| Where to find: -chocolate: Chocotop, Castra mall -ingredients for thai, chinese, philipino, japanese: Misrach vemaarav -spices and products from India, a little supermarket in the Krayot where lives an Indian community. I hope to have the adress very soon -good cakes French style Dudu Uttzmegin, Wedgewood street, next to the main post office, and Shemo, Moriah street and Ziv -Leibel Bakery, Hungunrian style, 8-A Arlosoroff Street, Haifa, 04-8674002, see the story below -All the liquors in the world, Markol Haderekh, Solar gas station, Ramat Yishai industrial zone, 04-9930689. see the story below -All the beers, Beit Hamarzeah, Ramat Yishai industrial zone, 04-9930874 see the story below Please write to us to tell us about the places you recommend bread, spices, vegetables, cheeses, wines, cakes, etc... |
| from Haaretz 01/09/2007
3 old-fashioned bakeries By Ronit Vered Most of the high-quality bakeries in Israel today are inspired by the tradition of the French patisserie. But at one time, old-fashioned Eastern European-style bakeries predominated, selling fancy cream cakes, fresh yeast cakes and tall kugelhopf. In those days there was a small guild of local baking artists, and all the bakers, who came from Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia, knew one another and were close friends. Very few of these bakeries remain today, but in the few that have survived, mixers and heavy kneading machines built in Germany in the mid-1950s continue to creak and groan in the back rooms. In the wee hours of the morning, the Sisyphean work of beating the eggs and baking the yeast cakes begins. Behind the counters are old-fashioned wooden and stainless steel shelves laden with baked goods that are prepared exactly as they have been for decades. Here are three veteran bakeries with a tradition rarely seen today, which testify to the power of taste to trick the memory and bring back the past. Next to Leibel's bakery, a tailor's sign offers his best merchandise - a real modern marvel - pants and a jacket for a suit from the same fine gabardine. Nearby, there are salons for underwear and ladies' hats, frequently visited by the ultra-Orthodox residents of the Hadar neighborhood, with its lovely Arab stone houses. Every morning, Yehuda Leibel dons his white baker's toque and apron and begins the hard day's work at 6 A.M. The toque is not just an external symbol, it's an expression of profound seriousness and of a generation that treated cake-baking, and in fact every trade, as sacred work. Yehuda Leibel studied the art of baking and the original recipes with one of the founding fathers of the local Austro-Hungarian baking tradition, in a bakery that died along with the man who founded it. He is also the scion of a family of bakers: His grandfather arrived in Haifa from Transylvania in 1933 and founded the Achdut bakery. His father was a member of the bakers' cooperative, and in 1957 he began to work with Koestler, the legendary Hungarian pastry chef from the Carmel. Afterward he interned for two years in Switzerland, worked as a pastry chef on the Zim line's "Shalom" passenger ship, and in February 1970 opened this pastry shop in the Hadar neighborhood. Since then he has continued to bake the same cakes from the old-fashioned recipes of long ago, making sure to use real fresh yeast and fine Dutch cocoa and to stay away from concentrates and preservatives. He works alone, creates the pastries carefully by hand and struggles to remove huge trays from the old-fashioned, burning hot oven. Today they no longer manufacture baking pans this size. In them you will find a wonderful crunchy dough dotted with the purplish-orange flesh of juicy summer plums or a light golden cheese cake, whose beautiful slanted diamond pattern no machine could create. The regular customers who sit at formica tables indoors, or, when the weather is fine, in the small garden, know how to appreciate this little time machine with tastes that have almost disappeared from the world. They are also loyal to the wonderful burekas filled with potatoes or cheese; to the Pressburger crescents filled with nuts; to the cream puffs coated with powdered sugar; and especially to the unparalleled yeast cakes - the chocolate, cocoa and poppy seed cakes topped with streusel, with a moist but airy dough and a divine taste. Leibel Bakery, 8-A Arlosoroff Street, Haifa, 04-8674002 |
| Haifafood |
