Aspiring nature photographers take note: Wildflowers in Israel, in conjunction with Jerusalem Botanical Gardens and FujiFilm, is holding a photo contest and there are still a few days left before the deadline closes on February 8. Information and a list of subjects (in Hebrew) is available here or submissions can be emailed directly.
Jerusalem’s ugliest building (hint: it’s not the Holyland)
The Amir Center in Jerusalem
For years, whenever I have driven down King George Street, near the Great Synagogue and the Leonardo (formerly Sheraton) Plaza Hotel, the building at the corner with Agron Street has pained me – a tremendously ugly, 7-story, dilapidated monstrosity that I have waited patiently for some announcement of its pending demolition that never comes.
And now I learn that the building was not only once considered a paradigm of daring optimism and ”modernity,” but the architect behind it has become one of the most celebrated in the country’s history.
That’s not to say that the Amir Center (as the building is officially called) won’t someday be torn down to build another luxury apartment tower; other high-rise buildings have already been approved in its immediate surroundings. But a retrospective, almost loving article in today’s Haaretz may temper those ambitions.
In 1958, architect David Resnick was asked to design a new residential building at the intersection in question. In an interview, he praised its innovations, which broke out of the classic Jerusalem Stone look and feel to splash a dose of modernist paint on the city. The Amir Center was built on a large 10 dunam plaza, its 7 floors propped up on stilts, with a Supersol supermarket (the first in Jerusalem) down below.
While Resnick was pleased with his creation (it even won an award in 1963 for technological innovation), the building was immediately dubbed “Jerusalem’s ugliest building” in street interviews that took place at the time, Haaretz reports.
That controversy, however, helped raise Resnick’s public visibility, and the architect went on design such more acclaimed Jerusalem landmarks as the dome shaped synagogue on Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus, the Mormon Center on Mount Scopus and the Van Leer Institute, among many other always-modernist style projects.
That said, Resnick admits that the Amir Center has been “modified” beyond its original clean lines: residents have enclosed balconies, added unattractive air conditioning units. Indeed, Resnick says “When I walk past the building today, I look the other way. I can’t bear to see what they did to it.
The city is promoting a plan where a contractor is given the rights to build an extra floor or two at no cost provided the residents’ current living space is upgraded (including making it earthquake proof). But the building’s shell, apparently, isn’t strong enough to bear the additional weight, so for now, it’s either demolish or stay ugly.
While “to date no plan has been formulated or submitted,” according to a municipality spokesperson, Resnick would undoubtedly be opposed. “The question of nice or not nice is irrelevant,” he says. “I think that the Israeli establishment does not understand what architecture is and its importance to the state.”
In another 50 years, will they be talking this way about the Holyland project too?
RIMBY
Filed under: education, Environment, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life
In all its glory...my local recycling cage.
That’s meant schlepping bottles in the car, on the stroller, on the way to this or that, and having a stockpile of them in the house at all times. And I can finally get rid of the batteries that have been piling up in my front closet for months because I can never find battery recycling anywhere.
In fact, I’ve been so frustrated about the state of recycling in my neighborhood that I recently wrote a piece about it for JTA, which was just published the other day. You can read it here, and one interesting fact is the following:
“According to Chagit Hoshen, the marketing manager of ELA Recycling, the nonprofit organization that handles recycling collection countrywide, an average of 41 percent of plastic bottles were recycled in 2011. Once the recycling rate reaches 50 percent, the organization says it will build a factory for the production of plastic bottles containing 40 percent recycled raw materials.”
At the same time, at least in my city of Jerusalem, many people still don’t recycle, and I often see neighbors simply throwing out their plastic bottles with the trash, just like they think nothing of tossing garbage out their car windows or sweeping the dirty water gathered from washing the floor out their front door. Of course, that’s not everyone, and there are many Israelis, both native-born and immigrants who take their recycling seriously and will gather their bottles, their cardboard and their tin cans and compost and deposit it in community gardens, community bins and other recycling centers.
In any case, it’s a start and one that I’m excited to begin using.
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