Stewart: Simple Pleasures

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I’d forgotten how really good the food is in Israel. Our first meal: hummus, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, pita, and g’vinah lavanah (a yogurt-like cheese with the texture and richness of sour cream but without the sour taste and only 5% fat). Granted we ate it on our second day here, right after we got home from the store. Up to then, we’d been subsisting on rice crackers and icky-sweet protein shakes. So, it’s really no surprise that I stopped after every bite and remarked how superb the food tasted. But it really is great. The cucumbers and cheese especially. When we were in ulpan (Hebrew language class) in Jerusalem, an Israeli Arab classmate who had recently returned from the US remarked on how you just can’t get a good tasting cucumber in the States. She's right. They taste … well, more cucumbery here. Odd how something as pedestrian as a cucumber can motivate such commentary. And the cheese … ahh. There’s nothing like g’vinah lavanah. Indescribable. You have to experience it for yourself. Simple foods, simple pleasures.

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