2016 Year in Review, Part 1

At the end of last year, I consolidated my blogging about food, travel, and life in general into this blog only. As a result, all travel posts have been here -- and we traveled a lot. Many of our trips had birds and wildlife as a focus, sometimes combining birdwatching with visits to friends or family.

I read a number of books this year, but I think fewer than most years. I didn't blog about all the books that I read. My favorite books this year were the four Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante, blogged here.

We did many things, ate some memorable meals, and visited quite a few new and familiar places in 2016. Below I've picked some highlights from January through July. For a complete description of the trips, check out each month of blog posts as listed in the sidebar to the right of this post. In my review part 2, I'll continue with a summary of July-December.

January: At Home

Maybe the most colorful dish I've cooked this year: from Ottolenghi's Jerusalem: Roasted sweet potatoes with green onions, peppers, figs, and balsamic reduction. On our later trip to London, we ate at Ottolenghi's restaurant.

February: Panama

Our travels in 2016 began in February with a week watching birds and other wildlife in Panama.

A sloth in a tree in Panama.

February: Florida

After returning to Miami, we rented a car and drove around in Florida for around 10 days, visiting relatives and watching still more birds.

Clown shoes at the Ringling Brothers Circus Museum, Sarasota, Florida.

March: Cape May, New Jersey

We spent one day in Lancaster, PA, with my brother and sister-in-law, then met Evelyn and her family in Cape May, N.J. for a weekend.

Miriam and Alice at Lobster House in Cape May.

March: Fairfax, VA and Washington, D.C.

After Cape May, we drove to Fairfax and spent a week visiting the family.

We viewed the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. during our visit to Fairfax.

April: "Birds and Art in Provence"

At the end of April and the beginning of May, we spent two weeks in France. First a tour titled "Birds and Art in Provence."

In the Camargue region near Arles: a flamingo and some of the famous white horses.

We not only went on a number of spectacular birdwatching and art-oriented tours
near Arles, we also enjoyed the open-air market in the town.
Above is a photo of a market stall selling bread and 15 kinds of macarons.

May: Paris

From Arles, we took the fast train to Paris and spent several days visiting friends and seeing a few of our favorite museums -- and one new museum.

The Musée du Quai Branly has been open for 10 years, but this was our first time at this unusual building, designed by Jean Nouvel. We enjoyed the collections of ethnographic materials.

May: Dinosaur National Monument and Provo, Utah.

Soon after we returned from Paris, we went to Provo, Utah, for a birthday conference for our friend Charlie. Before the conference we visited Vernal, Utah, to see Dinosaur National Monument and some very interesting prehistoric rock art.

A dinosaur bone with me for size.

Statue of Brigham Young at the Provo library where the conference was held.

May and June: Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel.

Just a day after coming back from Utah, we flew to Tel Aviv, Israel, for a memorial conference for a friend. After the conference, we visited Len's cousin for a few days, and did some sightseeing in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Caesarea.

The city of Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv. We walked along the sea front from
our hotel to the tower in the distance in this photo. Jaffa is the
oldest still-active port in the world.

Falafel at a restaurant in Abu Gosh near Jerusalem.

The second half of my Year in Review will be posted tomorrow!

A Cookbook from 80 years ago

"An Early Taste of Zionism: Published 80 years ago, Palestine’s first Jewish cookbook brought politics into the kitchen, along with new ideas about Jewish food and vegetarian cuisine" -- I'm intrigued by this review by Dana Kessler in Tablet Magazine.

From Martinelli's article in Forward:
the cover of Meyer's book.

I had never heard of this classic and would love to obtain a copy. A search of online sellers isn't productive at the moment, but perhaps I'll persist!

From the article:

“'What shall I cook? This problem, the concern of housewives the world over, is particularly acute in our country. The differences in climate and the necessary adjustments arising out of these differences compel the European housewife to make many drastic changes, particularly in her cooking.' 

