Monthly Archives: April 2014

Cheesy mushroom lasagna

I’ve never made a lasagna before but this seemed like a good use for the Italian Velvet pioppini mushrooms, and I thought the Trumpet royales would be a nice meaty addition. I found this recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty, and he claims that it’s the very best cheesy lasagna, and who am I to argue with Ottolenghi? This is definitely not a dish to make if you are watching your waistline, since it involves LOTS of butter and LOTS of different kinds of cheeses. I usually prefer to cook the lighter middle eastern themed dishes, but I figured I should include at least one rich, decadent, creamy recipe with my mushrooms! Besides, this is a great dish to feed a crowd, which was great, since I invited 5 lovely ladies to enjoy the meal with me.

Toasting to ladies and mushrooms!

This dish is also pretty involved and requires lots of different components and long cooking times, so we enjoyed some wine and crostinis with butter and sauteed mushrooms while the food cooked. Ottolenghi suggests using porcinis and assorted mixed mushrooms for this dish, but the Velvet pioppini and Trumpet royale mushrooms worked great! First I preheated the oven to 350 F, then I cut and sauteed the Trumpet royale mushrooms in butter:

Trumpet royale mushrooms

I used some of these for the appetizer crostinis, and the rest I saved for the lasagna. Next I cut and sauteed the pioppini mushrooms in butter and added a few springs of thyme.

Once the mushrooms were cooked, I added 2 tbsp chopped tarragon and 4 tbsp chopped parsley, and set it aside for later. Don’t the mushrooms look tasty with all of the bright green herbs?

Sauteed mushrooms in butter, with thyme, parsley, and tarragon.

Next I made the bechamel, which of course I had never made before. It involves – you guessed it – lots of butter! After melting 5 tbsp of butter and adding a chopped shallot, which I cooked for a minute, then I had to add 0.5 cup flour and stir continuously for 2 minutes. This is the part where things got a bit tricky and I’m not quite sure I did everything right. You are supposed to add 2.5 cups of milk, 0.5 tsp salt, whisk until boiling, then simmer for 10 minutes. This seemed to reduce a lot and didn’t make nearly as much bechamel as I thought I was supposed to have for this lasagna. Granted, we were supposed to add 6oz of Gruyere to the bechamel, which I did not do because one of my friends accidentally brought smoked Gouda instead of Gruyere and I thought the smoked Gouda would overwhelm the dish so I just left it out. Perhaps that would have made a large difference in volume and I would have had a lot more ooey gooey lasagna. So this lasagna only had 4 types of cheese instead of 5! Oh well :) The bechamel is supposed to coat the bottom of the lasagna pan, and is supposed to top every layer of the lasagna, but we definitely did not have enough to top every layer. Here I am chopping the butter for the bechamel:

Cutting up butter for the bechamel

For the next layer of the lasagna, I mixed 13 oz of ricotta with an egg, 3 tbsp of the bechamel sauce, and 5 oz of feta. For the noodles I substituted whole wheat lasagna for spinach lasagna, which I could not find anywhere. My friend Stella graciously boiled each lasagna noodle for a few minutes before I layered them into the lasagna. There seems to be a lot of room for flexibility when it comes to layering a lasagna. Clearly it depends on the size of the pan you use and the size of the noodles, so my lasagna only ended up having 3 layers of noodles and one layer of bechamel sauce to coat the bottom. After coating the bottom with the bechamel, then adding a layer of lasagna noodles, I then spread the ricotta/feta/egg mixture on top.

Spreading the ricotta/feta/egg mixture on top of the lasagna noodles

Next, I added the mushroom and herb mixture.

Mushrooms sauteed in butter and herbs layered into the lasagna

On top of the mushrooms we added shredded Mozarella:

Lasagna noodles layered with ricotta/egg/feta mixture, mushrooms and herbs, and shredded mozzarella

I made two such layers, then added another layer of noodles and topped with more mozzarella and some parmesan (told you this recipe involved lots of cheese!). Then I covered the lasagna in foil, and baked it for 40 minutes at 350 F (thankfully I had preheated the oven!). After 40 minutes you are supposed to remove the foil and leave in for another 10 minutes. At this point the parmesan came out nice and golden:

Mushroom lasagna topped with shredded mozzarella and parmesan

After 40 minutes my friends were a bit antsy, and it was not very easy getting them to wait the required 10 minute resting period after the lasagna came out of the oven. I fed them arugula and tomato salad while they waited for the lasagna, which was a nice pairing (thanks to Ottolenghi for the tip!). Here’s all my friends eating the salad while they eagerly awaited the lasagna:

Stella, Claire, Simone, Lauren, and Meera waiting for the lasagna to come out!

