Socialized sandwiches
Filed under: Business, Food, General, health, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life
I have a lot that I could say and write about socialized medicine, but I’ll just tell this one story. I was waiting to see my doctor the other morning, a very popular doctor, I should add, given that we all waited about two hours each to see her. That’s because like all clinic doctors, she has an appointment scheduled every ten minutes, but gives at least fifteen to twenty minutes to each patient. Which is great when you’re finally in her office and speaking to her, but completely aggravating when you’re out in the hallway.
In any case, I spent my waiting time reading the entire newspaper, something I don’t usually get to do; chatting with other waitees, including someone who wanted to hire me for my writing skills; and returning phone calls. In the back of my mind, I figured that I would grab a sandwich from the woman who has a little stand just around the corner (1st floor, Maccabi building, Agrippas Street, Jerusalem) from my doctor’s office. When I had been waiting over an hour, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer and ambled over to her stand to see what she had to offer.
As luck would have it, she’d just run out of fresh rolls. And in typical Israeli style, she noted that she only makes sandwiches from the freshest ingredients (this is why Starbucks never made it here), and would therefore have to pop down to the Machane Yehuda market just down the street to pick up some more rolls. But she couldn’t do that without someone to man the counter, and keep an eye on the espresso machine, soft drinks and croissants still available.
Well, I certainly had the time, given that I was #288 and #278 had just entered the doctor’s office. Plus, it was too chancy to leave the building and grab something to eat, and, I knew from past experience that she makes a good sandwich. And so, sandwich lady I became for a brief 20 minutes, as she ran out for fresh rolls and quickly returned. Nothing actually happened during that time, but we all exchanged smiling glances at the situations that an elongated wait can offer.
And the sandwich was worth it.
Bizarre buds
Filed under: Business, Food, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life
Like any good Israeli, I tend to do a run of errands on Friday mornings, hitting the supermarket for last minute weekend purchases, the bakery for challot, kadeh — incredibly tasty semicircles of dough filled with feta cheese — babka and any other necessary treats, the weekend newspapers and, depending on the time of year, flowers. I say time of year because I’m a serious fan of Israel’s winter flowers which are more wild in nature, but not so much in the spring and summer, when the pickings are much slimmer.
But yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to find a much wider array of flowers being sold by the teenager outside SuperDeal — Friday flowers are often sold by enterprising teenage boys outside supermarkets, gas stations, and more often than not, on random sidewalks and sides of highways. He sold me these bizarre-looking buds, and told me the name, which I promptly forgot, being laden down with packages and reminders of what I had to buy next.
The orange-y ones look like round orange peppers to me, but may be a completely different variety. The pale green ones have the look of nothing I’ve ever seen before, as these delicate-looking feathery bulbs that are sort of ugly yet compelling in their otherness. The question is, does anyone know what they’re called? I’d really rather not wait until next Friday.
Please chime in with answers!
Foto Friday – Klone alone
Filed under: Art, Crime, design, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Profiles, Travel
Tel Aviv. It’s Klone’s city and we’re all just living in it. If graffiti artists are, in fact, masters of all they survey — and tag — then Tel Aviv is ruled by street artist Klone, whose handiwork can be seen almost anywhere you look – or places you usually don’t look: highway barriers, unused billboards and abandoned buildings.
Klone is a recognized member of the world street artist community who has had his work covered by any number of art commentators – the most comprehensive bio I’ve found is by Hagi Kenaan on the Maarav blog. And there’s a nice write up of a 4-man graffiti and street art happening from last summer. He’s participated in group shows in Israel, USA, UK and Europe and Tel Aviv. So Klone is not unknown.
But his work does convey loneliness, isolation and pain. Of it, Klone says, “My work is dealing with memories, my own and the ones I manage to collect in everyday life from surroundings, if its my childhood in USSR or the coming to Israel…”
“…if it’s the layers of the city, walls crumbling apart and graffiti covering and being covered…”
“…people getting old and the new generations appearing every moment, the search is endless. Thus my work of documenting it is still long. I learn a new language that invents itself along my way, I don’t understand its symbolics most of the time and use my skills as a channel to combine all the elements I collect in my everyday into one stream of visuals…
“My work might be on paper, canvas, wood, wall or whatever surface I stumble upon on my way. The story must be told and I hope that one day I will understand it all.”
