This year we are alone on Christmas eve, and although Yoram has to work half the day, it is on a Friday, so we can actually celebrate a bit. I set up a home-made glögg to soak yesterday, and today when I tried it, it tasted remarkably well.
I have boiled a batch of rice porridge for later making a saffron pancake in the oven. Other than that we have some herring, smoked salmon, and palamida instead of eel. I will make a Janssons frestelse. When Yoram comes home from work we will go to Afula to buy some pork products. They have a sausage that reminds a lot of Prinskorvar. Maybe I can find a small ham and some minced meat to make Swedish meatballs.
Yesterday I stuck some cloves into a couple of clementines and that is about as much Christmas decoration I could manage this year. At least it seems like I am advancing every year. Last year Christmas went by completely unnoticed. Maybe I have some kind of tradition up running once we get kids together...
Since margarine (plastic!) is not crossing the threshold of my house there are some things that are not possible without access to real butter. The butter crisisin Israel is over, luckily, which enables baking again. To get a little Christmas feeling I baked saffron buns from whole wheat flour. I have gotten used to always choosing whole grain products of all staple foods, and I think that it works well for sweet pastries as well. It is just a matter of habit. I used Israeli white cheese (gevina levana) instead of kesella and pomegranate seeds instead of raisins, and loads of saffron!
At first, the dough did not leaven as expected since the cheese chilled the dough too much, but after putting the bowl on top of the toaster oven, things started moving. The somewhat experimenting recipe turned out very well for a first time and even the picky kids liked them. During the whole afternoon I terrorized the Jews in the house with my Christmas playlist. Christmas eve is next Friday and we are free from the kids. I am thinking about taking the opportunity to make some kind of Christmas dinner for me and Yoram. Last year the Christmas passed totally unnoticed. That will not do when I get kids of my own, so I better start building our intercultural family tradition.
We are moving, already on the 1st of January! Now when I have a reasonably consistent income we can finally afford to leave this dump flat, with its moron neighbours. We did not look for long before we found a cute house with a nice garden, although it took some negotiations before we settled around the agreements. First offer was an unreasonable increase of the rent already on the second year, as well as us having to do all the painting ourselves, but after my brilliant husband cast his spells, we ended up on no rent increase and the landlords will do all the painting. We will just choose the colours and move in to a renovated house.
It is an old house, where the kitchen, toilet and bathroom are not too modern, but that's just the way I like it. I am allergic to new houses with a modern and clinical style. Houses like that have no soul and it is very difficult for me to feel comfortable in such a house. Right now I am planning the colours for the different rooms and it will be ranging from deep fuchsia to lime green, ochre, colonial blue and black. The kitchen and the bathroom will be quite creatively decorated.
There are four rooms and a pretty large hall. Except for the master bedroom, the boys' room and a combined TV room/office, we have decided to make the large living room into a permanent dojo. However, in between practices, it will also serve as a cozy living room, by just spreading out soft mattresses, pillows and blankets on top of the tatamis. Finally, my dream comes true to be able to practice aikido whenever I want, totally spontaneously.
Now there is no nursery included in this plan and after all we are planning to get pregnant during next year, but on the other hand we will not stay in this house forever. During the infant period it is definitely sufficient, and as far as I am concerned, the TV can give room for a nursery. ;)
For you Swedish-speakers I want to share my good friend Anna Veeder's article on Newsmill. Probably the sharpest reaction I have seen so far on the Stockholm suicide bombing.
En självmordsbombning? I Stockholm? Förlåt en luttrad israel, men är det inte hopplöst ute? Känns så... Netanya 2003.
Yoram told me this morning, that the first time is the most scary one. Then you get numb. I don't even think that most Swedes got scared when the first suicide bombing on Swedish soil took place yesterday afternoon. Their naivety strikes me. The first eye witness went up to the trashed body and tried to resuscitate him, after removing a keffiyeh from his face. In the interview he said that the first thing that struck his mind was that the guy probably was a terrorist, and that he understood that something had exploded on his stomach. Hello?!? Did it cross your mind that there might be more explosives that did not trigger yet? A sane person would stay as far away from him as possible.
Luckily, the pathetic idiot only succeeded to kill himself, and he did not even succeed to shred his own body properly to pieces. His shortcomings make me think that he probably acted alone, and was not backed by any larger terror organization. But on the other hand, he might just be so stupid that he fucked everything up, although he had a mastermind behind him.
Nevertheless, those who think that this was a one-timer should reconsider. Radical Islamism is spreading and the global jihad hates everything that our freedom and democracy stands for. Imagine yourself all the possible targets. But, on the other hand, like Nima Dervish said: The ones who says that it has nothing to do with Islam is wrong, but the ones who blame all Muslims are also wrong. It is important not to further stigmatizing all Muslims for what some extremist lowlifes are on to, but we need to prevent terrorism.
I have lived in Israel for one and a half years now, and although no suicide attacks have been occurring here lately I am myself stripped off of any naive illusions from living with these people who grew up under a constant terror threat. I just hoped that the Swedes would never need to get numb. I guess those days are over.
I have switched to another web browser, and since the blogger formatting is not compatible between the browsers, the text will look slightly different from now on. It really disturbs my aesthetic eye, but what can you do..? After a while we have forgotten how it used to look. Maybe.
