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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...
My saffron buns
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 crisis in 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
Goshen is not a quitter