"With these words, Dr. Erna Meyer introduced her cookbook, How to Cook in Palestine, which was published in Palestine in the mid-1930s in Hebrew, English, and German. 'We housewives must take an attempt to free our kitchens from European customs which are not applicable to Palestine. We should wholeheartedly stand in favor of healthy Palestine cooking,' writes Meyer, urging new Jewish immigrants to Palestine to shed their European identity and reinvent themselves according to the Zionist ideology. 'We should foster these ideas not merely because we are compelled to do so, but because we realize that this will help us more than anything else in becoming acclimatized to our old-new homeland.' 

"Meyer’s book is widely considered the first Jewish cookbook printed in Palestine during the British Mandate."

A more complete review appeared in Forward a few years ago: "Lessons From the First Israeli Cookbook" by Katherine Martinelli. From this review:

"Meyer repeatedly recommends making vegetables more central to every meal and offers meat substitutes for a variety of dishes from 'liver' made out of eggplant to 'meatballs' made out of soaked bread. Although her suggestions came from a place of economy rather than sustainability, they’d fit right in with Mark Bittman and Michael Pollan’s contemporary cries to consume less meat."

One can only hope that a facsimile edition will become available!

I have already posted this on my other blog, http://hero-or-antihero.blogspot.com/

Ancient Egyptian Beer, Bread, and other Ancient Foods

Kneading dough for a beer starter: 2100-2000 C. BCE

In the ancient Middle East, including Egypt, people discovered how to ferment dough made from grain, and thus to brew beer and bake bread. By the time this wooden statue was carved, brewing and baking were old news, probably several thousand years old already.

According to The Food Timeline:

"No one has yet managed to date the origins of beer with any precision, and it is probably an impossible task. Indeed, there are scholars who have theorized that a taste for ale prompted the beginning of agriculture, in which case humans have been brewing for some 10,000 years...Most archaeological evidence, however, suggests that fermentation was being used in one manner or another by around 4000 to 3500 B.C. Some of this evidence--from an ancient Mesopotamian trading outpost called Godin Tepe in present-day Iran--indicates that barley was being fermented at that location around 3500 B.C....We know that not much later the Sumerians were...making beer...At approximately the same time, people of the ancient Nubian culture to the south of Egypt were also fermenting a crude, ale-like beverage known as bousa."--Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Conee R. Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume One (p. 620)

Closeup of kneading trough. Both beer and bread were made in similar ways.

Egyptian depictions of food processing are very intriguing, and I found this statuette in the Israel Museum extremely interesting. Also of interest:

A man bearing provisions for an offering. Egypt 2600-2500 BCE.
This limestone relief from a tomb bears an inscription with a magic formula.
It looks as if he has grain and small birds and animals for the offering.

Another bearer of offerings, with flour and a duck.
Painted wooden figurine, Egypt 2100-2000 BCE.

In Ancient Israel

My favorite ancient figurine: a woman holding a butter churn on her head.
Chacolithic era from the sanctuary of Gilat in the Negev in Israel.
Dated 5500 to 6500 years ago.  

How milk was churned in these vessels: they were hung up and shaken
back-and-forth, as shown. The figurine above, and others in the sanctuary,
also used churns for an unknown symbolic meaning in grave goods.

I like to try to imagine the lives of the people who lived in this long-ago time, visualizing their possessions based on the wonderful collections of the museum. At this time, farmers and herdsmen seemed to be developing processes for making butter and cheese from the milk of their animals. The museum's documentation about the Copper Age or Chacolithic Period 6500-5500 years ago explains: 

"The population of the Land [Israel] grew dramatically in this period, largely thanks to increased food production. People lived in planned villages built near water sources, dwelling in houses, caves, and subterranean rooms. Everyday objects exhibited little variety, especially in comparison to the richly decorated ritual items produced with sophisticated techniques.

"The climate of the Negev was considerably wetter then, making floodwater farming possible, and systems of channels and dams were constructed to ensure optimal utilization of rainfall for irrigation. Agriculture and animal husbandry formed the basis of the economy. For the first time, animals were exploited not only for their meat and hides, but also for their milk and wool."

