Klezmer Fest, Part II

There were magnificent fireworks every night at 10:00. That delighted me – I can never get enough fireworks. But in the street I saw two local children about 7 and 8 years old get hysterical over the booming noises. Post-trauma stress  from the 2nd Lebanon War, when a sharp ripping noise followed by a boom meant destruction and death close by. Their dad couldn’t convince them to look up and see that it was only fireworks. They put their hands over their ears and screamed, begging to go home. He gave up and almost carried the two kids back.

The last Klezmer I attended was 7 years ago, when I still lived in Tsfat. There had been a bus bombing in nearby Meron just a few days prior to the festival, effectively sabotaging it. I remember the dark, almost empty streets at night, with a few vendors turning out their wares in hopes of a sale. Most of the performances were indoors and almost no tourists came. This year, contemplating the huge crowds, I did think a few times about a possible terrorist attack – as I’m sure many did. But the small town was swarming with security, both plain-clothes and uniformed. The tentative political quiet prevailing right now favored us too.

Staged concerts went on till 1:00 AM.

But  knots of informal performances kept going wherever it pleased folks to stay up.

The Lubavitcher Mitzvah-Mobile was out.

And just in case you forgot, a sign reminded you to “Love Thy Neighbor as You Do Yourself.”

*

By the third night, I’d had enough of the streets and the crowds. A group of friends got a car convoy together to go viewing the Perseids – meteor showers of the Swift-Tuttle comet, which were at the peak of visibility that night. We needed to be away from light pollution, so chose to view the sky on a hilltop about 15 minutes away from Tsfat. We drove out and upward till asphalt gave way to a dirt road, and parked by a dark field.

We’d brought sky maps, flashlights covered in red cellophane, sandwiches, tea in thermoses, and wine.  Some had brought big mats and sleeping bags, which we spread out on the thorny dirt. We settled down, talking but little as the dark and the silence, broken only by crickets and distant drumming from an Arab wedding, settled around us again.

In central Israel, I am surrounded by buildings every day. I’ve gotten used to missing contact with nature, and gasp to see a few stars on a clear night. That night, lying on my back in a thorny field and freezing, I let go of time and just lived. A great Hand had flung the white veil of the Milky Way, sprinkled here and there with radiant dots, across the dark heavens; constellations were so close they seemed to walk over us. Brilliant Jupiter presided, apart.  Whenever a shooting star crossed the multitude in the sky, we on the ground oohed in unison.

At 10:00, we heard distant booms and sat up – it was the fireworks in Tsfat. I’d never seen fireworks from far off. The showers of colored lights took up hardly any space in the sky and looked contained, compared to the wildness of the spreading galaxies above them.

It broke up our silence, and we began to talk quietly. Some of us recited poetry. (I was cultured and gave “The Owl and the Pussycat” – the only poem I know by heart.) We talked about the great plantings of new vineyards in the country, and if it was good for the soil. Others told stories. Eventually, a yellow half moon rose and hung low on the horizon, shedding light, absorbing some of the star’s display.

At about 1:00, we packed up and returned to Tsfat. I was regretful. Although I’d been uncomfortable in the cold, I would have stayed longer. But my friends weren’t on vacation like me and had to get up as usual next day. It had been a wonderful, soul-satisfying thing to do.

*

Any time I go back to Tsfat, I take photos. Here are some daytime picture I took (my night-time ones are lousy, I know).

A painted sign outside the Sanz synagogue reminds you to give charity.

R. Yerushalayim, the main street of this small town, post-Klezmer.

R. Tarpat, where we stayed.

Out-of-towners set up a “Hookah Tent,” where I suppose they put other things than tobacco in their bubbling hookahs. What is this craze for the hookah, anyway, I ask. As a non-smoker, I can only suppose it’s pleasant.

Wild grapevines thrive in Tsfat, spilling black fruit over walls everywhere.

As do figs and pomegranates.

There is an extensive artist’s quarter, and lots of galleries.

But sometimes art just happens spontaneously.

And someone scrawled this little graffito:

The Yosef Caro synagogue is smack in the middle of the Artist’s Shuk.

It’s worth visiting to see the ancient Torah scrolls and to breathe in the atmosphere.

We didn’t eat out much on this trip. I had free run of my hostess’s kitchen and permission to entertain other friends, so I shopped on arrival and cooked. Actually I roasted 4 chickens and made a great stew of potatoes and sweet potatoes with onions and herbs. As guests came, they brought salads and drinks. I also baked: an improvised walnut bread. Here it is. If I can remember how I did it, I’ll post the recipe.