My first two weeks at my new job have been totally fun and inspiring. Except for the design part, I am now also taken care of public relations and promotional materials. The future plan is that I will also start doing software quality assurance.
Yesterday I went riding for the first time in almost two weeks. I was alone in the stable and I mounted Noor bareback and brought the dogs for a trip in the fields around the moshav. We were out for a few hours and I was laughing at Barak most of the time. When he is at home, he is poking for activities and stimulation constantly. He still runs away occasionally to chase cats. Basically, he needs to get a lot of steam out. However, when we take him out like this, riding or running longer distances, he wants to turn back home all the time. Every time we came to an intersection, he wanted to choose the one that lead back to the stable. When I (and Goshen) chose another path, I could really see him sighing deeply and changing direction towards us. Far down in some olive grove he just laid down flat on the ground and refused to move. Goshen, who is almost 9 years old and full of arthritis, never quits and hardly pants, while Barak's tongue is hanging to the ground and he looks like he has rabies from all the white foam around his face. Pathetic... ;)
In the beginning Barak was the leader, but not for long
For months and months I had nothing to do. Then everything came at once. We started to plan for the tattoo studio. They wanted me as a Swedish teacher online. One guy asked if I could sell horse-back vacations on the telephone. I am not a sales person and the teaching job was too much effort for very little money. What finally made me trash both of the latter opportunities was that all of a sudden the perfect job landed in front of my nose.
My new boss is a friend of Yoram, from his running group. He has a software company that develops applications for many different purposes and clients, but also applications for iPhone and iPad. He needed a designer and there I was. I have now spent my first two days as an employee developing interface graphics for his iPhone and iPad applications. I am making lots of cool stuff and I can go completely crazy in Illustrator, which I love so much. I work full time, but get paid by the hour, which I kind of like, since it gives me a better overview of how I earn my money.
Here comes the best part. My office is in Ramat Yishay, merely 5 minutes from here with a car. Besides that, I have the freedom to work from home when I need to, which is completely amazing. This means that I can go to the office in the morning, handling all the meetings and discussions with my colleagues, and then go home to the dogs (and the kids some days) and keep on working at home in the afternoon and evening. It is a bit sad that I cannot ride horses almost every day anymore, but with my flexible hours I am sure that I will be able to squeeze in a few rides here and there. And the tattoo studio, well, that will definitely happen, but it will be someone else that helps Assi by answering the phone when someone calls.
We are going to open a tattoo and piercing studio together with our good friend (and fellow aikidoka) Assi Goldstein, who is a brilliant tattoo artist (for you who have Facebook, look here for some of his work). He lost his job in Haifa and we decided to invest in a studio together with him. The place is in Yokneam, close to Kiryat Tivon, and we plan to open on the 1st of January, under the name of Skin City. We will renovate together, and then I will spend a lot of time there in the beginning, as a somewhat assistant to Assi.
On Tuesday, we spent the hole day wrestling with Israeli bureaucracy. We were not sure how to register the company, to make it as smooth and economical as possible, Assi alone, or with me also on the paper. Yoram was already excluded since he is employed and that would affect the taxation of the tattoo studio. We went to the Israeli Tax Authorities in Haifa, where we were juggled around between different people for hours. We wanted to know whether I at all can open a file on my present visa, and in that case how my husbands salary will affect my taxations. Why would it do that, you might ask? Well, in this country women are not considered capable of having their own business, so when a woman opens a business, it will automatically be written also on her husband. Don't ask me what unmarried women do. Her father maybe..?
Of course did not two persons give the same answer. One of the offices we were directed to, turned out to be manned by a previous neighbour of Yoram's. From that moment and on, things ran a lot smoother. This is something that happens to my husband all the time. I am not sure whether it is pure luck, or that he simply has friends everywhere. He is also THE negotiator. I would never do business without him. He is a walking bargaining machine and he has a way of getting a smile out of the grumpiest clerk.
Anyway, we found out that it is possible for me to open a file and we even found a grey zone that separates me from Yoram, which means no taxation calculated on his income. The afternoon we spent in our accountant's office, going over other options. How we in the end decided to register, we will keep to ourselves. Contract for the place is signed, file is opened, bank account is opened, equipment is ordered, and we also went to the DIY store and bought stuff for fixing up the place, such as paint for the walls. Things are moving forward!
I started riding horses when I was six years old and that has very much influenced who I am. Not only did it shape my personality, but it has also helped developing my motor skills and balance. I was born with a less than average sense of balance and I did not walk before the age of one and a half. Besides that, I have a visual defect that prevents me from seeing our world in three dimensions, which makes my ability to evaluate distance somewhat impaired. Both these skills improved remarkably due to all my time spent in the saddle as a young child. My balance sharpened, and I learned to judge distances in my own peculiar way, good enough for the things that I wanted to do, but not until this day can I catch a ball flying towards me in the air. Luckily, I am not the least interested in ball sports.
About ten years ago I stepped into an aikido dojo for the first time. During my most intense aikido years, I was pretty much gone from riding horses, for practical reasons. I was living in the city, studying full time, with no time to go riding somewhere. Aikido, however, had in many ways the same beneficial effects on me like the horse riding. My balance improved, and my sense of depth was constantly challenged through every attack that came flying in the air, hand or weapon. Not until I was back in the saddle again, did I fully comprehend how the two practices go hand in hand, but also complement each other.
