Original vs forgazy...

Being able to buy food products directly from local producers is always preferable. You have much more insight when it comes to the quality and you care for the environment by not adding to long-distance transportation. We buy olive oil from the religious moshav Sde Ya'akov, close to Tivon. They have a large olive grove with olive trees of many different cultivars, and consequently they produce olive oil of different character, mild and mature ones, as well as more spicy and distinctively grassy ones. In their little shop you can taste all their different oils before you decide and they happily consult you to get the best oil for your purpose. We always buy a 5 litre can which cost 180 ILS, which is something like 70 SEK per litre, for the absolute top quality organic virgin olive oil you can possibly get your hands on. Today we bought one that makes you feel like you dip your nose in a newly-cut grass lawn.

This was clearly a road trip day and after Sde Ya'akov, we went to find one of the best ice cream places in Israel. After being here now for a while I can safely say that I have never got such delicious ice cream anywhere else in the world like in Israel. All honour to "Rönneholmsglass" and "Lejonet & Björnen" and other places in Sweden, and Italian ice cream for that matter - the ice cream here beats everything, no matter if it is made by Jews or Arabs or whatever. We went to the Arab town Shefa-'Amr, a while North from Tivon. Shefa-'Amr is most famous for its mastic-flavored ice cream (another species of Pistachio), "Bozet Shefa-'Amr", and also the Nakhleh Coffee Company, the leading coffee producer in Israel's Arab community. Only finding the ice cream bar was a project since Arab cities always seem to be built following some strange chaos theory. They neither put names on the streets, but albeit they have numbers on the houses. Everybody has post boxes instead to receive their mail, since without them nothing would find its destination. After having asked a few different persons we finally found it and this day they served three flavours, the Pistachio one, vanilla and lemon. We had all three and it tasted heavenly. Then we bought a big box half with Pistachio and half with Vanilla, to take home.

Before we left we went in next door and got ourselves two shawarma. I have told Yoram about the Swedish Arab food joints and with a glimmer in his eyes he calls them fake Arabs. Nevertheless, even if the Arabs are authentic, the food is not. It is only a shadow of the real thing, but fortunately we have a protective system that keeps us in a state of bliss by being able to forget the quality of the real stuff when we only have access to the forgazy... Without this it would be safe to say that I will never eat shawarma, falafel or hummous, or anything Middle Eastern, in Sweden never again.

In the afternoon we drove to Daliyat al-Karmel, the Druze town also close to Tivon. This is one of the top tourist traps in Israel, with a market, museums and guided tours. We crossed between American youth on a Jewish exchange trip and listened with great joy to the extremely sharp Druze sales men and women. Here you are ripped off if you don't bargain and of course most of the tourists don't. Yoram is ruthless and all the stuff we bought went for a good prize and it is still not bad business for the Druze. This is a quality I have to develop a bit further. I am still way too timid for this culture...