Needless to say, they were very excited once I finally let them cut into it:

Mushroom and cheese lasagna

The lasagna was very cheesy and rich:

Overall, it was a very fun night filled with decadent cheesy mushroom lasagna, wine, and good friends. Here’s to mushrooms and girlfriends – two things I could definitely never do without!

Marinated mushrooms with walnut and tahini yogurt, chermoula eggplant with bulgur and yogurt, and butternut squash and tahini dip

I know you’ve all been anxious to hear about the meals that I made with my mushrooms from Gourmet Mushrooms, Inc :P No fear, here is the first installation :) For this meal I looked to my main man Yotam Ottolenghi for inspiration and found an awesome recipe in Plenty featuring the brown clamshell mushroom. I was so inspired that I decided to make 2 other dishes to accompany it. Admittedly, this meal was a bit ambitious. It took 3 hours + to make all this stuff. There were many extended periods of roasting things in the oven and letting things marinade, so plan accordingly. The butternut squash and tahini dip is just an amazing mezze (AKA a middle eastern small plate or appetizer) that goes well as a spread for pita or carrots on any occasion. It’s really just an unexpected and spectacular dish that is sure to be a crowd pleaser. It is also relatively simple to make and makes a huge batch that presumably could be frozen or used as an appetizer at a large party. The chermoula eggplant with bulgur and yogurt is a bit of an involved recipe, but it went really well with the marinated mushrooms with tahini and walnuts dish, which was fortunately super easy to make.

The first dish I made on Saturday, was the Butternut squash and tahini dip from Jerusalem because the butternut squash needs to be roasted in the oven for over an hour. This happens to be the first dish that I made from Jerusalem back in December, and is the dish that inspired me to buy the book! This dip is seriously the bomb. Also, I was really excited to finally get an excuse to use the date syrup that I bought in Israel at the duty free store with my last shekels right before I hopped on the plane back to the US :)

Date syrup is an essential ingredient for the butternut squash and tahini dip

This to-die-for dip is actually pretty simple to make. Basically, you peel and chop up a huge butternut squash, cover it in 3 tbsp olive oil and 1 tsp cinnamon and 0.5 tsp salt, then roast it in the oven at 400 F for a really long time until it gets soft (70-80 min). Once it’s soft, add 0.5 cup Greek yogurt, 5 tbsp tahini, and 2 garlic cloves, crushed. Then the hard part is finding a tool to blend it with. I don’t have a food processor, but fortunately my hand held immersion blender worked really well for this. I seriously recommend buying an immersion blender. They are super useful and versatile!

This dip is so good and really unexpected. You expect hummus and then get this sweet butternut squash concoction. What really sets this dish apart and raises it to the next level is the addition of date syrup. It’s really not optional here; the dish simply isn’t as good without it! So find yourself a middle eastern market or fly to Israel, but get yourself some decadent date syrup to add to this dish :) Then sprinkle with white and black sesame seeds for the finishing touches. It’s really good with pita and carrots, and this week I will learn how it tastes as an accompaniment to matzah :)

The second dish I made was the Chermoula eggplant with bulgur and yogurt from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem. Luckily, my oven was already pre-heated to 400 F from the butternut squash, so I just added the eggplant to the oven with the squash for efficiency. Before sticking them in the oven, cut the eggplants in half and cut deep criss crosses into them with a knife:

Scored eggplant with deep criss crosses

Next, make the chermoula by mixing together 2 crushed cloves of garlic (if you don’t have one, go out and buy yourself a garlic press, they are great!), 2 tsp cumin, 2 tsp coriander, 1 tsp chilli flakes, 1 tsp paprika, approximately half a cup of olive oil, 0.5 tsp salt and 2 tbsp of finely chopped preserved lemon peel. So the lemon peel for me was too much of a hassle to make (it involves canning and storing the peel for over a week), and I just could not find it in any store, so I just added some lemon zest to the chermoula. Then you have to carefully spoon the chermoula over the scored eggplant halves:

Scored eggplant with chermoula

Next, leave the eggplant in the oven for a long time. It took way more than 40 minutes to get the eggplant to the desired soft texture for me. I think it’s best when it’s fully cooked through and mushy and the color changes from white to a greenish wet looking hue. For me this took closer to 50-60 minutes. My advice is to keep checking on it and better to leave it longer than risk eating undercooked eggplant, which is really not great.