Previously, I could feel a bit "rusty" after not riding for a while, but now when I started riding again with the aikido in my system, it was like I had never been away. The aikido also turned out to bring more quietness to my riding, and a better posture. Now, as I regularly exercise both activities, they constitute a continuous positive spiral of influence on each other.
Both aikido and horse riding is a cooperation between two individuals, where you create something beautiful and/or demanding together. In aikido this includes two humans, while in horse riding a human and a horse is interacting. What constitutes the major difference is that during horse riding it is the responsibility of the human to make sure that the horse understands what we are doing. In aikido, the responsibility is equally divided between the two partners. What unifies the two art forms is the marvellous sensation of melting together as one, minimising the signals and cues to the point where there is nothing more than pure ki flowing through the two beings, allowing them to perform their dance effortlessly. Both riding and aikido can look very powerful, but correctly performed there are no hard encounters between the two bodies.
Just as it takes patience and love to teach a horse to understand cues and to perform the exercises you want him to do, the same goes for aikido. I am convinced that a warm and caring environment, characterised by trust and joy, will make the aikidokas grow more efficiently. That is probably a provocative idea for some, since we after all are talking about a martial art, with the fundamental element of serious combat. Nevertheless, I think that an early introduction of confidence and trust, is a great way to start. There is no way around the battles with your ego anyway during the different difficult steps on the path of the aiki. This journey through crisis - revelation - transformation also happens for a horse rider. There are no short cuts, only hours and hours of practice, humbleness and an open (and empty) mind. That is the only way you can truly tune in with your partner (human or equine). When you start reaching those splits of a second moments when you feel that not only your bodies, but also your minds, unite as one, then you know that you are on the right path. In a way, also riding is nothing more than AI KI DO - the path to harmony through the energy of life.
Occasionally you meet a horse with a remarkable honesty and willingness to work and learn. Noor is such a horse. She is not pure-bred (Trakhener x Israeli Local Horse), and her conformation is far from perfect. She lacks some muscle mass on a somewhat long back, but with the right work that can be improved. Nevertheless, her attitude is worth more than any paper or perfect looks.
She amazes me in some way every time I work with her. Some horses have a lot of attitude and might have other ideas than what you are asking of them, although they know perfectly well what that is. That might call for some reinforcement to make them understand who is in charge. Noor, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to please, which means that if she gets winded up, or protests in some way, you can be pretty sure that you are doing something wrong, or that she simply does not understand what you are asking of her.
I had some problems with her left lead departure, but that turned out to be just a matter of riding her supple in her left side. Every horse (and human) has a strong and a weak side, but through some proper suppling exercises this can be evened out. It can be compared to learning to write also with the left hand if you are right-handed. Noor simply needed to get stronger in her left side and she is already much better, taking the left lead almost every time, with little support. Except for fixing the lead departures, she has started on the spin and she stops amazingly, only for the knees and a deep seat and without any rein pressure. One day I was told that she actually stops a little too good with the kids. When they wanted her to go down from a lope to a trot, she stopped in her tracks and the kid almost fell over her head! It took me one more session to clear out the difference between those two things. Now, of course, it demands that the kids squeeze her with their legs a bit to keep her in the trot. She will be the best teacher when I am ready with her. ;)
Up until now I have ridden her on a "cowboy snaffle" bit, which is like a jointed snaffle bit, but with shanks and a curb strap, which makes it into a leverage bit. I am not so fond of this kind of bit, but that is what all the horses are carrying and nothing else was available. I have used it with care and asked the horse to give to pressure mentally and not physically.
Noor is very broke in this bit nowadays and gives her head to the lightest pressure both laterally and vertically, so I wanted to give her a new challenge. I use a plain rope halter on her and I tend to keep it under the bridle when I ride, with the lead rope tied like reins. When we have been riding out on the trail I often give her release from the bit reins and only hold the halter reins. Today I decided to ride her with the halter reins in the arena, and with some minimal guidance to show her that the halter means the same as the bit, she was broke for the halter in no time. I was stunned that the transition went so fast. She gave her face and moved shoulders and hips, and she stopped on a dime from the lope, and backed up nicely. Pure joy!
Noor in the bridle with the rope halter underneath, moving in two-track towards the camera (I know that my hand position sucks, but I was not really riding and suddenly it was time for a Kodak moment and I just casually moved her towards the camera ;)
Noor in the rope halter, having a conversation with Pesach, a yearling Friesian/Quarter colt.
What I want now is a bosal, which is a more refined kind of bit-less bridle. The halter is all-right, but still not properly balanced on her face and not really aimed for riding. We don't have any bosal, but maybe I can get one myself in time. You can judge a rider on the level of severity of the tools that he or she uses. The better the connection between horse and rider, the less tools you need. Then in the end you might end up riding like this (Sorry for not being able to fit the whole video in the column):
We went to the beach today and it was a sad story. First of all, the fishing park Dag-Bakfar opened a channel through which they poured out contaminated water from their fish ponds, straight out into the sea. It probably did not contain poison, but left-over fish food, dead fish and algae was enough to make it all but attractive to step into the water. The dogs, however, did not mind, and they happily bounced around in the green soup, and when it was time to leave they stank of fish. It was not that nice and they got a nice shampoo when we got home.