What I Want to Cook

Well, here I am back in my own kitchen, after three long trips in around 6 weeks. I've eaten fabulous meals in Provence and Paris; surprising meals at ethnic restaurants in Provo, Utah; and delightful and typical Israeli foods. I'm definitely thinking of learning some new dishes from the various cuisines that I've tried on my travels. In fact, on Wednesday I already made Ottolenghi's Israeli-style lamb meatballs -- which I've blogged about before. But I also crave food from other cuisines that I haven't had lately or foods I tried on other trips.

Here are some recipes that I've found around the web and in my cookbooks that I hope to make some time in the not-too-distant future:

New York Times Key Lime Pie. For some reason my Facebook page has been directing me to this recipe. It reminds me of trips to Florida. In fact, this recipe is very old-style: made with raw egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, and lime juice in a graham-cracker crust. So it's different than the pie I made when I came back from Florida. Question: do I have the nerve to use raw eggs?

Sunset Asian Soups. I have had the famous Pho chicken-noodle soup in Asian restaurants various times, as well as many other Asian soups such as Chinese hot-sour soup, Vietnamese beef Pho, and others. This Sunset magazine article points me to several very simple ways to prepare these. The portion size of such soups at restaurants is always totally overwhelming to me: there are so many noodles that I can never finish. So I'd like to put these soups in my repertoire. Alas! hot summer weather is on the way, and this might wait until another season. Again, my Facebook feed made me think of these.

A Banh Mi sandwich. My first one ever was at a Vietnamese diner in Provo, though I meant to try it long ago. The combination of flavors -- especially pickles & cilantro -- was really appealing. In an article titled "Expert tips for building the perfect Banh Mi sandwich" I found a list of Banh Mi components instead of a single recipe. Clearly, the pickles are something you should make at home, yourself. Other ingredients aren't that hard to find: roast meat, fresh vegetables, cilantro, chiles, Maggi seasoning sauce, mayo, and good bread. I've read elsewhere that Vietnamese bread was influenced by the French occupation (which ended over 50 years ago). The tips in the article are from a book titled The Banh Mi Handbook, which sounds so good that I ordered it from amazon.com.

Rhubarb! This photo is from my own blog a few years ago. I think I have all the rhubarb recipes I need, which are the ones I included in that post. I really want to cook some rhubarb-strawberry sauce like I did in this photo. I also want to make some rhubarb crumble. 

Beebop-a-reebop Rhubarb Pie! 

Julia Child. I noticed on the shelves of Janet's kitchen in Kiryat Ono (photo at left) very new copies of both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her old copies were worn out, she said, so her daughter bought her new ones. However, each time she cooks from them, she needs to consult her notes from the worn-out volumes.

I realize this: I need to try some new Julia Child recipes!

Finally: my new Moroccan cookbook! I bought it in Paris, but I have been traveling almost nonstop since that trip. Now I have time to try some recipes from this book. We had a great Moroccan dinner at a restaurant in Avignon, and I'd love to experiment with their delicious spice blends.

Maybe it's also time to try some recipes from my other Moroccan and Mediterranean cookbooks. I've never made as many recipes from these books as I would like to try.

The Bird Mosaic in the Roman City of Caesarea

The Bird Mosaic and adjacent geometric mosaic floors.

On a hill overlooking the Mediterranean a presumably very rich resident of Roman/Byzantine Judea built a large and beautiful villa in the Roman style. Israeli archaeologists discovered the site in around 1955, did a preliminary exploration, and covered it up until 2005 when excavations were completed. On the floor of one room of this Roman villa is a stunning mosaic with 120 medallions of bird images, and an outer band with other animals. From the Caesarea Corporation website:

"The owner of the palace is unknown but was obviously extremely wealthy. Built in the sixth century, the palace included a hall with a mosaic floor, columns, an open roofed yard and a second floor. The findings indicate an exceptionally developed water and drainage system that included inclined floors, water canals and recessed wells. The central area uncovered is 200 square meters."