Klone’s technique often involves creating complex works on tissue-thin paper before venturing outside. The paper is then quickly glued onto the desired surface (as above). His most recent venture was last week — you can see it on Tel Aviv Street Art. More Klones, including artwork done in studio and available for sale, can be viewed on his website.
Nostalgia Sunday – Yashar Yashar
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Technology, Travel
We are traveling this week, in the company of a GPS navigator named Koby. That is to say, our Global Positioning System has a selection of audio interfaces, each language interface has a name and gender identity (you can select a male or female voice), and the male Hebrew-language interface is called Koby.
Koby is a great asset for many reasons, first and foremost because he brings us to through unknown territories to our destination. (Well, he is a computer and that is his primary directive). But his absolutely genius feature is that if he makes a mistake — and he does err — we can get mad at him instead of at one another. So Koby saves relationships. Plus, it is so fun, for once, to yell back at that Israeli man-on-the-street who thinks he knows everything!
Think back… 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago… or to last week, when you asked the man-on-the-street — let’s call him Yossi — for directions. “Okay, go to the right. Go to the right and then go to the left. Then go all the time straight, yashar, yashar, all the time in front of you. Go to the end. And okay, you will see it.”
This happens more often than not. Because the phrase “I don’t know” is anathema to Yossi and therefore directions you will get, right or wrong. Follow them and within some hours you should find yourself on the border of Lebanon, Syria or Egypt. They are, in fact, all the time in front of you.
At a certain point though, if you stay here long enough, this national tic, yashar, yashar, becomes familiar and then, weirdly, almost beloved. You start to wait for it and you’re disappointed when it doesn’t come. Thankfully, there is another version, in which Yossi ends his litany with “Then you ask someone where to go after there.” And indeed, that is true. You can always ask another Yossi and start playing the game over again.
But since we do have to reach our destination eventually, we love Koby, although he and his ilk are replacing Yossi and his yashar, yashar as the national directional fallback. Mourn not for Yossi, however, whom I envision as your typical gadget-happy Israeli man. He already has GPS installed in his car, his jeep and his running shoe. He’s no freier*.
I should point out that whoever did the recording for Koby is a very practiced radio-TV announcer with perfect pronunciation. But, in a way, I wish the manufacturers had given us a third option: Yossi man-on-the-street. Then we could really go to town. If it were to be truly realistic, however, Yossi would cuss us out with better, juicer phrases — as in this advertisement for the MIRS GPS, where the driver gets a big surprise when he misses a turn. Truly a slice of Israeli life: high technology combined with Jewish guilt.
And another one, just for fun, because it’s sort of in English:
*Usually translated as “sucker”, “patsy” or “loser” the word deserves a column all on its own, so more on “freier” another day. Let’s just say, in short, that it’s everything an Israeli doesn’t want to be.
L’eggo my pizza
On the food front, had an unusual slice of pizza the other night. I’m not always all for the Israeli take on foods from other ethnicities, such as corn on pizza or cream cheese and bagels loaded with vegetables. But this was both unusual, tasty and highly filling, with slices of hard boiled egg laid on the pizza and, at the pizza counterperson’s suggestion, I sprinkled some hot sauce on it, a la shakshuka, as a friend pointed out.
It was great, and yes, hinted at the egg-tomato-and-red pepper-sauce flavors in a hot pan of shakshuka. Given that hard-boiled eggs are a staple in the Israeli diet, added to everything from tuna sandwiches to bourekas, it’s not all that surprising to see it added to a pizza. But as someone who rarely gets filled up from one slice, I appreciated the protein gesture. Turns out, egg on pizza is not an Israeli invention. According to the Life in Italy website, the regional Capricciosa pizza includes a topping of mushrooms, prosciutto, artichoke hearts, olives and half a boiled egg. The Zoe food blog turned out a recipe for pesto and egg pizza, while a French pizza combines hard boiled egg and brie. Yum.
I’m going to try my hand at Zoe’s version:
Hard Boiled Eggs & Pesto Pizza
1 store bought pizza crust, or make your own dough. (I bought whole wheat and I couldn’t even tell the difference)
Marinara sauce, enough to cover entire pizza surface
3-4 hard boiled eggs, a great tutorial can be found here
A couple of tablespoons of pesto
About 2 cups shredded mozzarella1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Slice already cooled hard boiled eggs into thin slices, keeping the yolk and egg white intact in each slice. Set aside.
3. Spread marinara evenly onto pizza dough.
4. Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese. Next, dollop some pesto wherever you want it. Top with egg slices and pop into oven for 8- 10 minutes.
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