| Some of my recipes: -End of summer salad (4 people) 1 pack "Salad baby", a few coarsly chopped mint leaves, 100-150g dry goat cheese cut in cubes, (for Technion people: 10mmx10mmx10mm, for other no importance), 5-6 figs cut in quarters Vinaigrette: 1/2 spoon balsam vinegar, 1 spoon sunflower oil -Boycot salad. We were abroad in 1973-75 and tried to use as much as possible products from Israel and from the Netherlands who were the only ones who faced the Arab countries boycott against Israel: Celery stalks cut in small pieces, avocados, grapefruits, Gouda cheese, some almonds/ nuts /cashew nuts |
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| The best chocolates in town, and for Aussies even Love it or hate it: |
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From Haaretz, 23/11/2007
5 beer joints The pub with the most barrels , By Ronit Vered You descend deep into the earth and arrive at a huge, dim temple of beers. This is the only pub in the country with a separate cooling room for beer barrels, which are maintained at just the right temperature. It is also the only pub with 28 different kinds of beer on tap and a sufficiently large turnover to serve fresh, high-quality beer every day. The walls are decorated with oil paintings highlighting English gentlemen, buxom young girls in German beer gardens, and the dwarf from La Chouffe, a golden, fragrant Belgian ale that is served here from the barrel alongside German Paulaner, Austrian Gesser, etc., etc. Most of the drinkers here are young men; it seems that the veteran farmers of the Jezreel Valley insist on continuing to maintain a somewhat puritan way of life. For the benefit of those who prefer their beer in a calmer atmosphere, there is the happy hour, a brilliant invention that comes every day from 5 to 10 P.M. and enables patrons to taste all the beers at ridiculously low prices. The only drawback is that there is no food to accompany the drink - although peanuts and olives are served in vast quantities. The beers are wonderful and complex, and simply cry out for food alongside them. Beit Hamarzeah, Ramat Yishai industrial zone, 04-9930874 Because high-quality alcohol is an obsession of two moshavniks from Beit Hamarzeah, the shop they opened on the main road looks more like a high-class liquor store than a typical convenience store. They have a dizzying selection of local and imported wines and a huge refrigerator that also contains some cottage cheese and yogurt and pudding, but is mainly a paradise of beer bottles. One enters this large refrigerator via two automatic sliding doors and wanders among the brands on the shelves: the three types of Chimay beer, Belgian Trappist beers that age wonderfully and improve while lying in a bottle on the shelf; Old Speckled Hen, an English beer with the smoky, bitter taste of roasted malt; dark lager from New Zealand - and dozens of types of beer from all over the world. Markol Haderekh, Solar gas station, Ramat Yishai industrial zone, 04-9930689. The nearest place to Scotland In Kfar Sava, of all places, there are quite a number of people who think that they are actually in Glasgow. Hapoel Kfar Sava fans have developed a liking for another large soccer team, perhaps not with the stature of the local team, but somewhat more famous: the Scottish team Celtic. It may be that the identical green-and-white uniforms worn by both teams have confused them. Friends in Kfar Sava have contracted a spiritual twin cities pact with Glasgow, including perfect Celtic behavior. In order to be a fan of Hapoel Kfar Sava, one of the Israeli record-holders for entering and leaving the top league, you need to have quite a bit of self-deprecating humor. You also need quite a few beers in order to handle the frustration. Celtic fans celebrate victories with pints of foamy beer, whereas fans of Hapoel Kfar Sava are more often forced to drown their sorrows in drink. They do so at the local pub Foggy Dew, or at other gas stations. Benny Krieger has an Irish grandmother and a broad network of social connections with fans of Celtic, and he is the number one fan. Frequent trips to Scotland also led him to import English and Scotch ales, including the excellent Belhaven. Maybe it is something in the air of the city that causes people to enter a world of delusions. Because another Kfar Sava resident, Edward Landa, does not allow the Mediterranean climate to spoil his hobby from his homeland in the southern Ural Mountains. He enjoys immersion in a banya, the Russian version of the Finnish sauna, while cooling his body with cold beer. Anyone who hasn't seen Landa's purification ritual has never seen real happiness. He enters the wood-paneled banya that he built for