October Kitchen Post

In My Kitchen in October, 2024

Happy Halloween! We’ve viewed a remarkable number of Halloween decorations this month, and will look forward to the Trick-or-Treaters tonight. The weather has been wonderful, prolonging the season for farmers’ market produce and for the herbs in our garden — though the last few nights have been a bit hard on some of the more delicate ones.

The basil went to seed a few weeks ago, but we’ve used all the herbs this month in delicious ways.

First, a Few things that we cooked this month

Roast chicken — served with a bat spatula.

Late Summer Fruit Crumble

The crumble in my favorite baking dish, purchased in Paris long ago.

Last plum cake of 2024?

Little Lettuce Salads with Thousand-Island Dressing

Cottage cheese and veggies for lunch.

What’s New in Our Kitchen?

Maybe for the Trick-or-Treaters. Maybe for me.

Yes, this device really works. Len installed it on the underside of a shelf in the pantry.
The photo shows the box it came in.

Kitchens in Distant Places

Art Exhibit: “Food Culture in the Islamic World”

Last weekend we viewed a wonderful exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts titled “Food Culture in the Islamic World.” This exposition: “brings together 230 works from the Middle East, Egypt, Central and South Asia, and beyond to explore art and cuisine.” It’s open from September 22, 2024 - January 5, 2025. (Museum Website)

Here are two miniature paintings depicting kitchen scenes. I’ll be writing more about this very rich exposition.

A Kitchen in 16th-Century Persia

This is a kitchen scene from Shiraz, Persia in around 1570.

This scene is from a book called The story of rice and dumplings: “The person in yellow and red at left is the sufrachi, the hospitality manager of an elite household. Servants with trays line up behind him. The cook, wearing a white apron and wielding a red stick, has attracted the group's attention. Another servant peeks in from the doorway, perhaps a bit concerned about the holdup.” (Source: documentation in the exhibit)

Automated Wine Dispenser from Iraq, Syria, or Egypt, 1315

This is an ingenious device for serving wine: “This design for a wine-serving automaton combines mechanical engineering and entertainment. Devised by the scholar and inventor al-Jazari (1136-1206), a figure on a rolling plank emerges from a cabinet to offer a cup of wine and a napkin. After the drinker consumes the wine and wipes their mouth, they replace the cup and raise the figures arm. Wine from the reservoir at top drips into the cup to repeat the process.”

Antarctica: Two VERY Remote Kitchens

This compact kitchen is in a specially equipped tractor that will traverse Antarctica and go to the South Pole.
The researchers will live in the tractors as they spend months exploring this little-known continent.
From my friend Carla, who works at the research station in Antarctica. (source)

A view of lunch prep in the kitchen at McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica.
If you are intrigued by the life of researchers in this very remote place, see Carla’s blog:
Traversing the Space Between.

Happy Halloween!

This year’s Giant Pumpkins a few blocks from our house.
For pictures of this neighbor’s pumpkins from the past see this blog post.

Blog post © 2024 mae sander; photos as credited

 

Lunch in the town of Abu Gosh

Abu Gosh is an Israeli-Arab town just outside Jerusalem on the road to Tel Aviv. Restaurants there are very famous.
Here's one of the chefs cooking the kabobs, which are a featured menu item after the many salads and appetizers.

Making coffee.

Our table was completely loaded with small dishes containing falafel, hummus, tahini, tabbouli salad, french fries,
baba ganoush, tomato salads, eggplant salads, and several other appetizers. Then came the kabobs!

Falafel.

The Arab logo for Coca-Cola. I haven't noticed the Hebrew logo on the many
diet Cokes I've had this week, but maybe I somehow missed it.

Our best bird of the day: a water rail, which lives in a small nature reserve next to the Israel Knesset and Supreme Court.
I have several more photos of the bird refuge, including more on bird banding, that I'll post separately some time.

Later we stopped at Park Canada where we saw this cyclamen
and many other wild flowers in bloom.

