Homus v Gouda

The weekend is here. It feels slightly wierd saying that on a thursday, but then again people on North road celebrate the weekend on thursday, so I guess its not that wierd.

I now have a bonfide hebrew univeristy email account. Im starting to feel more and more like permanent fixture.

An intersting element of israeli society, is that they have quite a low uneployment rate. Everyone works. This means that when I get up at 10 and hop on the bus at 1030, the bus is empty. COMPLETELY empty. Me and the bus driver. For 30 minutes today he picked up one person. I almost felt like i had my own chaffeur. Except it was a bus.

There are a vairety of small challenges that a different cuisine presents. For example, people in Israel (as people in spain or italy) eat their major meal at lunch. This inevitably means a longer lunch break plus a longer digestion time. This allows you to work longer and eat a small dinner. Coming from Europe, this is upside down and it takes a while to get used to it: no quick sandwhich at the desk! Another small but difficult challenge is the lack of continental cheese. Parmigianno cheese, a crucial ingredient in many pastas (which make up at least 60% of my culinary repertoire) is not easy to come by. Most of the cheeses sold in israel are soft. Cheddar, camembert, gargonzolla, and pecorino sardo arent easy to find. Needless to say, prosciutto, jambon and serano are as difficult to find as good homus is in england. The wine is overwhelmingly from the Carmel valley (not exactly burgundy!) and imported wine is double the price. Plus few people actually drink wine with dinner (for the afore mentioned reason that dinner is a minimalistic affair).

At least the olive oil is virgin and and mayonnaise, Hellman.