The opportunities to write badly and critically are daily, allowing at least a few times a week for negative engagement. This, I am not discovering anything new here, attracts the surfers much more than any compliment. In a channel that tries very hard to raise as much as possible, to help as much as it can, and beyond that, the good words are not rare. Now we just need them a little more.
And so - a few days before Yom Kippur, where the annual column of sins will arrive as usual - we chose to highlight on New Year's Eve the seven undisputed delights of Israeli cuisine. The people, obviously, but also their handiwork. Shawarma and croissants, oh well, but also a smile that emerged from byproducts of past traumas.
1. The Triumph of the Puff Pastry
Let’s start with the end – the dessert, which is officially the conclusion of any meal, but here, it has long become the reason to start eating in the first place.
There were tough years, let’s admit it without sweeping anything under the crumbs. Few baked anything truly worth its calories during those times. Those years ended quite a while ago, and now – let’s go for some patriotism – Israel is establishing itself as a sweet and crazy carbohydrate powerhouse. Yes, on a global scale.
The expertise is evident, the geographical spread is vast (in fact, Tel Aviv is now the hardest place to find a decent croissant), and the offerings are stunning, window after window. The triumph of the puff pastry.
2. The professionals
In the same breath of dough, pay respect to the professionals of the Israeli food world. Real craftspeople, paying attention to the little things and building on the big ones. For them, and especially for us.
Once upon a time, the vast majority of places provided a clear hybrid of business and only a little culinary. Today, watch over the surface and over the sidewalks entire generations of experts who want to do only one thing - to perfect themselves in their expertise, and not stop improving.
The shawarma, of course, distinguishes well between charlatans and artisans. The ice cream too, not to mention the hot pizza tubs that hit us in the face with high temperatures and a slight sense of waste, for all the years when we were content with little.
And it doesn't end there, of course. Cocktails, of course. Sushi and ramen, oh well. The foam on the beer and the whiskey waiting for a volcanic eruption from the barrels. Fish and chips and men of bread, olive oil and honey, a master of knapa and Malachit Confectionery. Blue and white perfectionism, who would have believed.
3. All the service we need
Our upside-down country can be a bit exhausting at times, but the ability to find a spot of light at the edge of every darkness definitely keeps us optimistic even in the most difficult moments.
And so, Corona, which fell upon us with a deadly press, very thorough and terribly slow in its action, left the restaurants and food houses with a very shallow pool of potential employees. On the face of it, a catastrophe. More in depth, opportunity.
True, the service here can still cringe your evening in too many places, but in many places they have already learned to live with the problem just fine, converting horrible interactions at kiosk positions to digital ordering, and hungover waiters self-service from the counter.
Obviously, this is not really a solution and certainly not a cleanup of this acute problem (what is more, the phenomenon created secondary problems by its very nature), but it is an appropriate Zionist response to a crisis that is not going to pass from our lives.
4. The heart is on a plate
And without a functioning state, the real leaders of today will enter the vacuum.
As in Corona, and as in almost every intersection where direction is required and guides are required, the first days of the war - weeks and months in fact - revealed to us who should be followed and what horizon should be looked to in order to find a glimmer, a sign, something.
It was an instinctive mobilization that took place long before other, more fundamental mobilizations. It was also an animalistic, primitive and survivalist call for a hug. A battlefield is parallel to the battlefield, but managed and controlled, organized and not prone to immoral calamities.
It was also, excuse me in advance for the creepy phrase, the absolute victory of people who never wanted to win, and a particularly painful but also particularly optimistic reminder of the Israel that was once here, and the Israel that will be.
5. Until the next pop-up
I admit, as someone who claims to follow what's going on here and mediate the happenings at a reasonable pace, I too often despair. Because once upon a time, you said pop-up and went on a journey of at least a month, usually with thought and planning and depth, and today - how could it be otherwise? - Three consecutive days are a reason to ask what's next, and a whole week indicates a worrying shuffle.
And yet, what is more natural to us than this ephemeral institution, the permanence of impermanence and the routine of the absence of routine? What is more suitable for a time than unprocessed spontaneity, and a morning coffee that turns into a stand with a menu by noon?
Whether it's a pop-up sandwiches from the north or a food truck that brags a little, a local drinks fair or a hamburger that celebrates the first week of schools, Jerusalem skewers or steaks from Tel Aviv. We are there, until the next pop-up.
6. Of champions
Even if we put aside for a brief moment your constant sentence of rebuke abroad - yes yes, of course, you terribly miss now, more than anything, a vegetable salad - in front of breakfast, it is impossible to argue with the clear Israeli superiority in the breakfast section.
Because in a world that is increasingly converging on spartanism in the form of half a grapefruit and Quaker porridge, we have long since crossed the other direction, speeding 60 km/h more than the speed limit, and throwing clouds at the traffic cameras.
With us, it's no morning and no nonsense. It's brunch, to say the least, and a land of limitless, unseeded, disproportionate possibilities. And tasty too. how delicious The unknown are already unknown and even the alcohol next to it has become mainstream. The coffee is good and the corruption is celebrating. This time she has a reason and an alibi. Another morning of life in our country, shall we not celebrate?
7. Number 1
We started at the end, so there is nothing more natural than ending at the beginning. And our starting point, of course, is the best food in the world. Yes, that simple and that true.
I admit that I still haven't had time to eat at any of the Globe restaurants, but I'm making a real effort to mark this important task. I haven't visited many of the mythical food cities around us either, that will also happen, but I do feel ready to say, and write, that what you feel in your heart and stomach upon landing in the National Airport, becomes more and more true day by day. And I don't mean to upset the taxi drivers.
It's the mixing of talents and the mixing of cuisines, the different starting points and the need to improvise in a real jungle - more violent than any other point, the passion and creativity, the life that pushes you and also the death that warns. Did you come back from Italy satisfied but wondering? Have you been waiting to land from Spain to go to a blue-white tapas bar? You are not alone. Now all that remains is to show the world, and it will come.