Except for the soiled water, I was again gasping in disgust over how much garbage was left on the beach. What the f**k is wrong with these people? What makes a human being so disconnected to our environment that he without blinking leaves piles of garbage on this beautiful place? I simply cannot understand this. I suppose that these trashy people will not read this anyway, since their education level probably don't enable them to comprehend my language. I am so angry!
Karin in Rehovot inspired me (Swedish blog post) to make Moroccan fish, but in true Jojo tradition, I can never keep to a recipe. I just merely used it for inspiration. I planned a mild couscous that I thought would fit well balancing the spicy fish dish.
Fish: Fry sweet pepper, fresh garlic, crushed tomatoes, paprika powder, harissa and some salt in a nice olive oil, until soft. We used Tilapia fillets (St Peter's fish) for this dish. Lay the fillets (skin up) on top of the sauce and let it simmer under a lid until the fish is cooked. Add the coriander during the last few minutes. We used canned crushed tomatoes, for the simple reason that the large tomatoes in the supermarket were pale and unattractive. If not, I think that I would have scolded and peeled fresh tomatoes. You can also use fresh chili, but we bought harissa, which also brings some sourness (it contains vinegar) into the composition. It worked out very well.
Couscous: Wet the couscous with some hot bullion, after taste. We actually used chicken/vegetable bullion! Fry the onion in (real!) butter and add the spinach. Add some salt if the butter is without salt. Mix the couscous with the spinach/onion. Add pine nuts that have been slightly roasted in a dry pan.
A musty red wine is appropriate to a spicy dish like this!
One lunch last week I boldly prepared a sauce to serve with the spaghetti for the kids. During my 37 years I don't think that I ever met a kid who did not appreciate a nice tomato sauce on their spaghetti. That was until I met my two bonus boys. They loudly refuse anything that might make the food on the plate the least "wet", except for occasional uses of some sugar-saturated ketchup!
I prepared Cornelius' tomato sauce, which is as famous and delicious, as it is simple. To make it more approachable for the kids, I passed it in the blender into an orange-red creamy and smooth sauce. I poured it over the spaghetti and mixed before I put up on the plates. On the side they got sliced chicken fillet, which I had fried in fresh za'atar herb, sesame seeds, some sesame oil and soy sauce.
The kids ate, and I was amazed. However, my biggest victory came a few days later, during the weekend, when Yoram tried to make a tomato sauce to serve with the pasta. He makes a more complex sauce, with more different veggies inside, but although he also passed it, the kids noticed the difference. To my surprise, the kids said that they liked my sauce better, which is probably the first time they ever gave credits to my food like that. The biological parents food is always the best, of course, and in particular Mum's food. Yoram looked a bit stunned, but I just sucked it in.
I am so proud of the little red roan. She is a mare with an amazing attitude, very honest and willing. She always tries her best, and if she gets winded up and protests, then I know that she does not understand, or that I am doing something wrong, and then I need to take one step back, relax us both and reconsider. We have had some trouble with the left lead departure, while the lead departure to the right has been working just fine. I have no problem moving her hip to the left, but I have noticed that she sometimes fall into a cross-canter, which could imply that she has some irregularities in her body that prevents her from carrying herself properly. However, she is not lame or tender anywhere.
I have been attentive to this, but still kept on working on first getting her soft and supple in all body parts and subsequently getting her into the correct lead on the left. I have tried to be very clear with the right leg, moving her hip over to the left, supporting her left shoulder slightly with the inner rein, while opening the inner leg and putting my weight on the outer side, but nothing helped. She consistently took the right lead, with the result that both of us got frustrated.
I realized that I needed to change something in the balance, so today, instead of sitting straight and putting my weight on the outer side of the seat, I put some weight in the inner stirrup while leaning slightly forward. The horse picked up the left lead, so I loped her off while rewarding her enthusiastically. I thought it was pure luck, but it worked one more time and I was thrilled. I stopped there for the day and went and pampered the horse in the shower.
Leaning inwards is of course not optimal, since it easy that the horse will drop her inside shoulder, but I will just have to be careful and consistent with the inner rein support until her left lead departure is so established that I can start straightening up to minimize the cues.
It feels like we have crossed a huge obstacle. I like her more and more and I am almost becoming a bit possessive over her, since we are working so good together. She is not in the riding school system yet since the kids are afraid of riding her (she bucked a kid off), but soon she will. Nevertheless, she will be mine as much as I want, and I look forward to keeping on working with her.
I have been with a car this week, children on full time and two extra dogs. The kids' mother took on a holiday with her boyfriend and we have backed her up. This means that I have spent every morning riding horses in the stable, since I could drive there. There is a new horse, Noor, a part Trakehner mare. She has a beautiful red roan colour and I would guess that she also has some Quarter horse blood lines in her. She is more close to the Quarter in size and she also have a quite typical Quarter horse stride.