Our magical three days in Tsfat are behind us, but I did bring home a renewed appreciation for the slower pace of life there, the shedding of an almost obligatory tension that you feel in the industrial center. Long may it last.

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Klezmer Festival in Tsfat Part I

The three-day Klezmer Festival in Tsfat occurs each year in August. Musicians come from Europe, the States, and all over Israel to make music and fun. The music is  traditional Jewish – Ashkenazi and Sephardic. I love Tsfat, music, the night, and being in a happy crowd. We got all plenty of all that during the festival.

We – my husband, the Little One and I – arrived in the early afternoon. The city was barricaded against car access; we shlepped our duffel bags all the way across town to our friend’s house. She lives in the heart of the Old City, on the edge of the Artist’s Quarter, and close to all the shows. How lucky we were.

What we usually do when we go up to Tsfat as a family is split up. My husband is free to meet up with his friends, I with mine, and the Little One with hers. We meet at breakfast and once more till next day, staying in touch by cellphone. As soon as we put our things down and caught our breath, we sallied forth, Husband to his pals, the Little One and I to watch the festival begin. We ladies had dates with our girlfriends for later on.

At HaMeginim Square, one musician was tentatively tootling already.

The little ones got excited and started to dance.

Tsfat was still quiet, not too many out on the streets. The shows only started at 8:00 PM. But vendors were setting stands up, the afternoon was waning, and there was anticipation in the air.

Night fell and hundreds of people appeared in the streets, drifting and following the music.

We heard some good Klezmer farther down R. Yerushalayim, so we moved closer and saw this band. They were really good, playing old Yiddish crowd-pleasers – Beryl Mid de Feedle, By Mir Bist Du Shein, a weepy version of the Shabbat opener, Shalom Aleichem.

The street food looked pretty good. There were vendors selling crepes – the smell of vanilla floated around them.

Another popular snack was corn on the cob.

There was BBQ too.

Restaurants and cafés were jammed. I’ve never seen Tsfat so full – in fact 300,000 visitors had been expected.

Tsfat is a poor town, and Klezmer time is the year’s biggest opportunity to make some money. All kinds of food stands were on the streets and sidewalks. Some folks had simply bought bakery cakes, cut them up and put them on trays to sell by the slice, with hot coffee. Then there were more elaborate setups like this Asian food stand.

Me, I’m a fan of Faigy’s restaurant, The Tree of Life,  in Kikar HaMeginim – her cheesecake is just sweet enough, a little lemony, very good. And we ate vegetarian couscous there twice over the three days we were in Tsfat; it’s that good.

The shows started, all over town. Every corner had its little musical group; every square and park had a performance going on. My favorites were the Paris Klezmer trio, surprising because all the members were obviously Sephardic. They snuck a little flamenco and tango in there…I wondered how far they’d depart from the traditional Klezmer format.

And the fabulous Nashot Chava, a Klezmer/jazz/ethnic quartet, all women. I didn’t have my camera to take a photo of them, but here’s a YouTube link. I love Nashot Chava – they just rock.

And now I find that it’s almost Shabbat. I’m going to post this right now. Sunday, more Klezmer and some photos of mystical Tsfat in the daytime.

Shabbat shalom!

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Hawthorn Afternoon

To forage for hawthorns, I traveled to Tsfat again last week.

In spring, I’ve picked the pungently sweet white flowers and made wine of them – have eaten the tender new leaves raw. But you have to wait till autumn to pick the little red berries, so like tiny rosehips. Right after Sukkot is the best time to harvest them, but although it was late in the season, there were still plenty when I arrived.

My field guide tells me that there are four varieties of hawthorn in Israel. Some bear big berries, some bear small. Although most have red fruit, one variety’s berries are yellow. The ones I know and from which I’ve made jam, wine, and medicine, are Craetegus azarolus, which grow in the wadi around Tsfat and in the surrounding Meron hills.

There are several entrances to the wadi. I chose this one because just beyond it grow two hawthorn trees I know well.

You have to go through the cow gate. There’s a herd of semi-feral cows that roam the wadi and outskirts of town.They’re peaceful enough, but if they can get into town, they will. Believe me, I’ve almost jumped out of my skin a few times, coming upon them in a dark street.

