For the Love of Hummus

Delicious, delicious hummus.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Hummus is in the eye of the beholder

A. Ha. Lan. (wasahalan, worthy readers).

Well, another Purim come and gone. Here is one of your favorite hummus-bloggers, brightly dressed in solidarity with the 5 billion other revelers parading through the streets of Jerusalem.

Now it's almost time for Pesach! Aka that time of year where we like to pretend our ancestors came from someplace a bit more Sephardi than Eastern Europe. Like anywhere but Eastern Europe. Deciding to eat kitniyot two years ago was the greatest decision both Rachel and Dafna ever made in the history of their lives. And, according to the Baba Nassi, aka the Great Ga'on of South Bend, aka some guy in the shuk, once you eat kitniyot, you can never again suffer through a totally unnecessary ban on corn or rice during Pesach ever again. Pass that Bamba, Elijah.

Anyway, before Dafna starts sanitizing her yogurt and Rachel finishes scrubbing the chametz off her toothbrush, we thought you'd appreciate some pictures. A visual round-up, if you will. See that? See what happened? You really thought you'd escape the round-up this time. You were so close. Some of these are cultural, some are archaeological. All would certainly be excluded from a Google picture search if you have SafeSearch turned on. That's just what we do.

Here are some Arab dancers/drummers/hoop skirt twirlers performing in the Old City a few nights ago, part of a pretty genius nighttime music festival in the different quarters. Some Middle Eastern, some classical, some soul, plenty of oud and a whole lot of co-existence going on.

Here was this gigantic group of Haredim in Mea She'arim yesterday. We couldn't quite figure out what was going on, but were later informed it was the funeral for a famous Rabbi who had a lot of followers. It was intense. Great place to be if you like the crush and bustle of a crowd.

Ah, yes, this is quite a gem. Pictured here is the Hilton Beach Horde, uncovered by archaeologists just today mere inches below the modern strata of the site. Notice the placement of the shells and the pirate symbols found on the sheet they were wrapped in. Lab analysis is ongoing, but we're fairly sure this horde is connected to...

...this incredibly rare, ritualistic cult pattern dating to the 8th millenium BCE. Experts consider the circular pattern symbolic of a Late Helium Age society worshiping Zoglobek, God of Schnitzel.


Finally, here we have the Yarkon River, once a major river in ancient times, now a nice place to take a leisurely afternoon bike ride when city life gets to be a little too...city-like.


That's all for now. Any more archaeology information and we'd have to start charging tuition. Tune in next time!

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Celebrating Humus


By Rochelle Mass

In Acre, by the sea, Yusuf makes it coarse with cracked kernels
crispy as pecans.

A man called Kobi serves it to me smooth as velvet in the
last row of the Tiberias souk.

On the highway, near the number 80 Army Camp they fill the center
with tehini, lace it with olive oil.

The Ahmed brothers, in Afula, run a place with a kosher stamp,
a Rabbi sits at a table near the kitchen inspecting what goes in and out.
The brothers pile whole buds in the center, add bits of parsley
big enough so I recognize the shape of the leaf.

Just past the memorial to fallen fighters, at the Golani junction
I ask for hot fava beans to fill the middle, with paprika sprinkled
over the steam till the surface glows.

On Yermiyahu street in Tel Aviv, my serving arrives ashkarah style
with a full radish, green onion stalk, an egg boiled brown.

No matter the recipe or the service, humus is to be wiped. I tear
pita quickly, twist firmly into the taupe mass, reach for
cracked Syrian olives and diced salads that parade the humus
till the table swoons in peppery sharpness
till pickled aromas challenge the minted tea
till my celebration ends.



(Jewish Women’s Literary Annual, Volume 5 – 2003, p. 163
National Council of Jewish Women / New York Section)

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Leave the gun. Take the hummus.

Whoooooooooooaaaa, doggy.

Dafna is starting to wonder if the lengthy and inexcusable absences from blogging stem from a deeply subconscious desire to turn every post into a roundup.

First of all, it's February. A lot has happened since November in our lives, and maybe in yours too. Maybe you got a new haircut, saw Elvis at the gas station, or donated a kidney to science. Maybe you walked naked into a Wal-Mart and stole a pair of socks. We just don't know what you, our faithful readers, are capable of. The sky's the limit!

For our part, we've seen a few concerts, eaten some hummus and finished the first semester. Dafna moved to a fantastic apartment off Dizengoff Street, very close to important things like the beach, and a branch of Tony Vespa Pizza that's open until three in the morning. Her friendly and physically-fit roommate is from Agoura Hills, aka where some of Rachel's family lives, aka you're welcome for that full circle.

Concerts: First of all, we saw Shtar. Yes, the one and only Shtar, Haredi Judaism's answer to...music. They were great. Then we saw the Greilsammers, who were celebrating the release of their new album, which is probably the best thing ever. Michael got a little crazy with the violin at times, but we forgive him. It's hard not to be excited when you're that awesome. Then we saw Tomer Yosef! And now this song is on repeat for the rest of our lives: עברתי רק כדי לראות.

Hummus: We went nuts at Caful, which is at the beginning of Nahalat Binyamin. They have this great, deconstructed Sabich hummus. Rachel was beside herself:


Also, there have been more endeavors in the masabchah category, and Dafna has found that there exists some vast conspiracy in which each and every hummus place pronounces the word masabchah differently, and each and every time it is NOT the way she pronounces it when ordering.

The first semester: Rachel is officially just one semester away from being Israel's top conflict resolver, and Dafna is one children's pop-up book away from finally understanding when exactly the Assyrians invaded Judah. The Second Millenium BCE question was thankfully solved when her class just stopped talking about it.

That's all for now, folks. Our fearless hummus aficionados are currently both in the U.S., enjoying the simple cuisine of their homeland, whether it be a fresh, delightful California fish taco, a slice of New Haven pizza, or this Thanksgiving dinner that Dafna forced her family to stage in violation of the Pocahontas Act of 1932, which states that all Thanksgiving-related foodstuffs, parades, giant balloons and alumni football games must be relegated to the month of November. Please don't tell the IRS. We didn't even have a whole turkey.