Noor
Before she came to our stable she had not done any work for almost two years, but according to rumours some dressage before that. Anyhow, she is a very green horse, who needs some fixing. I have been riding her every day, but also other horses, so I have been busy and happy. In just a weeks time, Noor has gone from being completely overexcited, with her nose high up in the air on a stiff neck, to a relaxed and broke horse, with a soft face on a low head, and moveable shoulders and hips. I am very much in love with her. Only problem is, that she refuses to take the left lead in the lope. She has the most brilliant lead departure in the right lead, but on the left side she chooses the wrong lead all the time, although I really disengage her hip to the left side. Today I stopped trying after a while, stepped down, and lounged her instead. I asked her to lope and first she took the wrong lead, but then she changed all by herself. I rewarded her and let her lope a few laps, stopped her and asked her to lope again, again in the correct lead. Then I climbed up again and asked for the left lead, but she took the right lead. Then I was recalling how she switched before and as I asked her to lope on a really small left lead circle, she suddenly changed lead. I rewarded her and let her lope off on a straight line, along the rail for a few laps. I succeeded to get her to take the left lead once more. We still have some work to do.
Other than riding, we also take care of Martha and a German Shepherd female, Billie. Bille, almost two years old, was given away by her owners as they discovered that she became a large and demanding dog, with a lot of energy. Duh..? The lame excuse was that the woman in the family became pregnant. Bille is now living with Martha, hoping for a new home. Had it not been for Martha being in heat, we could have had all dogs together, but right now we do not dare to leave them alone together. Alas, Martha and Billie stay in their garden and we go there three times a day. On Shabbat we took a long walk with all the dogs and Martha was constantly courted by Barak and I was constantly behind him preventing him from mounting her. Billie is a beautiful dog, with papers. She is a high energy dog who needs some obedience, so she needs a calm owner, with experience, or at least a willingness to learn for the benefit of the dog.
I miss the Swedish fish fingers. Of course I prefer buying fresh fish and prepare it myself, but that is somewhat an acquired taste for many kids. At least for kids who hardly ever got fish in any shape. Since I know how important the fish oil is, with its omega-3 fatty acids, I am doing my best to get the kids to eat at least some fish, in some shape. They eat canned tuna, but considering how lean the tuna meat it, there is no way that tuna can cover the required intake of omega-3. Salmon, Mackerel and Sardines would have been swell to get them to eat, but I can only dream of that. The white fish in the fish fingers is not that oily, but whatever it better than nothing.
Crispy breading and white fish filet
Then over to the Israeli fish fingers. The interior of these fish fingers mainly contain soy meal and a minimal amount of fish, merely for flavour. Then what's the point? They hardly taste fish either. At least the kids eat them. After buying the fingers for a while, I tried with some larger fish schnitzels with sesame seeds on the breading and they actually taste more fish, but still do not consist of fish alone. Even the cheapest Swedish fish fingers contain around 50% fish, including the breading. The nicest ones are even made from whole pieces of filet. How small the amount is in the Israeli ones, I don't even want to think about.
In Sweden I worked quite regularly as a model for croquis students. Now I started doing that here too. It is probably the easiest money you can make as long as you are not neurotic about nudity. Of course you need to be a bit creative and sometimes strong to keep difficult poses, but the longer the pose, the more comfortable you make it. Yesterday the first half consisted of dynamic 5 minutes poses, while the second half was one long pose. I was slumbering half-laying on soft pillows for an hour and got good money for it. Can it get better than that?
Finally! Today I got my first visa with a working permit - a B1 visa. But, there is no end to how recalcitrant the process is, and how contradictory the treatment can be from one clerk to another. Because, of course, you do not have your personal clerk. Every time there is a new tight-up woman with bleached hair and too much makeup on, sitting behind the glass shield. When we were there two weeks ago, we brought, except for the wedding certificate, pictures from the wedding, but our clerk for the day said that they were not necessary, since we had previously delivered a whole bunch of other pictures.
Today we came back with our last declaration, signed and stamped by Yoram's lawyer and then of course the bitch of the day asked for the damn wedding pictures! However, we talked ourselves out of it. Yoram even offered her to look in our Facebook acounts, but she rejected the offer. We promised to bring the wedding pictures next time, which will be in six months.
Now I have a permit to work for six months, but no other rights. No social security, no nothing. This means, still no baby plans. Maternity care would be scandalously expensive before I have general social security. In the end of April 2011 we will have to bring another suitcase full of proof that we actually live our lives together, as well as answering personal questions about one another in individual interviews. After that I will get a A5 visa (temporary residency), which includes ID card (Teudat Zehut) and social security (Bituach Leumi). This will have to be renewed annually for four years, and after that I can apply for Israeli citizenship.
So...
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Getting your foot in the door of the agricultural business appears to be like entering Fort Knox, so I have no high hopes for that. On the other hand, freelancing from home suits me fine at the moment. I need a little income to give me freedom to develop other ideas and dreams I have, like home-made beer and cheese, as well as the saffron cultivation. When the latter happens, at least no one can blame me for wasting my education.
If someone wants me to tune their riding horse a little bit, or help them to develop their own riding skills, I would be happy to help with that too.
I already killed my first yoghurt. The two first batches were so successful that the self-confidence went over my head. I did two mistakes with my third batch:
I overheated the milk slightly in the pasteurisation phase and it almost came to a boil. This denatures and degrades the proteins in the milk, which affects both the setting of the yoghurt, and the texture.
I waited for too many days before I inoculated a new yoghurt from the second batch. It was almost the last drops from that batch that I used, and although that yoghurt was very tangy, most of the yoghurt culture was probably not viable anymore.
