Foto Friday – Hanukkah in Jerusalem
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, Travel
Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, starts tonight with the lighting of the first candle on the hannukiya – the seven-branched menorah. Jerusalemites have a tradition of lighting oil based hannukiyot encased in glass boxes against the wind. It is a beautiful sight.
© pmos_nmos
Of course, it is more dramatic when lit up at night!
© RomKri
© RomKri
Hanukkah this year fell on a chilly Friday but despite the foreboding clouds it felt like the city was settling into a holiday mood, with young couples taking their babies out for a stroll at the new Mamilla Mall and overwhelming demand for sufganiyot at the Roladin bakery-cafe.
Both Nicky and David have blogged about the caloric and nutritional disaster that is our local holiday fare, so I will only add that Roladin has, for several years now, taken up the mantle of master sufganiya baker. They’ve created a whole series of so-called gourmet doughnut delights – the “Hanukkah Collection 2009″ – ranging from pistachio and banana to dulce de leche as well as the traditional red mystery jam. They’ve also devised a gaily decorated long square box for easy transport.
This week’s photos of Hanukkah in Jerusalem are courtesy of the wonderful Jerusalem Shots site. I should note that, as I do each time before sitting down to write the holiday column, I tried to figure out the current spelling of the Festival of Lights’ name, this time putting Google on the case with the following results: Hanukkah – 1,920,000 hits; Chanuka – 222,000; Hanuka – 219,000; Hannukah – 141,000 ; Channukah – 129,000; Chanukka – 71,800; Hannuka – 66,100. So, (although it’s not spelled as it was when I was a girl) — Hanukkah wins.
Picture of the week: Drinking, driving and mini donuts
Filed under: Food, health, Holidays, Picture of the Week
The shops are full of them, everyone is offering you them, and – worse than that – it’s almost churlish to refuse. Yes, Hannukah is almost upon us, and donut production has gone into overdrive.
The shops and bakeries began selling sufganiyot some weeks ago, but now sales are getting serious. Tray after tray of these sugary, fried cholesterol bombs are on display everywhere tempting the unwitting, unwary or just plain foolhardy.
Every year bakeries outdo themselves to come up with something new. So we’ve had peanut butter donuts, halva and dulce de leche. This year, however, the alcohol importers have decided to get in on the act with a new type of donut – soaked in vodka . One 100-gram donut contains the alcohol content of a bottle of beer. So don’t eat more than one if you want to drive home.
While I’ve never been a great fan of the donut – except the small ones filled with chocolate and cream that Roladin creates – even the greatest lovers of these calorie-laden balls would find it hard to eat a donut with pleasure after reading an article by nutritionist Limor Gilat in Ha’aretz
this week.
Each donut, she points out, contains between 350-800 calories, and to burn off these calories, you would have to run at a sprint for an hour straight. And digestion, well, Gilat goes into some detail about the arduous work your body has to do to get that jelly donut through your system.
So what’s the answer? Gilat suggests a mixture of restraint and abandon, and some mint-flavored gum. I’d like to put forward a suggestion too – why don’t bakeries drastically reduce their size (even smaller than Roladin’s donuts), so we have mini sufganiyot. I know my kids would love them, and so would the nation’s kupat holim (health authorities). Photo by Nati Shohat /Flash90.
Hannuka and the taco-flavored donuts
Filed under: Blogging, Food, Holidays, Life, Pop Culture, Religion
It’s Hannuka in Israel, and comedian Benji Lovitt and videographer Molly Livingstone went out onto the streets of Jerusalem to see how people celebrate.
As Benji admits in his blog, What War Zone, “we laughed….we cried…..we made people uncomfortable (hellooooo, cutting room floor!) But we definitely had fun and we think you will too.”
Fancy shmancy donuts from Roladin
Chanuka. Time for presents, lighting candles and of course the ubiquitous sufganiya – Israel’s answer to the jelly donut. For years the only sufganiyot available were disgustingly delicious with their oil soaked dough and semi-vile jelly filling. Granted there is a novelty to eating this traditional classic donut and starting about a month a half before Chanuka they are available everywhere. So if the urge hits, satiation is immediate.
Roladin, Israel’s chain of “upscale” bakeries take the donut to a totally new level. They pride themselves on offering lower calorie (though not low calorie, and they are still fried but are about 1/3 smaller than the average donut) sufganiyot with unique and high quality fillings.
This year is no different. Their offerings include a sufganya filled with a halva white chocolate ganache with white chocolate frosting and candied pecans. Ate it. Was amazing. And the other really unique one is clearly marketed at adults. It’s filled with white chocolate ganache that is mixed with arak with white Belgium chocolate frosting. They of course offer the standard jelly-filled as well but with a high quality fruit filling that has no additional sugar.
Photo of classic sufganya courtesy of SavtaDotty from Flickr under a Creative Commons license. Photo of fancy donut courtesy of Roladin
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