Many months ago a friend from Portola (Jackie Tushinsky) set up a group on facebook for people from our “ junior high era” to communicate with one another. During some of the conversations I discovered that someone in the group, named Neal Levy lived in Tel Aviv. I wasn’t sure we even knew each other then but I communicated with him and we decided we would meet when I was in Tel Aviv. So, this morning I was to meet Neal.
He came to the hotel and we had a nice chat. He has lived here for a long time, since high school. He lived on kibbutz early on, married an Israeli had two kids and currently divorced.
We had interesting discussions about the current situation in Israel. Emily joined us and it was quite interesting for me to listen to the two of them discuss her impressions of what she has experienced since she has come here.
It was another glorious day and I thought it would be fun to rent bikes and ride to Hayercohen park. I found a bike rental not far from our hotel . Renting bikes was one of the good deals found in Tel Aviv. It was only $15.00 for the day. Unfortunately it was Friday so the day ended at 3:00 p.m. Off we went to the bike path. We rode past the port and continued onto, we didn’t know where. I saw a tent, flags and lots of people near what seemed to be the end of the path, when we got closer we discovered that they were having a surfing contest.
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| surfers |
The ride back was much more difficult because we were riding into the wind and a storm was brewing. When we crossed back over the bridge that led to the port, oh by the way we never made it to the park, Emily decided she wanted ice cream. We found a place called Dr. something and had an ice cream and water.
Not too far down the path, after we got back on our bikes, we discovered a farmer’s market on two sides of a building that was also a permanent high end food market/eatery. Very similar to Eataly’s that I had just visited when I was in New York. We were so sorry we had just had ice cream.
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| the juice bar |
The outside farmer’s market was fantastic and just as incredible inside too. We tasted cheeses, olive oils, olives, tomatoes, etc. For the first time we found people who spoke English so we were able to communicate and find out where the items were from. When we went inside we saw more incredible homemade pastas, fish, cheeses, breads, vegetables, juices, meats you name it. With all this great food, Emily got the idea that we should make dinner for New Year’s Eve in our hotel room. She convinced me that there was more equipment in our suite’s kitchen then she had on kibbutz and after all they cooked meals for themselves for six weeks so she was thoroughly confident that she could do this. So I went along with the idea. We invited her friend Tamara, who was going to spend the night with us because her family was in Jerusalem and she wanted to have New Year’s Eve in Tel Aviv.
We commenced in buying our ingredients. First we decided to have cheese and bread for an appetizer. We got one cheese from outside and one from inside.
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| our pasta |
From the pasta counter we got a mixture of raviolis and another pasta that looked like loose fusilli. (see photo of pasta). This was very expensive pasta. Then we had to decide whether we would buy a sauce or make a sauce. Our decision was to make our own. So, we needed tomatoes, basil, an onion and olive oil. Also we needed parmesan cheese, which we were able to find. The thing about the parmesan cheese here is that it’s made from sheep or goat cheese and not aged very long, but it was fine. I wanted to have a salad and found lettuce and a few cucumbers. It wasn’t so easy to just buy one or two of something because most items, vegetables, were packaged in large quantities. At the bread station we got three rolls for our appetizer and decided not to get any dessert because most of what we saw was too much in size and cost. OMG, we had three bags of food.
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| the cheese shop |
Now, the challenge was to ride the bikes back to the shop with these heavy bags of food. The one day I didn’t have one of my reusable bags, that I have been carrying every day.
Oh well. We succeeded in getting back to the bike shop at about 2:59, we were late as it was and then when we got back to the street I turned the wrong way. For once, Emily was right with her directions.
On our walk back to the hotel we found a bakery that had some nice desserts so we got those as well and there you have it our dinner.
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| on our ride back |
As I’m writing this I realize we didn’t take any photos of the fabulous dinner that Emily made for us.
First she put the cheese and slices of bread with olive oil on a plate for our appetizer. Then she cooked up the two different pastas and made a delicious tomato basil sauce. We were so full and there was so much food left over. Everything was so delicious. We then decided we would go out to the beach for a “New Year’s” drink before the girls headed to the club.
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| Goodbye 2010 |
We started walking down the street and it started to rain. No raincoats on any of us. We trudged through and got to the Renaissance Hotel. My brilliant idea was to go through the hotel out to the beach. Wrong, it was shabbat so all the doors leading to the beach were closed. Back up the stairs we went and outside to get to the beach.
It wasn’t raining as bad by now. We arrived at the “La La” bar/restaurant on the beach. It wasn’t very crowded, well it was fairly early and the weather sucked so I wasn’t so surprised. We enjoyed a drink and then I walked back to the hotel and the girls found a taxi to go to the club at the port.
Well, welcome to 2011. I think it takes some time to adjust to the new year especially since I’m traveling and don’t have any time frame to keep to.
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