After the evening in the warm water bath, and the overnight slowly cooling down, the milk had still not set. Since the bottle was hermetic, I heated up the water bath again for a few hours and then the yoghurt seemed to set. However, as I finally opened the bottle, the yoghurt was somewhat slimy and stringy, and without much of a tanginess. Nevertheless, I put it in the fridge up until today, and the tanginess has started to increase, but the consistency is not really that appealing. Anyway, there is nothing dangerous about it, so instead of serving as a breakfast yoghurt, I have used it to strain off into a labaneh, and I hope that it will turn out well. It might be that the sliminess makes it harder to drain through the cheese cloth. We will just have to see.
Yesterday I was a bit grumpy about it for a few hours, but then I accepted my defeat and learned from the lesson. Next batch of milk will be inoculated with a newly bought yoghurt culture, to be on the safe side. Then my challenge starts all over again.
A new post about my dogs seems appropriate today. The longer time they spend together (almost 10 months now), the harder it is to see a clear pattern of who is more dominant than the other. This contradicts the theory about a strict pack hierarchy and instead suggests that the packs really are family units in where roles are not changed through struggles for dominance.
Barak shows dominance by claiming space. He is very pushy and often lays down very close to Goshen, or partly on top of her, and then she moves away. He is also the alert one when we are inside of the house. Goshen is instead often the instigator when we are outside. She is the one that takes the decision to run after something, and she will intervene very diplomatically if another dog is being annoying to Barak. In the house she is telling him off if he is not listening to us, if he will not back off, or if he is begging. She goes in between and very verbally explains to him that he is acting inappropriate. When they are wrestling she is also humping him, which is something he never did to her. I like the thought that they are equal members with different roles and mentalities, instead of the dominant one and the submissive. It seems modern in some way. ;)
I am happy that they are so harmonised today. Barak is becoming calmer each day. Up until a month ago, he would frantically check all bowls until there was no food left, so if Goshen did not finish all her food, we needed to take it away. Now he eats his own food, and if she chooses to leave some, he will not go and steal it. They also never really fight anymore. That only happened a few times during the first months together before they knew each other well and trust was built.
Today we discovered a new activity to get some steam out. Not really a new activity, but a very good place to exercise it. Down in Beit She'arim there is a long grass lawn, somewhat sloping down under a huge tree. We were standing in the upper end when I saw that there were a hole group of crows on the ground in the farther end. I had both dogs sitting down facing the crows. Then I just had to give them a "sssssssssssaaahhh" and they sprinted with everything they had those 75 m down to the crows, who of course lifted. I called the dogs back and before they were sitting down the crows were back on the ground. This went on for 10 times or so and neither the crows, nor the dogs, gave up. I will try to bring the video camera next time.
My second batch of goat-milk yoghurt turned out even better than the first one. The first one was inoculated with standardised cow-milk yoghurt, while the second one was inoculated with the leftovers from the first batch of my own. That is also how it will continue from now on. Before one batch is finished, we get new milk and set up a new batch. In that way, the same yoghurt culture can live on forever. I realise that keeping it as long as possible will be something I take a little pride in.
After one day inoculating in a warm waterbath and then two days in the fridge, the yoghurt I poured up for breakfast today was almost too thick to exit the bottle, with a full and rich acidity. As far as I have understood it is more difficult to get goat-milk yoghurt to thicken, but I do not seem to have a problem with that at all.
I put fresh pomegranate seeds, linseeds and pecan nuts in my yoghurt today. The pecan nuts are from the 2009 harvest, and I just realised that we need to finish them off to leave room for the 2010 harvest that is coming up in a months time. Nuts are really an amazing food. The shelf life of nuts with the shells remaining intact are almost eternal, and the nuts inside are small bombs of nutrients. One of natures great inventions!
I believe that the only right thing to do is to halt settlement construction until the future border is agreed upon. Although I know that many settlers were encouraged to move to the territories by generous subsidies from the state, I find the settlement enterprise of today appalling and not more than an arrogant strategy to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Same goes for East Jerusalem.
The proponents of the settlement enterprise often argue for a need of the settlements as a geopolitical security measure, and indeed was this once a legitimate reason. However, in present time, when Israel has agreed upon a two-state solution, there is no morally acceptable reason to keep on building in Jewish settlements until we know which settlements will be evacuated or not. Especially not for the reason of "natural growth". If my children one day want a house, they cannot demand that there automatically will be a house for them in Kiryat Tivon, so why on earth would it be so for people living on land that is not even Israeli yet - if it will ever be.
Then the settlers claim the unfairness in not halting constructions for the Palestinians, but as I see it there is one fundamental difference. There are no Arab cities or villages in the West Bank that risk being evacuated in order to be annexed by Israel, whereas all the Jewish settlements in the West Bank are disputed until the day the final border has been drawn. Every inch that does not contain Jewish settlements (plus of course the settlements that will be evacuated), will become Palestinian territory in their future state - so why can the Palestinians not build on that land?
I mentioned before that Barak is drawn to any kind of alcohol, but Goshen rejects everything. I have found what fits her taste buds. She eagerly licks the leftovers from a glass of Sheridan, while Barak takes whatever he gets. He even licks it from the floor if anyone spills. Typical gender roles, anyone?
