hanukah with the family, food

Tuesday (12/27)

limor and i woke up and went to class. it would have been the same as most other days, except we both had brought our overnight bags so we could leave directly for rishon l'tzion, where we were meeting limor's extended family for the third night of hanukah.

we left class around 3 o'clock and rushed over to the central station so we could catch an egged to rishon. the route was about the same, but slightly longer. i still hadn't recovered from the other bus rides, so reading books didn't last long before i started feeling sick again. i think i napped at some point, and there was a very blazingly red sunset.

in rishon our stop was at a mall, where we waited about fifteen minutes for itzik to come pick us up (he forgot to leave earlier and was going to the car when we called). during that time, limor and i wandered around the outside of the mall, because getting inside would have involved a bag search, and mine was too fully packed for me to want to open it up. i was kinda surprised to see a large blockbuster among the stores - i guess i just didn't expect it to have the same kind of international clout as say, mcdonalds, in that it would be able to replace or out-compete local video stores.

speaking of video rentals, they had a dvd-vending machine outside. i think those are the coolest idea - i've seen them before a lot in england and france, and i think this was the first time i've seen it in israel. maybe the first time i noticed it or something. but as i was browsing titles i noticed they had a porn section on the far left. there was no attempt to hide or disguise the selection - titles like "hot horny teen spanking action" and the ever-classy "dripping wet cunts IV" were just as brightly lit up as disney kids movies on the other side. my favorite though was "pubic policy", with a stripper only vaguely resembling some sort of lawyer on the cover. at first i thought the name was strangely out-of-place, until i noticed there was no "L".

after limor's dad picked us up, we drove over to his cousin's (uncle's?) apartment nearby, where over the next several hours i met about twenty more extended family members on limor's dad's side, and like all large family gatherings i had no idea who half of them were and i forgot the names of the other half about thirty seconds after hearing them.

food was great, as i've come to expect from limor's family. there were homemade souvganiot, avocado-spread sandwiches, veggie pizza, cakes, etc. i enjoyed finally seeing limor's brother snir again - he's been away from home with the navy. he wasn't as comfortable with english as last time, so limor translated for us.

every nuclear family brought a menorah, so five or six sets of candles were sung over by about thirty people orchestrated by two grandfathers - candle lighting was quite an experience.

after the blessings we were ready to go, so limor and i wandered around the apartment while her parents finished up their conversations. it was kinda cool to see a smaller (and redder) version of my sun and moon tapestry hanging in one of the kids rooms. we walked outside to the porch, which would have looked over a nice mall if the trees hadn't blocked the way.

on the walk back i really wanted to climb some lightpoles, because they were perfect for it, but i had on a thirty pound backpack at the time so i thought "maybe later..."

back at limor's parent's apartment, snir presented me with his naval hat. we had discussed smuggling out various tzahel gear, but decided against it. the hat was his though, so it was cool. it's a dark blue baseball cap with the emblem of a battleship flanked by two sharks and his division number 916. it's actually one of the few hats i've found that actually look decent on me (i'm not a hat person).

because limor's parents have cable, i had to sit down in front of the tube for a while. i didn't used to watch tv so much while i lived in the dorms (we didn't sign up for tv) but in the last year and a half in an apartment it's regrown on me, and now i feel more comfortable with it on. i came across the history channel, which was airing "the biography of foods". it was a very cool program which detailed the histories of some pretty unassuming but important foods. i missed most of chocolate, but i did catch several others. some of the most important facts:

- snackfoods involving sugar directly caused the slave trade (sugar is very work-intensive)
- chef boyardee was a real person who is single-handedly responsible for the fact that we have italian restaurants in every city. his name was actually spelled "boiardi", but he was so proud of it he wanted to make sure people pronounced it correctly, so he spelled it out like it sounds.
- barbeque is the only real american food (hamburgers are from germany), and it was the celebration of choice for such important historical events as the revolutionary war and the civil war. george washington himself threw a victory barbeque in washington dc after winning the war of independence.
- a trapper and taxidermist named "bird's eye" came up with the idea for flash-frozen foods, which revolutionized the way we store, prepare, and eat foods. before he thought of his idea while seal-hunting in alaska, practically no-one could afford or had a use for a refridgerator, and the only way you could enjoy "fresh" foods was if you lived on a farm.
- mexican restaurants don't actually serve real mexican food (no surprise), but rather an americanized version of what entrepreneurs thought americans would expect mexican food to taste like. "chimichangas" were created when a waitress accidentally tripped and dropped a burrito in a deep-fryer, and nachos were invented when wives of several prominent businessmen came into a closed mexican restaurant (owned by a guy nicknamed "nacho") and asked for "something quick and cheap" (they now outsell popcorn and peanuts at baseball games).

the show went on for a couple hours, so those are just some of the highlights i remember a week later. maybe because it was so late, or maybe because i haven't seen much english television in a while, but i was fascinated. finally around midnight i left barak watching in the living room and crawled into bed. i slept very poorly, probably a combination of too much food (both ingested and watched) and a rock-hard mattress.