Cooking and Food in Israel

In the last couple of months before I left for Israel, I have gotten increasingly interested in food, cooking, food politics, and what I am eating. In the USA this was pretty easy for me to pay attention to: we got veggies from a CSA, had an extensive garden, and bought interesting flours and sugars and granola and such in bulk. I also had the time and kitchen that allowed me to do lots of my own cooking and be aware of what I was eating.

I've been trying to build something similar in Israel, but so far with little success. All of the fruits and vegetables here are very fresh, but my roommates diets include much less of them then mine does. I have also yet to find exactly the types of bulk food that I've been looking for, but I've been finding somewhat similar things.

However, the weird thing is that despite me feeling less than satisfied about my food, about half of the people on my program are really enjoying it! So much so that they keep coming over for dinner! Being that it is the official food of college students everywhere, I've been making a lot of rice stir-fry. But my rice stir fry has included egg, tomato, cabbage, cucumber, onion, pepper, carrot, potato, etc. We've also been having lots of quinoa. I like the company, but I'm a bit perplexed as to why my food is so popular. Maybe they are only eating it because otherwise they would have to cook for themselves? I'm not really sure, but I'm also not complaining because I really like having the food that I want to eat in the house!

One way that I've been working on getting the food that I like in the house is by making my own yogurt. Most of the yogurt in Israel (that I have been able to find) has been in little cups with candy or fruit mixed in, which is not ideal for making smoothies with. So I've been making my own yogurt! It's been interesting in that I have no measuring utensils, so I'm kind of making it up as I go. But It's worked out pretty well so far. I also haven't been able to find strawberries, nectarines, blueberries or raspberries, or any frozen fruit, so I've been cutting up mangoes and bananas and freezing them. While it's a different process from how I make smoothies in the USA, the end product is very similar. And I'm just happy that I can have smoothies!*


*Short story: We have the most amazing neighbors. They are an older couple who speak very little English, and they have been really helpful to us: helping us reset our circuit breaker, giving us tips about living in Ramla, and lending us a blender! That has made them completely awesome in my book!