While the eggplant is cooking, add 2/3 cup of boiling water to 1 cup of bulgur and soak 1/3 cup golden raisins in warm water for 10 minutes. Next add herbs (I didn’t happen to have cilantro and some of my friends hate it so I just stuck to mint for this one), 1/3 cup halved pitted green olives, 1/3 cup slivered almonds (thank you, Berkeley bowl bulk aisle!), 3 chopped spring onions, 1.5 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice, and a pinch of salt to the bulgur and raisins.

Bulgur with slivered almonds, golden raisins, herbs, green olives, and lemon juice

When the eggplant is fully cooked it will look something like this:

Add a scoop of the yummy bulgur mixture:

For the final touch, add a dollop of Greek yogurt and some sprigs of mint (I just got a potted mint plant and I’m so excited about it!). Isn’t that beautiful? It also served as a beautiful complement to the marinated mushrooms, which I’m sure you’ve all been patiently waiting to read about :)

I found this recipe for Marinated mushrooms with walnut and tahini yogurt while perusing Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty and Jerusalem for recipe ideas for my mushrooms. This sounded like a great use for my brown clamshell AKA shimeji mushrooms. For this one you also have to do some advanced preparations, which unfortunately I did not realize until the last minute. You need to mix up the marinade and pour it over the mushrooms and let them marinade for up to an hour before serving. Since I did not realize this at first, I only let them sit for 30 minutes before eating them for dinner because it was already so late. Luckily, they had tons of time to marinate over night and were way better the next day when I brought the majority of the mushrooms to a lab pot luck party :) The marinade consists of 1/3 cup olive oil, 1 tbsp white wine vinegar, 1 tbsp maple syrup (I always only use pure maple syrup – I lived on a farm for 4 months in high school and we made maple syrup ourselves from maple trees and now I could never go back to the fake stuff!), juice of one lemon, and 0.5 tsp salt. After the mushrooms have marinated, add 3 cups of fava beans and 2/3 cup walnuts. I’ve found fava beans super hard to find, so I just used the canned version. I also did not bother removing the skins, because really, who has time for that? Besides, all the nutrients are in the skins anyway :)

Marinated mushrooms with walnuts and fava beans

To complete the dish, whisk together 0.5 cup Greek yogurt with 2.5 tbsp tahini, 1 small garlic clove, juice of another lemon, and some salt. Then add a dollop of that to the mushrooms and sprinkle with dill and oregano. This dish goes really well with the chermoula eggplant dish. They complement each other very nicely :)

I cooked this huge feast on Saturday evening, and then I invited over my friend Meera to enjoy the dishes on Sunday early afternoon before I brought the rest of the mushrooms to the lab potluck party. Meera is the one who inspired me to get Jerusalem in the first place, and I love inviting her over because she always very enthusiastically enjoys all of my dishes :) So thanks, Meera, for inspiring me to buy Yotam Ottolenghi’s books in the first place, and for enthusiastically taste testing all three of my mushroom themed feasts this week!

Free mushrooms from Gourmet Mushrooms, Inc!

In a previous post, I talked about my trip to Santa Rosa in Sonoma County to give a talk to the Sonoma County Mycological Association on my research on fungal diversity in Yosemite. While there, I made a connection with Justin Reyes, who works for Gourmet Mushrooms Inc. Justin kindly sent me some mushrooms for me to cook with! I was super excited to try out some new mushroom themed recipes, and I cooked 3 mushroom themed feasts featuring these mushrooms. Last Wednesday night, I made mushroom lasagna with the Velvet Pioppini and the Trumpet Royale mushrooms for 5 of my girl friends. Thursday night, I made an epically good barbequed Maitake Frondosa with Mee Goreng for my friends Meera and Judy, who enthusiastically gobbled it up. With the brown clamshells I found a delicious sounding recipe for marinated mushrooms with walnut and tahini yogurt in Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty. Look forward to some awesome mushroom filled posts :) Here is some mushroom photography for you to enjoy!