Just a few meters away stand the hawthorn trees. Their leaves were getting dried out, but the berries were still plump and sweet. Someone had been picking already, I could see, for the lower branches were bare. I think I know who it was.

Not many care about hawthorn berries, but my friend Leah does. We used to go out foraging together. I’m sure she got there before me this time. How can I be so sure? Well, she’s quite short. Although the upper branches were still loaded, all the berries from the lower ones were gone. So it must have been Leah. Or maybe it was the cows: a few fresh cowpats on the ground proved that they’d been visiting.

That wasn’t a problem. What you have to do is pull an upper branch down with one hand and strip the berries off the twigs with the other. Of course, you have to have a third hand to hold the bag you’re going to put the berries into. Lacking that, you hang the bag on a handy branch and get to work.

How lovely the late afternoon was, in the waning light. The birds were already settling down, peacefully twittering their evening signals. A few pine needles underfoot sent up a fresh, sharp smell as I trod them. The familiar trees were there – my heart expanded as I approached them and memories of the time I lived in Tsfat came rushing in. I stood still, breathing deeply. Autumn. I filled my mind with impressions to store up, for the wadi is a little different each time I visit.

So I pulled a branch towards me and started to pick, smiling to think of Leah who had been there before me and wondering if she had thought of me. Every once in a while, I polished the dust off one or two berries and popped them into my mouth.

The berries detach from their stems easily, and if a few leaves go with them, never mind, the leaves are good for you too. They slither through your fingers in a second if you’re not careful, though, and all your straining to hold a branch down will go for nothing. I made myself work slowly, but in twenty minutes my plastic bag was heavy with berries, about three cups full.

Hawthorn’s most important medicinal property is that it is a tonic for heart muscle. Herbalists recommend the tincture or extract of it to people suffering from mild heart disease. Eating the fresh berries works too.

There are other pleasant things about hawthorn. I’ve found it calms down palpitations coming from nerves or a hormonal surge. It restores a feeling of calm after a shock. It’s also helpful to take a dropperful of the tincture if you wake up in the small hours and can’t get back to sleep. In a little while you can return to bed and drop off again.

Most of the berries I picked, I gave to another friend. I have lots of hawthorn tincture from previous years, don’t need to make more. I even have a bottle of hawthorn flower wine that I’ve been keeping. I’ll dry the handful I kept and infuse a few berries into tea every day over the winter. Like all the rose family, they are high in flavinoids and vitamin C – and they taste good. Sweet, with an undertone of sour to balance it, like apples. Hmm…like many things.

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Hospitality

When we lived in Tsfat, we weren’t always sure who would be sitting down with us at Shabbat meals, or even how many. We had regular guests, occasional guests, and sometimes, uninvited guests. Over time, I learned to just cook a lot before Shabbat and have plenty in case of surprises.

Apart from people we ourselves invited, we also hosted tourists and yeshivah kids.  They were sent our way by Mr. B. He would call me up at the last minute: “Can you feed a couple of guys tonight?” Sometimes I wanted to refuse because I felt there wasn’t enough food for everyone, or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood, but Mr. B. always managed to persuade me.

Once he called up and asked us to feed five girls on a tour from the States. I was ill with flu and tried to put him off.

“I might even come up with the food,” I said, “but I’m running a fever, feeling lousy. I don’t have the energy to take care of guests.”

“All you’ll have to do is make sure they have a meal. C’mon. Just Friday night, I’ll find them another family for Shabbat morning. I promise that they’ll serve, clear away, and wash the dishes,” Mr. B. said. “You won’t have to do anything.”

So the girls came, all five of them. They were about 18 years old; they wore brand-new dresses and they had the sleek, energetic, good-humored look of children from prosperous American homes. I imagined suitcases packed with expensive bodycare products: shampoos, conditioners, deodorants, perfumes, blowdriers.  What do such kids would know much about serving and cleaning up, I thought. I’m going to get exhausted and have a relapse of this flu.

But Mr. B. must have lectured the girls well, for they went to work willingly. Back and forth they went, bearing platters of chicken and rice, jumping up to fetch more drinks, not allowing me, or my husband, nor even my kids, to get up from our chairs. On top of all that, they were charming and funny and told us all about themselves. They sang zemirot in melting harmony. And they licked their fingers over my cooking. They moaned: “The food we get on tour is horrible…we miss home cooking…this is the most delicious thing we’ve tasted in two weeks. So yummy! Can we have seconds?”

