A few days ago, Balkees and I spent the day with a journalist from Israel’s top food magazine, as she prepared an article about the edible wild plants that are now in season. We started the morning in the village that Balkees grew up in, tromping through the lush greenery in the vast field behind … Read More »
Forgetting the Bulgar
Learning Arabic is confoundingly difficult. I have learned languages in my life – Spanish, French and Hebrew – but Arabic is something completely different. I have never invested so much time and effort, with such meager results, as in my study of Arabic. The rules of grammar, the vocabulary, the accent – each of them … Read More »
A Time to Pick Olives
Once again the olive harvest. I like to speculate that not an autumn has passed since they were first cultivated, back in obscure pre-history, that people haven’t gathered olives here in this place that I live. Taking part in this ritual makes me feel like the tiniest link in a very long chain. But the … Read More »
Paradox with a P
It seems like one of the paradoxes of adult life is how to interject variety into a healthy but potentially boring routine. I was thinking about this just this morning as I prepared, yet again, the same breakfast I have been eating for years – yogurt, a few tablespoons of raw rolled oats, some chopped … Read More »
The Yoreh
While family and friends in North America are already in sweaters, here in the Galilee the temperatures are still in the 30’s (high 80’s F). It’s not that we don’t sense the passing of season – the evenings are significantly cooler, and fat, billowy clouds have started to reappear in the sky after months of … Read More »