Trumpet royale:

2014-04-05 15.10.34

Brown clamshell AKA shimeji:

Brown clamshell mushrooms

Velvet Pioppini:

Velvet Pioppini

Maitake Frondosa:

A note on their ecology:

Since I’m a mycologist, I can’t help but take a minute to comment on their ecology. I’m actually not familiar with any of these mushrooms and have never cooked with any of them before. The reason for this is that I was trained to identify California mushrooms, and none of these mushrooms are native to California. As their names suggest, Pioppini are Italian and the other three originate in Asia. Another reason that I’m not as familiar with these particular mushrooms is that they are all cultivated mushrooms, and they are saprophytic, which means that their ecological role is to decompose dead material and recycle nutrients. This environment is relatively easy to reproduce in culture and thus saprotrophs are readily cultivated. I study ectomycorrhizal fungi, which are mutualistically associated with trees, and thus have to be foraged in the wild order for us to find them since we can’t readily reproduce the environment of a tree in culture. We need wild in tact forests in order to find the prized edible ectomycorrhizal mushrooms such as chanterelles, porcinis, and truffles. So just another reason in favor of forest conservation :)

Can’t wait to tell you all about my three mushroom themed feasts!

Eating my way through Israel: Part 2

I know you’ve all been dying to hear about my visit to Jerusalem after reading about the first part of my trip to Israel in my last post. So after I parted ways with Yohay and Tom on Friday, I got two days of fun and eating in Jerusalem with my cousin Geula! We first went to stay with her parents in Beit-El, where we spent shabbat. Shabbat was a great time to rest and rejuvenate after a busy trip. While I unfortunately don’t have any pictures of all of the delicious meals that we ate for shabbat dinner and shabbat lunch, I do have a picture of the home made challah that my cousin Batya made for shabbat. In Israel, they sometimes put za’atar on their challah.

home made challah!

After shabbat Geula and I returned to Jerusalem for more food and fun! We returned to the city pretty late at night on Saturday, so Geula took me to the arab shuk which turns into a really cool bar scene after dark. Geula introduced me to a Yemenite pastry called jachnun, which is basically fried dough. Of course is was delicious!

Jachnun, Yemenite jewish pastry It is traditionally served with a crushed tomato dip, hard boiled eggs, and zhug

We then went out in Jerusalem and hit up one of Geula’s favorite spots, an American themed karaoke bar. I am terrible at Karaoke but sang anyway, and Geula wowed everyone with her amazing voice and rendition of summertime.

Geula wowwing everyone with her karaoke rendition of summertime

Geula ripping up the stage at karaoke

For my last day, we woke up early so we could cram in as much sight-seeing and of course eating as possible. We visited the shuk during the day time to check out the store fronts. It was so awesome! I was in foodie heaven!

Halva heaven

I couldn’t get over how large the fruits and vegetables were at the market. They must have some seriously impressive agricultural practices in Israel. Have you ever seen squash this large?

Apparently they grow giant sized squashes in Israel

Check out all these beautiful vegetables!

Vegetables in the arab shuk in Jerusalem

Spices almonds covered in za’atar

Pastries at the shuk

More pastries

Teas at the arab shuk

Spices galore

Here is where I bought the sumac, red and green zhug for 14 shekels ($4).

Weighing out my spices

After I bought my spices, Geula brought me to Marzipan bakery, where they allegedly have the best rugelach in Jerusalem. Of course I had to buy some!

The best rugelach in Jerusalem, at Marizpan bakery

After shopping all morning in the shuk we returned to the old city in Jerusalem to go shopping. Here’s me in front of the Jaffa gate outside of the old city.

Me outside the old city in Jerusalem

About to enter the old city through the Jaffa gate!

Geula teaches belly dancing to women in Jerusalem. Here she is modeling a dancing cane in front of the belly dancing store where she shops.

Geula at the belly dancing shop

After shopping we were hungry again and Geula took me to this amazing restaurant where her friend works as the sous chef on the outskirts of Jerusalem called Cafe Itamar. It was pretty far to get there but it was well worth it. First of all, it’s in a super cute garden setting where you can even buy plants.

Cacti for sale at the restaurant

They even had cute ceramic mushrooms, which of course I loved!

Posing with the cute ceramic mushrooms!

Second of all, the food was AMAZING. Geula and I went all out and ordered two appetizers. Of course I had to order the mushroom casserole, which was topped in spinach and cheese, and a fried egg.

Mushroom casserole with fried egg

So you can see some of the mushrooms:

mushroom casserole

Then we ordered this cauliflower and hummus dip called masbacha, which was seriously so good.

Cauliflower masbacha

We ate it with this bread: Then we shared the ravioli with roasted vegetables entree, which was so delicious.