Our tour is now ending. Tour guide Doug (right) and the rest of the birders will have dinner together once more tonight, while our other tour guide, Eran (shaking his hand,) went home after lunch today. We plan to remain in Israel for another week, though the tour is over.

Camels and Dates

A camel was tethered by the restaurant near the Dead Sea where we ate lunch today. If you go to Israel,
you really should not miss seeing at least one camel. We saw two: the other was parked at the next restaurant.

I ordered these stuffed dates.

The stuffing for the dates was lightly-spiced ground meat. Garnishes included slivered almonds, fried onions, and "Silvan" or date syrup, decorating the plate. It was delicious! On the menu was also a dish with chicken, dates, and lemon.

We've seen quite a few date orchards, especially near Eilat. In this photo,
you can see the large machines that harvest the dates, and the mesh bags
used for ripening them.

Date palms near Eilat.

Today's lunch included hummus, of course: in this case served with kabob meat. 

Alas! No falafel today. The restaurant had run out of it. After lunch we had Magnum bars, but as it's a kosher meat restaurant, we were required to eat them outside. That was ok: a large number of buzzards, kestrels, storks, and eagles were flying over, migrating from Africa northwards.

A strange mural was on the restaurant wall, along with many
music and film posters and photos from the 1950s.

Birding: we saw this little clamorous warbler in some reeds at a refuge near the Dead Sea.

Israeli Food and Cookbooks

Shakshouka: eggs cooked in tomato sauce, here garnished with fried eggplant,
cheese, and grilled peppers. It's usually prepared and served in individual casseroles.

Now that I'm back from Israel, I'm thinking about how to make some of the Israeli favorite foods that I ate while I was there. I've already mentioned several of them: hummus, falafel, grilled fish and meat, and salads, and I also had a few others. I'm checking my cookbooks for recipes for some of the favorites --

Joan Nathan -- The Foods of Israel Today
Sherry Ansky -- The Food of Israel
Ottolenghi and Tamimi -- Jerusalem: A Cookbook
Lilian Cornfeld -- Israeli Cookery
Claudia Roden: The Book of Jewish Food

Chopped salad served with the shakshouka at a cafe in Kiryat Ono where we stayed.

From Sherry Ansky's excellent cookbook: a recipe for Shakshouka. I've made it before.

Salads, I would say, are among the most varied and popular items in Israeli restaurants. They vary from raw vegetable salads, cooked vegetable salads, fish salads, grains. Salads both warm and cold also are components of the popular pre-dinner mezze appetizers. Every one of my cookbooks suggests numerous and tempting recipes for many Israeli salads.

Quinoa and other grains in an Israeli salad at the restaurant in Caesarea.
Quinoa has become quite popular in Israeli cooking, along with rice.

Claudia Roden traces the appetizers to Sephardic customs by Jews in Arab countries.
Arab-Israeli restaurants also serve their own versions of these popular dishes.

This was called "Jerusalem Shuk Salad" -- a version of the popular Israeli chopped salad with added egg and chick peas.

From Lilian Cornfeld's historic book (written 1962) -- the classic chopped salad.

Len's Caesar salad at Caesarea -- of course there's no connection as Caesar
Salad is named for a chef in Tijuana, Mexico, who invented the recipe in 1924.
And Caesarea, Israel, was named by its founder Herod for Augustus Caesar.

Despite its North American origin, Caesar Salad often appears on Israeli menus.
Original Caesar Salad was prepared -- with flair -- by the waiter, but as in the US,
the Israelis bring it to the table already plated.

The appetizer of many Israeli vegetable dishes, sometimes called Mezze.
Here our selection at the Lebanon Restaurant in Abu Ghosh, an Arab village.
Most of the cookbooks provide recipes for fattoush, falafel, hummus, etc.

Sabich, an Israeli vegetable and hard-cooked egg sandwich I ate in Tel Aviv.
Ottolenghi's book Jerusalem has a very elaborate recipe for this.

I'm sharing this post with Louise's Cookbook Wednesday.