No chickens to be had

October 21, 2011 - 3:47 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General 

Okay, we’ve reached the final, and I mean final, stage of this sometimes endless chagim period. Over here, those of us who are religiously observant, don’t have three days straight of chag-into-Shabbat, like our diaspora brethren. They’ve had three weeks of that, on Rosh Hashanah (we had that too), and then again on Sukkot and this week, for Simchat Torah/Shemini Atzeret. We sort of have it, with Wednesday-into-Thursday, but Fridays off. Then again, Fridays get used for preparing for Shabbat. So we don’t have three days straight of shul, meals and shul again, but knowing that you have to shop and cook, yet again, is pretty exhausting.

Which brings me to today, the last Friday of this month of chagim. We had a simple plan, going out for dinner Friday night and a few friends coming over for lunch on Shabbat. I even had a meal plan, which included a simple saucy chicken for Shabbat lunch, accompanied by rice, perhaps some lubia beans and a course of salads to start. Dessert? Give in and buy some sorbet and cookies. I mean, there have to be some benefits to living in a town where there are bakeries everywhere, even if they’re not so great.

Pargiyot with a lemon/rosemary preparation

But, there were no chickens to be had. Literally. I won’t say that I made an exhaustive search of all the southern Jerusalem supermarkets, but I heard and I saw in a number of butchers and counters that there were really no chickens to be had, thanks to the weeks of consecutive holidays and Shabbatot. There were, to be fair, frozen trays of pargiyot, the boneless dark chicken that’s really delicious, but kind of expensive. And I knew I had a frozen chicken in my freezer, but it would be a pain to defrost and it’s never a perfect solution to quick-defrost, at least not in my experience.

So I came up with a new plan: Corned beef, braised cabbage and potato kugel, the last item to be purchased. I had a moment of panic when there didn’t appear to be any corned beef in the supermarket freezer, but my butcher friend Suleiman came up with a few from his back freezer. And, to be expected, there were no potato kugels left in the city, really, but that’s a quick item to make at the last minute.

A fast internet search offered some new ways of preparing the corned beef, but I stuck to my tried and true recipe, although I will try this method another week, when I have more time. As for potato kugel, my favorite food blogger, Smitten Kitchen, uses this recipe, and it’s looking good in my oven. Finally, I use my pressure cooker to prepare braised purple cabbage, and I tossed in a leftover quince that I had sitting around, in addition to the green apples called for in the recipe.

It’s Irish eats for us this weekend.

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The personal eating habits of Israelis

November 22, 2009 - 9:47 AM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Food, General, health, Israeliness, Life 

bamba‘What is there to eat?” is a common refrain in our household. And it seems to get harder and harder to find new, innovative dishes to make, as we continue to rely on old standbys. It looks like we’re not alone, as a recent study reveals.

According to statistics compiled for the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce,
Israelis are quite unadventurous in their eating habits. Milk is the most sold product in Israel with sales totaling about $303,214 million in 2009, which marks a 1.7% drop compared to last year. The study was based on 1,500 points of sale examined between the months of January and October, compared to the same period last year.

Coca Cola was the top soft drink in Israeli shelves, with sales totaling $118.4 million – a 2.1% drop compared to last year. According to the Ynet report on the study, bottled water recorded a sharper decline – 6.1%, mainly due to the pollution in the sources of water, which hurt two of the economy’s leading companies.

Dairy products and chicken top the list of what Israelis like to eat. Yogurt products were the biggest sellers, with $251 million being spent. But the biggest jump was in cottage cheese, in which a 10.1% rise was reported. Israelis also spent $231 million on chicken, a
2.6% rise compared to last year.

Other popular products were packaged spreads, like humous – $159.5 million, eggs – $135 million), soft white cheese – $118 million, and hard yellow cheese, which recorded an 8.4% rise in sales. Canned tuna also was more popular, with a 6.1% increase.

But if it seems like we eat relatively healthy, Israelis are certainly not forgetting their ‘sweet’ and ‘salty’ tooth. Salty snacks, like Bamba, which one man last week even broke into a convenience store to steal, set Israelis back $165.5 million) – down 1.6% compared to last year. Sweet snacks however saw a 3.4% rise.

So, I guess my household is within the realm of the average Israeli food consumer – lots of eggs, cheeses and chicken – and a fair share of Bamba. So why do I still keep hearing that refrain, ‘what is there to eat?”

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Holiday transitions

October 12, 2008 - 8:19 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, Holidays, Israeliness 

paperchains1.jpgHard to believe, but we are already in the middle of the chagim period, the month-long period of holidays that falls every autumn. We’re past Yom Kippur, a.k.a., the Festival of Bicycles, when a good chunk of the country spends the evening and following day in synagogue, while many kids take over the empty streets of all cities on the eve and day of Yom Kippur with bicycles – as well as skateboards, roller blades, skates and scooters. In fact, bicycle sales rise in the weeks prior to YK, with companies advertising Yom Kippur specials.

Then, it was straight into another Shabbat, as Yom Kippur ended on Thursday night, which meant a rush for the supermarket and butcher counter on Friday morning. Unlike the week before, when Rosh Hashanah ended and we went into another Shabbat, there wasn’t quite as much of a fresh chicken shortage, because the week before also coincided with the end of Ramadan, which meant a lot of chickens being eaten out there.

But the end of Shabbat this week brought the annual put-up-the-sukkah evening, when you gather your forces to snap together metal poles and string up the canvas walls. With Sukkot beginning Monday night, it’s another rush into the third holiday of the season, and the longest, at a full seven days. So now we’re thinking sukkah decorations of paper chains, plastic fruits and blinking lights, and one-dish meals that are easier to serve to the crowd.

I’ll let you know what I decide to make, as soon as I get started on the paper chains…

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