Roasted vegetable ravioli

Here is Geula smiling with the ravioli:

Geula and ravioli at Cafe Itamar

After that we were pretty stuffed but Geula’s friend surprised us with an extra treat – this pasta with mushroom sauce and roasted asparagus dish.

Roasted asparagus with mushrooms and home-made pasta

Geula and I eyed the these chocolate cakes for dessert but ultimately decided we were too full. I think I kind of regret that decision now… we should have made room! After all, how often do I go to Israel? Next time, I will definitely be ordering the chocolate cake for dessert! While the restaurant is kind of out of the way, it was definitely worth the trip. The food was amazing and the setting was so cute. How cute is this restaurant?

Smiling at Cafe Itamar

We hitch-hiked back to town (this was my first time ever hitch hiking!) and then visited some of our other family members. We met up with another cousin and had Yemenite soup for my last dinner in Jerusalem before I had to head home.

My cousin and I at the Yemenite restaurant

My cousin and me at the Yemenite restaurant

Especially after this super fun day touring in Jerusalem, I really did not quite feel ready to return to Berkeley after this amazing trip. At least now I have lots of fun plans and places to eat to look forward to next time I visit :)

Eating my way through Israel: Part 1

So as many of you already know, I accompanied my advisor on a trip to Israel to help out some Israeli researchers with our fungal expertise. So of course the purpose of this trip was for research, but you all know my ulterior motives already – FOOD :) As I fanatically took photos of all the delicious food we ate, Hagai, one of the Israel researchers, asked my advisor Tom if all of his American students were crazy like that. Nope, I think it’s just me! I had an amazing time in Israel and really did not feel quite ready to return to the States after my brief 10 day trip, but I can take solace in the awesome spices and treats I brought in tow.

My stash from Israel – rosewater, spice mixes for red and green zhug, and sumac

I spent my last shekels on date syrup at the duty free shop at the airport and I bought rosewater, sumac, and spice mixes to make red and green zhug at the Arab shuk in Jerusalem. I also couldn’t help myself and bought some gorgeous Armenian pottery to highlight my future cooking.

Buying Armenian pottery in the old city. Can you see me with my purchases?

Tom and I spent the first part of the week in Beer Sheva hanging out with Ofer Ovadia and his grad student Stav at the Ben Gurion University in the Negev. We ate at an amazing Moroccan restaurant but unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera for that meal! Tom, however, brought his camera and sent me this picture from the menu, which he insisted that I include in my blog post. Internal organs anyone?

Restaurant from Moroccan restaurant featuring internal organs

While I lack photos of the delicious unadventurous non organ meat meal that we did end up eating, I did remember to bring my camera for our travels through the north of Israel so you get pictures of our meals in the north instead! I like to joke that I took the anti-touristic tour of Israel – I saw a lot of places that most tourists and probably most Israelis too have never been! We took a hike in the Negev searching for the Terfezia desert truffles, which unfortunately we did not find. We also spent a bunch of time trekking through pine forests in the mountains near Jerusalem and the mountains in the north trying to find mushrooms. Alas, we were not so successful with mushroom foraging, and the only edible mushroom we found is Suillus collinitus. This is not known to be a prized edible and I have not yet tried it, but Russians apparently love it.

Suillus granulatus. Would you want to eat it?

Suillus collinitus. Would you want to eat it?

Stav and I took a train from Beer Sheva to Akko, which is a city in the northern tip of Israel. Hagai and Tom met us there and took us for an awesome picnic in the woods. I was too hungry to stop and take a picture of the pita, hummus, and burrekas that we ate for lunch, but I did capture the lovely baklavas that they brought for dessert. The orange thing is called kenafe, which is made of sweetened goat cheese soaked in honey and covered in orange crispy things:

Baklava pastries

Enjoying coffee and baklava in the Israeli pine forests.

Stav, Hagai, and Tom enjoying a picnic in the pine forests

We even took time to do some science!

Tom using a traveling dissecting scope to look for mycorrhizal root tips in the woods

After science we got hungry again and Hagai took us to this amazing restaurant up in the hills called el Arisa located in the town of Rama. I would return to this place for the view alone, which was truly spectacular:

View from El Arisa in Rama

And how awesome is the interior?

interior of the El Arisa

The view was just incredible, and luckily the food was amazing too! We ordered a bunch of “salatim” to share. Here is the hummus:

Hummus

We also got fattoush, which you know how much I love:

Fattoush

My favorite though was this eggplant, chickpea, and tomato dish, called Manzala, which I had never tried before but was so savory and delicious:

Manzala – eggplant dish with chick peas and tomatoes and parsley

Here is my plate all loaded up!

