I have the recipe and all the ingredients. But preparing these little wild spinach filled pastries is one of those tasks that is more fun with a friend, and so I took the two bags of greens I’d gathered and went to visit one of my most esteemed culinary mentors, Um Malek, at her home … Read More »
bet netufa valley
A Fresh Look at Some Local Foods
I was flipping through some photographs I’d taken recently, and found these three images, all which show interesting ways that indigenous local foods are processed in Galilee Palestinian society. This is a photograph of luf (arum palaestinum), which was collected this winter during the season it grows wild in the area around Nazareth. I took … Read More »
Back to the Batof
Last June, and seemingly a decade ago, I visited the cities of Sakhnin and Arrabe, for meetings with two NGOs. At the time, I learned about the work being done by the Towns Association for Environmental Quality on behalf of the Arab farmers of the Bet Netufa Valley. I was also treated to the wonderful … Read More »
Sukkot
The holiday of Sukkot, for those of you who are not familiar, originally celebrated the late summer harvest, with a pilgrimage to the Temple bearing offerings of the season’s yield. In commemoration of the local practice during Biblical times, Jews are commanded to build a “Sukka” (booth, tabernacle) – a makeshift outdoor structure that recalls … Read More »