Breakfast

This morning while walking though the mall in Be’er Sheva, I passed one of my favorite shwarma stands. Since it was 8:45am, they were just setting up, putting out the salads and preparing for a bust day in the mall. Since I was hungry, and would probably miss lunch at the base, I decided to grab a quick bite, perhaps a pita with some salads. The owner of the shwarma joint, recognizing me, shouted out a cheery “good morning!” and the usual follow-up “what can I get you?”. I told him I was thinking about something light, maybe a pita with salad, and he gave me a dirty look. “Listen soldier,” he said “when I was your age in the army, I would eat meat the second I woke up till the second I went to bed”. I explained that not only was it a bit early to be eating roasted shwarma, but I was afraid if it was undercooked, it would kill me. He explained that a real man ordered shwarma in the morning and had it grilled, making sure it was perfect to eat. My manhood having been called into question, I took him up on his offer and had a wonderful, if slightly burnt shwarma for breakfast. I guess this is another small step to being a true Israeli….

Yemenite breakfast

Some days you just wake up and feel like an Israeli, or at least pretend to feel like one. This morning I had two fried melawach smothered in cheeses, hard boiled egg and schug (extremely hot pepper sauce). According to Mr. Wiki, Malawach or malawah is a Yemeni-Jewish bread. Resembling a crepe, malawach is made up of hundreds of thin pancake layers. It is usually fried. It was excellent, definitely a change from cereal and milk, French toast and pancakes. I am usually not much of a breakfast person, but I figured I would give something new a try. Using Scott’s recipe, I covered them in spread-able Bulgarian cheese, Labeneh and Zatar. They also got a liberal spread of red and green schug, I am really feeling Yemenite this morning.

Exploding Mazola

We discovered something interesting this morning while making French toast for breakfast. Mazola margarine with olive oil in it can and will spontaneously combust into a huge fireball when coming in close proximity of the stovetop. It seems that even a small amount, when exposed to an open flame, turns into a conflagration in the pan. In the end, nothing happened, and neither of us lost any hair. I think it was reminiscent of a Chinese restaurant, huge fireballs accompany the meal. I think properly branded; Mazola with olive oil could include a slogan like: “Now with fireballs ten times bigger than the leading brand of margarine” or “Explodes faster than your waistline!” Maybe next time we will stick with the canned tuna, it’s safer.