Today you can visit this site in a park around a mile from the Caesarea National Park where the principal buildings of the city once stood. There's no barrier around the mosaic or any formalities for visiting -- you just walk into the park and up a wooded hill covered with pine trees, and you're there. (We found it by consulting google maps.)

I couldn't bring myself to walk on the mosaic, though it's evident that everybody does it. I tried to take at least one photo of each of the birds, whose images are repeated throughout the design. Similar birds and animals also appear in a mosaic inside the main city, indicating that the mosaic shop was set up for something like mass production! Below are my best results, with our best guess as to ID, and with one or two images of the actual bird as we saw it last week:

Maybe a crane. Maybe just a fanciful bird.

Maybe a heron. Maybe just a fanciful bird.

An ibis.

A flamingo.

Another medallion with a flamingo.

A flamingo at the
Safari Park

A goose. Probably an Egyptian goose. We saw
lots of these in Israel last week.  

Egyptian goose at Safari Park.

A partridge.

A guinea fowl. This species is no longer found in
Israel, but probably was raised for food or native then.

A peacock

Another medallion with a peacock.

A pelican.  

Pelican at the Safari Park.

A duck.

A gazelle.

An elephant.

From their villa, the residents had a lovely view of the sea.

Israeli Food and Cookbooks

Shakshouka: eggs cooked in tomato sauce, here garnished with fried eggplant,
cheese, and grilled peppers. It's usually prepared and served in individual casseroles.

Now that I'm back from Israel, I'm thinking about how to make some of the Israeli favorite foods that I ate while I was there. I've already mentioned several of them: hummus, falafel, grilled fish and meat, and salads, and I also had a few others. I'm checking my cookbooks for recipes for some of the favorites --

Joan Nathan -- The Foods of Israel Today
Sherry Ansky -- The Food of Israel
Ottolenghi and Tamimi -- Jerusalem: A Cookbook
Lilian Cornfeld -- Israeli Cookery
Claudia Roden: The Book of Jewish Food

Chopped salad served with the shakshouka at a cafe in Kiryat Ono where we stayed.

From Sherry Ansky's excellent cookbook: a recipe for Shakshouka. I've made it before.

Salads, I would say, are among the most varied and popular items in Israeli restaurants. They vary from raw vegetable salads, cooked vegetable salads, fish salads, grains. Salads both warm and cold also are components of the popular pre-dinner mezze appetizers. Every one of my cookbooks suggests numerous and tempting recipes for many Israeli salads.

Quinoa and other grains in an Israeli salad at the restaurant in Caesarea.
Quinoa has become quite popular in Israeli cooking, along with rice.

Claudia Roden traces the appetizers to Sephardic customs by Jews in Arab countries.
Arab-Israeli restaurants also serve their own versions of these popular dishes.

This was called "Jerusalem Shuk Salad" -- a version of the popular Israeli chopped salad with added egg and chick peas.

From Lilian Cornfeld's historic book (written 1962) -- the classic chopped salad.

Len's Caesar salad at Caesarea -- of course there's no connection as Caesar
Salad is named for a chef in Tijuana, Mexico, who invented the recipe in 1924.
And Caesarea, Israel, was named by its founder Herod for Augustus Caesar.

Despite its North American origin, Caesar Salad often appears on Israeli menus.
Original Caesar Salad was prepared -- with flair -- by the waiter, but as in the US,
the Israelis bring it to the table already plated.

The appetizer of many Israeli vegetable dishes, sometimes called Mezze.
Here our selection at the Lebanon Restaurant in Abu Ghosh, an Arab village.
Most of the cookbooks provide recipes for fattoush, falafel, hummus, etc.

Sabich, an Israeli vegetable and hard-cooked egg sandwich I ate in Tel Aviv.
Ottolenghi's book Jerusalem has a very elaborate recipe for this.

I'm sharing this post with Louise's Cookbook Wednesday.