himself on the roof of his house, disappears in the steam that rises from the hot stones, and whips himself devotedly with a broom of fragrant eucalyptus leaves. After about half an hour - for most people it would be like spending time in the flames of hell - he emerges red-faced, exhaling steamy vapors and emitting strange cries of pure happiness. He drinks a few glasses of fresh, cold, dark ale, which is produced in the brewery he built on the roof, and then he returns to the banya and begins the cycle again. Krieger joined Landa after tasting some of the experiments of the amateur chemist, who when drunk enjoys reciting scientific formulas. Once every two weeks they brew the beer together, mainly dark ale. Now they have begun to distribute their product commercially, although Landa still casts a longing glance at every bottle that leaves the house and is subtracted from the inventory earmarked for self-consumption. One can taste the beer at Foggy Dew or at Norman in Tel Aviv. The roof brewery and Benny Krieger, 050-8871256, bennybeer.co.il; Foggy Dew, Hayotzrim Street, Kfar Sava industrial zone, 09-7665607 Contrary to what you would expect, this man does not have a huge beer belly. At first we suspected that he also suffered from a certain lack of enthusiasm, because he adamantly refused to get drunk in our presence. Only when we saw Shahar Hertz's eyes light up in front of the nitrogen bubbles that rise from the glass and turn the Irish stout into an enchanting black drink did we understand that this introverted and well-spoken man does in fact have a great desire for beer. He is a graduate of the academic track for beer preparation at the University in California, Davis, and his love of beer stems from years of living in the United States, where in recent years, boutique breweries have been enjoying an unprecedented success. Hertz is also a great believer in Israel's ability to become a superpower in the field of high-quality boutique breweries, similar to what has happened in the wine industry, and there is almost no one involved in the field in Israel who has not come to him for advice and guidance. The company he established together with Yafit Gal-Levy deals with promoting beer culture in Israel through beer-brewing workshops, tasting boutique beers from Israel and the world over, and beer festivals, the next of which will take place during the Hanukkah holiday. Beer Master, the company for promoting beer culture, www.beermaster.co.il, 052-4534319; the festival for Israeli boutique beers at the Hattori Hanzo bar in Herzliya, December 9-10. You enter Norma Jean. First you drink Apple Bock, a Belgian wheat beer to which apple concentrate is added, and which has the refreshing lemony taste of classic German wheat beers, together with the tartness of green apples. It is hard to drink too much of these sweet, fruity Belgian beers, although they are delicious; so continue with a glass of Edelweiss, an Austrian wheat beer with complex flavors that come from alpine herbs. With it, you eat dishes in which it is an ingredient: strongly flavored slices of matjes herring or mussels with bacon. Afterward you continue with the English and Scotch ales, Belhaven or Newcastle, which are somewhat fruity but also have rich flavors of earth and roasted malt. They are accompanied by homemade Irish sausages with sauerkraut and kimmel, cooked in beer. The darker, heavier beers, with their caressing, foamy texture - like Beamish, the least familiar and least bitter Irish stout - will sit well before the grand finale: a bottle of Sami Klaus, an Austrian dessert beer served with a platter of ripe cheeses. This unique dark lager, the strongest lager in the world, is produced only one day a year, on December 6, St. Nicholas Day (our old friend Santa Klaus), and is aged for 10 months. The flavor and the feeling are unlike any beer you have known: This is a thick beer, rich with the flavors of roasted malt, honey and caramel, that goes wonderfully with ripe blue cheese, and even with chocolate. This recommendation for a private beer-tasting trip is only one of dozens of possible variations from the huge selection in this quiet and pleasant pub, which often is the scene of workshops and other beer events. The owner's commitment to beer culture also includes the neighborhood bar Norman in Kerem Hatemanim, and a company that distributes high-quality imported beers. Norma Jean, 23 Eliphelet Street, Tel Aviv, 03-6837383 |
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| Caper flower, growing wild on the Carmel |