There is something so profoundly compelling about a dish named buckle. Just think of it: buttery golden batter, giving way - buckling - under the weight of juicy, jammy, slightly caramelized hunks of fruit. A buckle is more exuberant than a plate of muffins, yet more modest than a cake. Serve it with coffee in [...]

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If you’re going to shell out the extra shekels for organic food, you’re want to be confident that you’re getting the real deal.
Personally, I think the price of organic food is worth paying, whether you’re buying it for selfish reasons (taste, avoiding nasty chemicals and GMOs) or altruistic ones (treading lightly our small country) and [...]

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Zucchini flowers, or squash blossoms (for culinary purposes these are interchangeable), are one of those off-the-supermarket-beaten-path ingredients you tend to find only at farmers’ markets or fancy restaurants. (Or Italy, though that doesn’t really help most of us all that much.)
This elusiveness means that if you do come into a supply - either because you’ve [...]

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“Make sure to place your organic waste in the buckets outside and please use our shampoo and soap when you shower so chemicals don’t enter or gray water system,” my hostess explained to my family as we first arrived in Amirim. I immediately felt at home.
We’ve been covering lots of eco-tourism tips and organic [...]

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Israel’s fastest-growing supermarket chain is the upscale Tiv Taam, where customers can browse shelves of international beers, pick through extensive cheese selections and even purchase pancetta to include in their gourmet dishes at home. At Hinnawi, a Yafo-based butcher with a branch inside the shopping mall in Ramat Aviv, customers can choose between 17 kinds [...]

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Ful medames; ta’miyya; bissara — fava beans have given rise to iconic dishes across the Middle East. Egyptian cuisine is unimaginable without them. They’ve been a staple in the region for about eight thousand years, and were one of the first plants cultivated for food. Most often, they are used in their dried form: rehydrated [...]

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One of the great joys of eating seasonal, local food is the unabashed, seam-bursting happiness of eating something you haven’t seen since the last harvest. It’s the kind of excitement which comes from deprivation - food is always tastier when you’re hungry, and strawberries always sweeter, juicier, strawberrier, when you’ve not had them in [...]

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Have you ever had trouble keeping your spices longer than a day? If you leave them out they dry out, if you keep them in a bag they rot… what to do? You can keep your aromatics (leafy spices) and salad lettuce leaves fresh for longer by washing them, then wrap them is a paper [...]

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I was so anxious on Monday as I awaited word of delivery of my very first Israeli community supported agriculture (CSA) delivery to its drop spot in Tel Aviv. I was nervous, not because I thought the vegetables wouldn’t be good or because I was unsure if I was getting a good deal (the [...]

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(image credit: giggul371)
Shavuot is best known as the holiday which commemorates the bestowal of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. It is also the celebration of the harvest of the Bikkurim, the first fruits of the year. Pomegranates and figs may come most easily to mind, but wheat is another of the Shiv’at Haminim, [...]

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