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 servings

Ingredients:
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 frying

Preparation:
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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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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This photo, of which there was a similar one in today’s Ha’aretz, shows deer walking around in the Odem or Red Forest, the largest nature reserve in the Golan Heights. I love the photo because it doesn’t seem like it could have been taken in Israel, as deer with antlers, romping in the snow, look so foreign to these parts. But Odem is a fairly magical forest, with deer, ibex and gazelles wandering around, overlooking views of the Golan mountains and Mount Hermon.

The forest and the moshav of Odem are located on Mount Odem, which is 3,580 feet above sea level, making it the second-highest town in Israel, after Neve Ativ, which sits on Mount Hermon. Odem, the moshav, has a few business concerns, but most interesting, perhaps, is its winery, Har Odem Winery, which is worth checking out, especially if the snow has melted by the time you get up there.

Why? It was a rainy weekend over here, and that rain translated into snow up there, where a meter of snow fell on the Hermon, Israel’s ski resort mountain, and nearly as much in other northern towns, including Tzfat and other peaks in the Golan Heights.

Of course, once there’s news of snow, the whole country heads up north to see it for themselves, as snow days are few and far between in these parts. The deer, however, get to revel in it as soon as it starts falling.

Lucky. I’m gonna try and join them this week.

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The Israeli arm of Pachamama has been schlepping the organization’s five-hour core “Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream” symposium around the country. Friends of ours in Jerusalem hosted about 30 people in their home last week to participate in the seminar.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Pachamama workshop consists of a series of very professional 5-10 minute videos followed by small group discussions. There are activities (writing down vision statements, mini-meditations, calls to action) and larger group sharing.

The event is divided into two sections: the problems are spelled out before lunch, with what we can do personally to make a difference described after the meal.

The videos in the first half are quite disturbing and graphic, although if you follow the news, much of the data will be familiar (an example factoid: “if you have food in a refrigerator, clothes in your closet, a bed to sleep in, and a roof over your head, you’re better off than 75% of the people on the planet”).

After a barrage of 5-6 of these depressing films, I told the group that I felt quite useless; how could I as an individual possibly affect any kind of change when faced with an unquenchable demand on our rapidly reducing natural resources? Our facilitator said I should hold those thoughts until after part two; that there was indeed hope.

I unfortunately never got that far. After a healthy meal of lentil soup and fresh bread, I promptly fell asleep on the couch. While my wife sitting next to me was energetically creating a matrix of personal skills matched with possible responses, my head lolled in slumber, occasionally awakening to realize the other participants were being mutually empowered, before slipping back into dozy denial.

I vaguely heard the group leader asking my wife if she could wake me up for the final circle and her defending my right to nap. I rose anyway and regarded a very different group than the one I had left behind.

I feel kind of like the blue-skinned Na’vi in the movie Avatar about ¾ of the way into the film, when their world is being pulverized by the evil Earth army and there seems to be no way out. I came to the workshop to understand how I could make a difference. I left feeling depressed and drowsy, having missed the uplifting finale.

The good news: this will certainly not be the last Pachamama symposium scheduled in Israel and I’ll hopefully have the opportunity to attend another one. But next time, I’ll try to sleep during the first half.

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Chefs at work at Machneyuda

Anyway. I was pleased to find that they quoted Asaf Granit, one of the chefs from the very popular Machneyuda, which is in Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda market and is considered one of Israel’s top restaurants right now. Unusual, really, as Jerusalem is seldom considered the have the best of anything trendy in this country. We may not care, but, sigh, I guess I do. So his contribution to this piece about coming up with unusual dishes was the following:

“Last week, there was a married couple and four young women here for a bachelorette party. We quickly got into a very interesting discussion and I decided to prepare a dish of beef tartare for them – right in their hands,” says Granit. “We put on their hands a layer of beef, onion, parsley and capers, all minced. We squeezed on some fresh lemon, drizzled a little olive oil, and all they had to do was lick their fingers.”

A traditional mahlabia

Lovely. And, finally, a quote from Itai Rogozinsky, who owns the Vaniglia ice cream parlor chain and is most proud of his frozen yogurt made with rosewater, roasted pistachios and apricot jam, kind of a takeoff of mahalabia, a pudding dessert that is popular in many Arab countries. How does this boy who says the yogurt is “a nostalgic reminder of his childhood in Kochav Yair” — a suburban town east of Kfar Saba that has been around about 25 or so years, created by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to solidify the Green Line — know about mahalabia? Probably from the excursions his family used to take to nearby Nablus, Kalkiya and Tulkarm, three Arab towns in the vicinity.

It’s all good, drawing from memories and good flavors to create new tastes. And, interestingly, way down in the article an unnamed source commented that Israeli chefs just travel abroad to the chicest restaurants and come back to copy what they ate there. Would have liked a little more on that idea. Just a little context would help, oh Ha’aretz editors.

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Each year, the Valley hosts thousands of Common Cranes, Pelicans, Ducks, Waders and Passerines. Over 300 species are seen here annually including very rare European birds of prey. (A full checklist of birds migrating through the Hula Valley is available here).

According to the event organizers, KKL Agamon-Hula Park and Hula Nature Reserve, “We believe it is time to spotlight the region as the world class birding destination that it is, and the way to do so is through a large scale birdwatching event.” The result: the Hula Valley Bird Festival, a one week event running from November 24th to 27th offered birding tours, art exhibition, photography seminars, a large scale scientific conference and much more.

“Much more” includes last night’s concert by seven time Grammy award winning musician Paul Winter, performing a new bird migration-inspired piece, Flyways, which takes inspiration from ethnic music from the countries along the migration route — Africa, the Middle East and Europe — embellished with bird songs and calls.

The scientific conference focused on various aspects of stopover site conservation such as habitat protection, migration ecology, climate change, regional cooperation and site networks, national and international policy and programming, public awareness and eco-tourism.

The photography seminar, “Cranes, Kingfishers and more in the Hula Valley”, led by renowned photographer Thomas Krumenacker and other leading nature photographers, focused on the Valley’s most important wintering species, the Common Crane.

“The Hula Valley in winter is probably among the best places in the world to get up close and personal with these beautiful birds.”

“Besides the Cranes we will spend time with some of the valleys other beautiful species like three different species of Kingfishers, Pelicans, wintering raptors and more.”

Berlin-based Krumenacker has been to Israel many times to photograph the Hula Valley. More photos can be viewed and purchased from his website.

All images are copyrighted by Thomas Krumenacker and come courtesy of the Hula Valley International Bird Festival website.

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A newspaper recycling bin

A plastic recycling bin

The hursha is also the home for one of the local community gardens, where I bring my composting, when I’m feeling organized. So we waited and waited, for the bins to arrive. Finally, a friend called the City Hall information number listed, asking why there are no bins, and how it’s all meant to be divided and collected.

She was told by the clerk who answered the phone that “it’s not the city’s responsibility.” When my friend asked Molly, the 106 person, why the sign says to call 106 for comments, Molly replied, “Not this comment.”

It seems there is an agency handling this recycling — as is for the bottles and newspapers — and we’re meant to call them, even though we have no contact information for them. Frustrating. And oh, so typical. But I will remain hopeful and optimistic that the mere presence of a recycling area means that one day, the bins will arrive and eventually, we’ll be able to recycle curbside, just like our friends in the U.S. of A.

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