September 2004<\/p>\n
Hello from Jerusalem,<\/p>\n
My goal?\u00a0 Your kitchen!\u00a0 While living overseas I think this should be my cross-cultural pick-up line:\u00a0 Hey baby, I wanna get in your kitchen.<\/p>\n
Some of my most interesting experiences have been in homes of people I would meet in the countries where I’ve lived.\u00a0 I will never forget, while\u00a0living 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.\u00a0 Experiences like this are part of the joy of my life overseas.\u00a0 I joke that one of my interests is home economics, not\u00a0the course\u00a0where you learn to bake cookies and sew a button back on, but the economies and realities of daily life in different cultures.<\/p>\n
Today, Katie and I visited a typical middle-class Israeli household and enjoyed every minute of it.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Imagine our surprise when, at the mall one evening, an Israeli teenager came up to us, looked at Katie twice and said, “Katie?\u00a0 Is that you?”\u00a0 “Micah,” she responded.\u00a0 “Oh my gosh!\u00a0 It’s you!”\u00a0 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!\u00a0 It was a fortuitous encounter which lead to an invitation.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The drive to their house was incredible.\u00a0 Jerusalem is 2,700 to 3,000 feet above sea level, similar to the Appalachians in western Maryland.\u00a0 When the Bible talks about going up to Jerusalem, it ain’t kidding.\u00a0 To get here from anywhere you have to go up.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
The house was newly built, not overly big or small, maybe 2,000 square feet at most.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Large windows faced a valley and hills in the distance.\u00a0 They set a table on the deck near the gas grill where they cooked marinated chicken wings and steaks.<\/p>\n
Our host showed me around his house and yard with pride.\u00a0 One uniquely Israeli feature was the household bomb shelter set in a corner of the ground floor.\u00a0 We have one in our house as well.\u00a0 The heavy steel door makes the room feel like a bank vault.\u00a0 The walls and ceiling are made of steel and concrete and the window is protected by more steel.\u00a0 Israeli law mandates each house have such a room.\u00a0 When I first saw ours, I thought the owners had just been overly cautious.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
I mentioned I like getting into kitchens.\u00a0 I also love experiencing local food and beverages.\u00a0 For example, all afternoon our hosts plied me with tasty Israeli wine.\u00a0 When I first arrived, people warned me that Israeli wine is not that good, but it tasted fine to me.\u00a0 Then came the food.\u00a0 What I thought were appetizers were actually various salads and side dishes:\u00a0 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.\u00a0 There was also a tomato, cucumber and lettuce salad another ubiquitous bit of Israeli cuisine.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 I asked if the meat was kosher.\u00a0 It was.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The next time he goes to the meat market he’s going to take me with him.\u00a0 Zing!\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Part of what made the afternoon so delightful was the sense of closeness among the family.\u00a0 My friend’s parents were there, as well as an army buddy and his two daughters.\u00a0 The group of people chatted easily, laughed, playfully teased each other and were relaxed and happy.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The grandparents looked old but acted young, dancing with their grandchildren, making jokes, helping in the kitchen.\u00a0 At times the conversation was entirely in Hebrew, but I didn’t care.\u00a0 The moment’s warm embrace transcended language.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 The sweet ending was a suitable conclusion to a pleasant afternoon.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
September 2004 Hello from Jerusalem, My goal?\u00a0 Your kitchen!\u00a0 While living overseas I think this should be my cross-cultural pick-up line:\u00a0 Hey baby, I wanna get in your kitchen. Some of my most interesting experiences have been in homes of … Continue reading