September 2004
Hello from Jerusalem,
My goal? Your kitchen! While living overseas I think this should be my cross-cultural pick-up line: Hey baby, I wanna get in your kitchen.
Some of my most interesting experiences have been in homes of people I would meet in the countries where I’ve lived. I will never forget, while living in India, seeing my driver’s sister-in-law squat by the kitchen cooking fire in the family’s two room, manure plastered, house in a Gujurati village making chappati (an Indian flat bread), patting it between her hands, then tossing it on the rounded frying pan over the open flame as they’ve been made for hundreds of years. Experiences like this are part of the joy of my life overseas. I joke that one of my interests is home economics, not the course where you learn to bake cookies and sew a button back on, but the economies and realities of daily life in different cultures.
Today, Katie and I visited a typical middle-class Israeli household and enjoyed every minute of it. While living in Lisbon we became cordial acquaintances with an Israeli family, a husband, wife and their two children who were Katie and Eric’s age and went to the same school. Imagine our surprise when, at the mall one evening, an Israeli teenager came up to us, looked at Katie twice and said, “Katie? Is that you?” “Micah,” she responded. “Oh my gosh! It’s you!” After nearly three years since last seeing these people in Portugal in early 2002, there stood her friend in a large, crowded mall in Jerusalem! It was a fortuitous encounter which lead to an invitation.
The drive to their house was incredible. Jerusalem is 2,700 to 3,000 feet above sea level, similar to the Appalachians in western Maryland. When the Bible talks about going up to Jerusalem, it ain’t kidding. To get here from anywhere you have to go up. Therefore, driving on a lovely scenic route going out of town took us along deep valleys to lovely vistas winding around curvy roads until we reached our friends’ home.
The house was newly built, not overly big or small, maybe 2,000 square feet at most. Like where we were living in Jerusalem, the living, dining and kitchen area was one large open room, though this house had a high, cathedral ceiling. Large windows faced a valley and hills in the distance. They set a table on the deck near the gas grill where they cooked marinated chicken wings and steaks.
Our host showed me around his house and yard with pride. One uniquely Israeli feature was the household bomb shelter set in a corner of the ground floor. We have one in our house as well. The heavy steel door makes the room feel like a bank vault. The walls and ceiling are made of steel and concrete and the window is protected by more steel. Israeli law mandates each house have such a room. When I first saw ours, I thought the owners had just been overly cautious. Thinking back, I remember during the first Gulf War watching televised interviews of Israeli families clutching gas masks, huddled in their safe havens, shelves of canned goods, water and supplies lining the walls. With checkpoints, walls, and armed soldiers in so many places, this room is another sign of the ever present Israeli mentality of constantly being at war, constantly needing to be prepared for the worst.
I mentioned I like getting into kitchens. I also love experiencing local food and beverages. For example, all afternoon our hosts plied me with tasty Israeli wine. When I first arrived, people warned me that Israeli wine is not that good, but it tasted fine to me. Then came the food. What I thought were appetizers were actually various salads and side dishes: humus (a chickpea and sesame butter (tahini) dip for pita bread) drizzled with olive oil and paprika, slices of eggplant sprinkled with salt to remove the water, dried, and fried in oil (delicious!), various eggplant dips (an eggplant mayonaise dip is very popular here), and also baked eggplants swimming in a plate of tahini and olive oil. There was also a tomato, cucumber and lettuce salad another ubiquitous bit of Israeli cuisine.
I enjoyed watching the host slice a big hunk of raw beef I determined to be a mid-level steak such as sirloin which cost the equivalent of $3.50 per pound, not a bad price, really. I asked if the meat was kosher. It was. My work colleagues who had been in Israel for awhile had warned me that kosher meat doesn’t taste all that good, but this cut was quite tasty. The next time he goes to the meat market he’s going to take me with him. Zing! One key to this life is to get out, get to know people, and let them show you the local ropes: good shops, shortcuts, restaurants, things to see, and more.
Part of what made the afternoon so delightful was the sense of closeness among the family. My friend’s parents were there, as well as an army buddy and his two daughters. The group of people chatted easily, laughed, playfully teased each other and were relaxed and happy. I appreciated bits of physical closeness: the father tousling his son’s hair, the army buddies giving each other a playful shove, the 19 year old son putting his arm around his mother’s shoulders at the table. The grandparents looked old but acted young, dancing with their grandchildren, making jokes, helping in the kitchen. At times the conversation was entirely in Hebrew, but I didn’t care. The moment’s warm embrace transcended language.
Dessert was thick, sweet Turkish coffee, chocolate cake, and a platter of dried fruits, fruit leather, and nuts, these last three ubiquitous in Israeli stores and inexpensive. The sweet ending was a suitable conclusion to a pleasant afternoon. I’m looking forward to visiting our friends again as well as inviting them to our house, mixing diverse cultures with a warm unanimity, our common humanness connecting us in powerful, memorable ways.
