Looking for Shabbat lunches

Summer is upon us, and with it, some pretty boring shabbat lunches. Its too hot for choelent, and leaving the plata on all shabbat defeats the purpose of the air conditioner. Lunches last summer were invariably shnitzel and salad.
This summer I'm determined to do better. I think there is nothing more refreshing than a good cold soup. I made a pretty good dairy zuchinni soup a couple weeks ago, although it should have been thicker. So, I'm looking for more.
In my quest for cold soups, I came across this great foodie blog, with a recipe for cold cucumber soup.
The recipe sounds wonderful, but the whole blog is really great too. It looks nice, like you would want your table to look when sitting down to a well prepared meal. The recipies are interesting - the anti-shnitzel or choelent if you will. I think I'll peruse it every week now that fridays are longer and I have more time to cook. The quinoa potato hash browns breakfast also looks delicious, and fulfills my determination to eat breakfast.
And best of all are the pictures. I want to be able to serve THIS at my table.

Thank God My Kid is Popular

My kid is one of the most popular kids in gan. Or so it seems from the number of kids who tell their parents that they want to play with her after gan. Certainly its not me they want to play with - I was never popular - with kids or with parents - and Ben was exactly the center of attention either.....

So thats great and I'm not complaining but.....

These kids play together 6,5 days a week, from 7-5. Do they really have to play more after gan? Most of them go to bed at 9 or even 10 at night, leaving their parents with nothing to do with them for so long. I understand the desire not to want to put your kid in front of a tv for hours on end, instead getting them together for play dates.


But not so our family. Eden is asleep (usually) by 8. Shes (usually) in bed by 7:30. That means we bath at 7, start winding down at 6:30 and have supper at 6. That doesnt really leave much time to visit after 5. I can manage a short trip to the park, but a couple hours at a friends house is a bit much...


Also a selfish point. After a whole day of beating traffic twice, doing my best to beat deadlines and lunchlines, the last thing I want to do is sit and entertain multiple 3 year olds. I have dinner to make and laundry to fold. My home is not the neatest, I am not my most patient.

Does Eden really need to go to bed so early? Every once in while we think not, and try to push her bedtime off a bit. But she has trouble waking up, starts getting cranky, and sometimes sick. We go back and forth on that one.

All that said, we do get together with her friends some times and she really enjoys it. She likes to play with their toys, and even sometimes has supper to show off for her friends. So we definately owe it to her self confidence and budding social skills to continue.

It proves how much she is her own person, and not just a mixture of Ben and I. As she often reminds us, "I'm not sweety-pie, I'm Eden!"

Perfect family picnic spot

To celebrate Israel's 60th birthday, we started the day by singing happy birthday to the Medina, and then left for a short hike in the nearby KKL Ayalon Forest. We drove over many many potholes (one for each year of the country's existence, per 1/4 mile), passed many families bbq-ing, until I couldn't take the potholes any more and we decided to get out of the car and walk for a bit.

It struck me how many groups there were there, starting up the bbq, at 9 AM. It looked as if some had been there since the night before camping out. I think back to my own family gatherings, often in an event hall, or in my grandmothers backyard, and that a trip to the forest is really a terrific idea. Everyone brings food, tables, chairs, takes care of themselves and chips into the group supply. I've seen other Israeli parks on Yom Haatzmaut, and this was just so much nicer. The air was clean, there was plenty of parking, and plenty of space to spread out. Every family staked its claim on its own patch of shade, and kids were able to wander down the paths and back up.

There was:
history - old water cisterns dating back to Roman times
beauty - the trees, grass, sky. Ok the good weather helps
science - bugs. And more bugs. Some very interesting bugs
and new experiances - teaching your 3 year old daughter to squat in the woods without getting her pants wet. Her father can't help there, only provide an example of how easy it can be.

Next year maybe we will stay all day and bring our own food and bbq and family and friends.

I think that Eden thinks that the Medina is the forest.

Food shortage comes to Modiin

When a can of beans costs 8 shekels instead of the used-to-be 4-something, and when a 1 liter carton of 1% milk costs the same, and there ARE no bags of 1% milk in the store, Modiin residents start to feel the food shortage. Going on like this, buying a melon and a bag of store-brand frozen broccoli for the same 16 shekels, we will be cutting down this summer on something. Not sure what yet - thank goodness those frozen popsicle sticks are still hovering .

What will I do this summer if I can't afford my extra chocolate?

We actually didn't buy milk at that store in the end. We went all the way to a different store to find our 1% milk in bags, which was, to our relief, around 4 shekels the way it always is.

At least the movies are still free. That's if you don't include the bandwidth cost, or any future threats of imprisonment.......

Where to bbq

Looking for a nice quietish place that we can bbq with some friends on Yom Haaztmaut. Place for the kids to run around, in shade and sun, and where we won't start a forest fire.

Possibly this might only be a roof or backyard....