Hummus, fattoush, tabouli, eggplant dish

I also got my first taste of limonada, which is a super refreshing lemonade drink made with crushed ice and mint. I cannot wait to make it at home!

Limonada

This was definitely one of my favorite meals in Israel. Arab food is soo good! I love all the fresh herbs. Everything just makes you feel good while eating it. After stuffing our faces with pita and hummus and salatim I was so full, but Hagai ordered a dessert called Sachleb so I had to try that. It’s sort of hard to describe but it’s similar to a pudding. It is vegan and made of coconut and corn meal and flavored with flowers.

Sachleb for dessert

After this amazing meal Stav and I went to Hagai’s house in Kamon, which is a bit like a garden oasis out in the mountains. Off the mountain there is a view of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) to the left and the Mediterranean to the right and it is just breathtaking. He has 2 adorable children, 2 spunky dogs, and 13 chickens.

Hagai’s chickens

Incredibly, they made 24 eggs, which were some of the freshest and best tasting eggs of my life. Who wants to help me build a chicken coop?

Fresh out of the chicken’s butt!

For dinner Stav made us some Shakshuka, which is a traditional Israeli dish of eggs on a sauce of tomatoes and peppers. Shakshuka always seemed intimidating to me but Stav says it’s super simple and you can make the sauce from whatever vegetables you have lying around. We used carrots, sweet potato, peppers, tomatoes, and tomato sauce.

Shakshuka sauce made with carrots, peppers, sweet potato, and tomato sauce

When all the vegetables are super well cooked and you’ve added all the spices, you dig little holes and place the eggs in them. It is so fun! I can’t wait to try making this at home.

Shakshuka with fresh eggs

The day after our visit at Hagai’s house we hiked through some more pine forests and looked for mushrooms in the morning. While again we were not super successful with finding mushrooms, we did find the remains of a lower jaw of a wild boar, which Tom graciously modeled for us:

Tom modeling the wild boar jaw

Before meeting up with another of our Israeli collaborators, Yohay Carmel, at his lab at the Technion University in Haifa, Hagai took us to enjoy another utterly delicious Arab meal. We went to this restaurant in the hills in the north of Israel located in a town called Um-el Fachem called El Babour, which did not disappoint! Also, super excitingly, I found out that Yotam Ottolenghi himself loves this restaurant because he replied to one of my tweets about it :) They brought out plates and plates of different salatim. Eggplant covered in tahini and tomatoes covered in tahini, and stewed carrots and all sorts of things I couldn’t tell you what they are but they tasted fabulous.

Salatim at El babour in town in the north of Israel called Um-el fachem. Ottolenghi himself loves this place!

How gorgeous is this hummus?

Hummus from El babour

I couldn’t prevent myself from breaking into the pita before taking a picture:

pita at el babour

We also got tabbouli and an amazing salad made of mustard greens and red peppers:

salad of mustard greens and red pepper

How vibrant are those colors? As you can see, we enjoyed the food:

As you can see, we enjoyed the food.

Tom and I were super stuffed after all the salads but Hagai told us this place is known for their meat so of course we had to order more dishes. Tom got the kefta with tahini:

Lamb and beef kefta with tahini

And I got the chicken kebabs:

Chicken kebabs from El babour

I was so full at this point but they tasted delicious, and I got to keep the leftovers and eat them for dinner on the train ride from Haifa back south to Beer Sheva. Stav took me to a really cool funk show out at a pub in the middle of the Negev that evening and we saw an awesome Israeli funk band called Bintel Funk perform. After my last night in Beer sheva I took a bus to Jerusalem on Friday morning where Yohay took Tom and me on an awesome tour of the old city.

Spice shop in the old city in Jerusalem

Pretty rocks in the old city in Jerusalem

Menorah shop in the old city in Jerusalem

Jewish husbands everywhere can appreciate this t-shirt

We also got to climb up the towers of this Lutheran church and see a 360 degree view of Jerusalem.

View of the dome of the rock from the towers of the Lutheran church in Jerusalem

Roman ruins in the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem

Of course we stopped for lunch in the old city as well :)

Hummus in the old city in Jerusalem

I’m sure you’ve had enough for now, so I will stop here! But stay tuned for Part 2 where I will post about my visit to meet my Israeli cousins in Beit-El and more of my eating adventures through Jerusalem with my cousin Geula!

fungi foodie

The world is your oyster mushroom!