They went back to the kitchen to get seconds. And went back to get thirds. My husband and kids looked at me in alarm, but nobody told the girls to stop scooping food out of the pots. They were guests, and they were ravenous. They ate everything I had cooked for the next day.

As soon as dinner was over, the girls piled the dirty dishes in the kitchen and started washing up, working with zest, laughing and singing in a fog of steam and soap bubbles. They sounded so sweet in there, joshing each other and chatting with my daughters, who wanted to know as much as possible about their lives in the exotic USA.

And how grateful they were. Their compliments and thanks still rang in our ears as they tripped cheerfully out into the night, having left every little thing in the kitchen shining clean. Almost licked clean, my eldest daughter remarked.

For Shabbat lunch, we opened cans of tuna and corn and a jar of peanut butter. Luckily, there were a couple of challahs that the girls didn’t see. Well…how were they to know? We didn’t regret it. We had enjoyed them. Besides, the story of The Vanished Lunch became part of the family folklore, and now I’m sharing it with you.

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Tsfat, Part II

I remember walking around Tsfat one Friday afternoon in winter. It was daunting weather, rainy and windy. I don’t know what errand took me out to the street on a Friday afternoon, but I know I was cold, hustling along as fast as I could. Then in spite of the icy wind sneaking down my collar and up my coat sleeves, I stopped. From an apartment nearby the tempting smell of a truly Hungarian cholent wafted out, redolent of meat, potatoes, beans, and barley in a rich brown gravy… with maybe a piece of  kishkeh sausage to boost the cholesterol factor a bit.  It filled my mind with pictures of a comfortable-looking, kerchiefed lady and her husband in his white Shabbat shirt, sitting down to the Shabbat stew just as their grandparents would have done, back in the shtetl 100 years ago.

But Tsfat hasn’t stayed stuck in time, all the time. There are pizza joints, falafel and shwarma stands, some decent cafes, and a cute little vegetarian place in the Old City, off Kikar HaMeginim. It’s called Tree of Life, and the food there is always fresh and tempting. An American lady called Faigy runs it.

Next to Tree of Life is a stand where you can fill up on soft drinks and cigarettes. On one shelf stands a grim souvenir of Tsfat’s troubles during the last Lebanon War – a Katyusha rocket that fell in the patio of the owner’s house.

The Sephardic/Arab culinary influence has seeped through the kitchens of Tsfat as rose-flavored syrup seeps through baklava. Walking up Rechov Yerushalayim, I saw this tempting display of Arab pastries. Now I’ve always eyed those luscious-looking stuffed pastries in Arab stores, but have not tasted because of kashrut. On the window of this store hung a hechsher – certificate of kashrut. How could I resist? There was baklava:

And there were tehina cookies:

I haven’t made tehina cookies yet, but the recipe Chanit has posted on her blog, here looks very doable. Think I’ll bake them tomorrow for the first night of Sukkot, which we spend with my married daughter and her family. I’ll have to substitute margerine for the butter, though. Think my little grandsons will like them? What a question!

To taste more than one of these rich, sweet pastries would give me blood sugar tsuris, I knew. The one I chose, I’ve been curious about ever since I read the recipe in Claudia Rodin’s A Book of Middle Eastern Food: Knafa. It’s filled with cheese and covered in syrup and is about as opulent a pastry as you can imagine. I asked the young lady in the store for a smallish piece, which she cut and put into a bowl for me:

It was re-delicious. But very sweet – I was glad to have asked for only a small piece. On leaving the store, I naturally asked how much to pay. The young lady refused to take payment, saying, “That’s just a little piece, for tasting – you don’t pay for that.” How like Tsfat, I thought. Poor, yet generous.

There is a scholarly article about knafa in the JPost online, here, which includes a recipe. It does not show how to make knafa dough, but reading around the Net, I see that frozen phyllo dough will do. Or maybe it’s the same thing by another name.

On Sukkot I like to make at least one festive dairy meal. Let’s see if I find time to isolate myself in the kitchen and put together a sumptuous knafa to serve with thick, steaming, Turkish coffee. If I do, I’ll let you know.