I notice now that I never shared it on this blog, but I did buy rennet when I was in Sweden, and after we returned home, I made a few batches of cottage cheese, from standardised milk. However, the tiny yield that you get from 1 litre of milk, in relation to the amount of labour and what you pay for the milk, makes it far from sustainable to make your own cottage cheese. It was more of a quaint experience to experiment a little bit with cheese making before I move on to some more complex cheese-making.
Instead of playing with standardised cow milk, I have now moved over to getting acquainted with the goat milk. Milk from different animals have different compositions and properties, therefore each and every one of them requires individual measures in the handling. Even milk from the same species will differ according to under which condition the animals live, what they eat, and so on. And, dairy products from goat milk are really, really healthy. And tasty! It is easier to digest (even for babies), due to a higher level of medium-chain fatty acids, compared to cow milk. Furthermore, almost half of people who are lactose intolerant are able to drink goat milk. Goat milk also contains more vitamin A. Cow milk instead contains precursors to vitamin A, called carotenoids. These must be turned into vitamin A in the body after ingesting the milk. The carotenoids are what makes butter and cheese from cow milk yellow, and the lack thereof in the goat milk is why all goat products remain white. Goat milk also contains more riboflavin (vitamin B2) than cow milk.
Two minutes from here, there is a big goat farm. They sell most of their milk to dairies, who I guess make dairy products like goat cheese, or possibly labaneh. It is not that common with goat milk or fresh goat yoghurt in the supermarkets. We can also go there and buy fresh, unpasteurised goat milk, basically straight from the udder. Just bring your own container and 7 ILS per litre.
Handling unpasteurised milk is a sensitive matter, and unless you are milking your own animals, and can control the hygiene during all steps, a brief pasteurisation is recommended. When the milk is still in the udder, it is free from bacteria (as long as the animal is healthy), but as soon as it passes the nipples, bacteria are added to the milk, mostly lactic acid bacteria. These are the good guys, that under optimal conditions will eliminate harmful bacteria, and later turn the milk into yoghurt. However, if the milk has been cooled down before pasteurisation, the activity of the lactic acid bacteria has slowed down, to the benefit of harmful bacteria, such as E. coli bacteria and other cryophilic (cold-tolerant) bacteria. In this case, the milk needs to be heated up to a temperature where these bacteria die, and after that you add a new culture of lactic acid bacteria to create your yoghurt.
Alas, I could not rely on the naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria in this milk, since it had been somewhat cooled down. I heated it up slowly to approximately 70 degrees and kept it there for a few minutes, and then poured it over on a clean glass bottle. I put it in the fridge to cool it down quicker, but checked it regularly so the temperature did not sink below 45-50 degrees. When I could barely hold the bottle, I added one cup of yoghurt (standardised cow-milk yoghurt), and closed the bottle again. Then the bottle was kept in a water bath, to keep the temperature around 45 degrees. I refilled with warm water for a few hours and then let it stay over night, and cool down by itself. This morning I could see that the yoghurt had already set, but now it needs another day in the fridge before consumption. One litre will go with our breakfast granola, and the other litre will become labaneh.
Making yoghurt from this goat milk is definitely sustainable. The standardised cow-milk yoghurt that we normally buy from the supermarket cost about 25 ILS for 3 litres. Here you get two litres for 14 ILS, and the work load is not heavy at all. You neither need to buy yoghurt culture, since you use a small amount of the previous yoghurt to inoculate each new batch.
Maybe I will try to do some cottage cheese from this goat milk, but my final goal is to start making more refined types of cheese. I will probably start with feta-type cheese, that will ripen in brine, or some mold-inoculated cheese ripened in oil, both of which are easy to mature in a regular household. Cheeses that need to mature "on shelf" are not that easy since it is difficult to adjust temperature and humidity in the air, unless you have a climate chamber. The mold culture I will just harvest from any of the excellent goat cheeses that are available around here. Making matured cheese from milk bought for 7 ILS per litre is neither particularly sustainable, but the feeling of achievement is much higher than after cooking together a batch of cottage cheese, and besides, one day we hope to have one or a few does to milk for ourselves, and then you can really start talking sustainability. Now it is only training and preparation. And a lot of fun!
I love camping in the nature. For me, it is a spiritual retreat, just as valuable as any retreat arranged by practitioners of yoga, meditation or any other movement. Or an aikido retreat for that matter. So, when I go camping, I prefer it to be in a secluded location, far away from noisy and littering tourists. We got many tips about locations from different friends, and we also looked around last time we went to the North. We ended up close to the Lebanese border, somewhere behind the kibbutzim Daphna and Dan. It was a bit tricky to find our way in to where we had planned to settle, but suddenly we reached the river, deep into an avocado grove.
Yoram stopped at the first spot we saw and claimed that it was perfect. There were no shadow over the minimal entry to the water and in the middle of the spot there were big irrigation tubes. I refused. Yoram was almost exploding, but I insisted that we moved on. 200 metres away we found our home. Of course he would never admit that it was worth doing that last drive, but deep down he was happy for it. The entry was small and inside a lovely zula opened up, with a perfect corner for the tent and a fire place waiting to be lit. There was a big tree in the middle and as you stepped over its big roots you stepped down in the cooling crystal-clear water.