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At Last, Tsfat – Part I

Earlier this week I spent a day in Tsfat. Sefad. Zefat. There are more variations on the name of Tsfat, but Tsfat is Hebrew, so Tsfat it is for me. The hot afternoon was softening into cool evening, and the light was perfect for me and my camera. I was tempted to show you everything I saw: the views of the Old City against the hills of Meron:

Or nature photos, like this 2000-year old olive tree growing in the patio of a girl’s seminary:

Maybe, I thought, I’d show some of the unique and whimsical things you come across in this town of artists, musicians, and mystics:

Or perhaps this junk shop in the Artist’s Alley, which has local antiques you can buy for an old song

I loved this contraption for salt, pepper, and maybe za’atar…

But this blog is supposed to be about food, so I thought, “Nah, I won’t show any of that…”

So I wended my way down the winding, cobblestoned alleys of the Old City,

searching for a food adventure.

It didn’t take long. Right by the medieval Abuhav synagogue, a series of little signs started appearing, leading me on past art studios, ruins left from the earthquake that occurred 100 years ago, and historic courtyards. The signs read, with a red arrow to indicate the way, “Zefat Cheeze.” Sometimes the signs were nailed onto posts:

Sometimes one was wound around a handy electricity cable, dangling under another sign reminding Jews to keep Shabbat – and a string of garlic against the Evil Eye.

Sometimes they were painted on stone walls.

The signs led me on and on, and I followed them trustingly, like Dorothy following the Yellow Brick Road, till I found myself outside the maze of the Old City and on its outskirts, almost falling into the wadi that runs towards Meron.

I turned around. Ah! There it was: Safed Cheese.

The owner, Kadosh, says that the dairy was started by his grandfather’s grandfather. Which would make the business about 200 years old. You can’t get away from history in Tsfat, not even when you simply want to eat cheese.

The Kadosh family is one of several that have lived in Tsfat since the 1500s. Today, this branch sells handmade cheese, olive oil, stuffed vine leaves, local wine, and mouthwatering halvah.

I ventured inside the quiet workspace. The cleanliness and light odor of fresh milk spoke of centennial expertise and devotion to the craft.

I had another food adventure in Tsfat, but this post is long enough as it is. Next week, part II. Then Sukkot! Meantime, here are the cheeses I brought home from the Kadosh dairy: a subtle riccotta; a cheese steeped in Merlot wine – and never have I tasted a cheese where the wine was so present, yet so delicate – and another whose name is simple Tsfat cheese, a little aged.

Shabbat Shalom!

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Take Your Pick

All around my town in Central Israel, the trees have put forth luscious fruit. My own building’s yard has a lemon tree that gives more fruit than we neighbors know what to do with.

This year’s fruit is under Shmitta law still, so I haven’t harvested any. All the same, it’s a pleasure to walk around and see the fruit growing almost at hand’s reach, in gardens, parks, and sidewalks around where I live. In some gardens, oranges, tangerines, guavas, and quinces are so abundant that the fruit falls to the ground and just stays there. The owners readily give permission to do a little urban foraging.

These yellow dates are dry and tasteless if you eat them right off the tree. However, they magically turn sweet and juicy after being frozen a while.  They’re quite expensive in the markets – but these are free if you feel like shinnying up the date palm and fetching some.

Gorgeous citrus fruit like these pomelos grows everywhere.  Near my building there is an old, abandoned house where fig sycamore, pomegranate, Seville orange, almond, grapefruit, and this pomelo tree, grow untended. The trees haven’t been watered or sprayed for over a decade, but the fruit is candy-sweet.

We’ve had permission to take a few bananas from this bush, which grows in a yard around the corner. I like to get them green and sautee them in a little oil, when I get nostalgic for certain Venezuelan dishes.

Nearby grow some old mulberry trees, which stain the pavements with their juicy, purple berries in May. Nobody cares how much you take, if you’re willing to look like you just murdered somebody after picking. But only the neighborhood boys climb up the branches and sit there like monkeys, eating whatever’s in reach. A pity; the fruit is there, fresher than fresh and free. I confess that to make my mulberry wine, I buy the berries in the shuk. You need 3 kg. to make a gallon of wine, and there’s no way I’m going to go up a tree to forage that much fruit. Regretfully, though, I think of how much sweeter the berries from the neighborhood trees are…

A Lovely Lemon Tree, set against the mystical, medieval town of Tsfat (Safed), and the melting Meron hills. Not at all close to where I live. I include this photo because I’ll be visiting Tsfat over the next few days, and so won’t be blogging till Tuesday.

Artists are attracted to Tsfat because of its unique energy,  beauty, isolation, history, crystal air, mountain views, slower pace – who knows?  Many set up exhibits in their homes, and some have shops catering to the tourists in the Artist’s Market. Here’s a little glimpse.

Till Tuesday, folks!

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