The crystal-clear cooling water
We brought everything we needed from home, except for two huge trouts that we bought from kibbutz Dan. They became our first dinner, together with marinated and grilled mushrooms and a broccoli salad. The fish was seasoned with a spicy fish mix and dried thyme before it was grilled to perfection. Not too raw, not too dry. Juicy and soft. When the fish was ready we had already eaten the mushrooms and the salad, and we sat down and devoured one family-sized trout each.
Trouts from kibbutz Dan
Grilled to perfection
Right now the days and nights are practically 12+12 hours long, with sunsets and sunrises as fast as hitting a switch on the wall. The longer you live in nature under those conditions, the more you adapt to a natural day/night rhythm, sleeping when it is dark, waking up when the sun rises. We were only there over two nights, but already the first evening we went to bed somewhere just after 21.00. But before that we took a walk in the pitch-black night, only with the guidance from our head-lights. Next morning I awoke at 5.30, and got up to imbibe the early morning atmosphere. I took the dogs for a stroll down the avocado grove, and although the harvesting season has not started yet, it is merely around the corner, I found some fruits that had fallen down on the ground.
Sunrise just before 6.00 a.m.
Almost ripe avocados on a tree
"Good morning, Daddy!"
I went back to the tent to greet my husband as he awoke, and we made coffee in the finjan. The avocados were not perfectly ripe, but good enough to make an avocado salad for breakfast, with boiled eggs, some onion and spices. We spent a lot of time reading books. Yoram read a history book and I read a book about natural childbirth (No, I am not pregnant.). The dogs were mucking around according to their own needs and desires, and Goshen spent more time in the water than out of it. It was so funny to hear her as she descended. She really reminded me of a human, as she made a deep grunting sound from the sensation of the cold water. The cold water also assisted us keeping the beers cold. We tied them to a rope so they hang just beneath the water surface, with the cork sticking out of the water.
In the afternoon it was time to start with the poyke. One day before we left for the camping I said to Yoram "What do you say about buying a poyke?". He agreed, and it turned out to be the best buy we have made, and will make, in a very long time. I will never go camping without my poyke, ever again. You get a full meal, and most of the ingredients, like vegetables, oil and spices, have no problem with a few days in warm temperature. The only sensitive ingredient was the meat, but we brought it directly from the freezer into an ice box, together with some other stuff, and that ice box actually contained ice all the way until it was time to go home on the third day, in spite of the hot weather.
My beloved poyke making its wonders
with the things we put in him
Our poyke stew contained these ingredients, which were added in mentioned order: oil, chuck steak, rosemary, mixed red/green/black pepper, paprika powder, mineral salt, thyme, garlic cloves, red wine, water, sweet potatoes, Jerusalem artichoke, onion, fresh chili, beans in tomato sauce, sweet peas, and chopped parsley.
Stew under way!
Our poyke stew fed us three times. Once in the afternoon, when it was ready, second time for a late evening snack, and the last morning we added some water and put it back on the fire to give us a thick and full-bodied soup to dip our pitot in. When it was empty, I brought it with me down in the water and scraped the last left-overs out of it, and then let it dry in the sun. After we came home, I cleaned it once more with warm water, and then greased it with oil to prevent rust. I love my poyke!
The water was cold. Well, with Swedish measures it was like just before it hits the maximum temperatures possible in Swedish summer waters, i.e. around 20 degrees. It was not meant for long swims, but nevertheless, the hot weather motivated us to regular dips in the refreshing water. It was also clear. Unless you stirred the bottom up, you could see everything. We did not see much fish, but I found a cute crab that I to Yoram's horror picked up. This guy was not big enough to eat, but normally I love crab meat. Yoram on the other hand, has sworn to never eat crab in his whole life, and it has nothing to do with kashrut or not. Obviously he already forgot that our first meal when we arrived to Sweden for our wedding, was a king crab cocktail and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.
Cooling down
Cute little fellow
Both dogs were running freely when we were awake, but for the night, we put Barak on a leash long enough to reach around our little bower. He is too territorial to let run loose unsupervised. During the second night there were some people walking on the road at some point, and Barak did exactly what he is supposed to, he gave two-three low-pitched barks that said "Please, stay away from here! I am guarding my family!". Instead, he slept a lot during the daytime. No doubt, did we feel safe.
Our security chief
We had camped on the beach already, and that was great in its own way, but I knew already somewhere deep down that I would love this setting more. It is definitely more quiet, less wind, not having sand everywhere all the time, natural shade, sweet water to clean yourself and other things in, no other people (if you make the effort to find the right place), etc.
As I said in the beginning, you need more than two-three days for the real serenity to kick in, and I hope that we will be able to do that on another occasion. I let go easier than Yoram, since I am simply more used to it already. I have felt that state, and can therefore reach there faster. Yoram is afraid of getting bored and restless, but that is part of the process of letting go. If you are bored and restless, you refuse to let go. Simple as that. We deserve laziness in our lives now and then, to regain energy and motivation. It is good for both the physical and spiritual health. On this trip we indulged ourselves in three of the Seven Cardinal Sins: lust, gluttony and sloth, of which I don't consider even one to be sinful. Only part of enjoying life.
Another natural zula we found,
with the possibility for setting up more than one tent
The life of a Swedish blueberry who in May 2009 broke up from the cool and modest North, to throw herself into the boiling pan among the vibrant sabras in Israel, right in the heart of the Middle East. Adventures and curiosities are blended with serious reflections of our society and life in general.
