CAARI Cooks With Dan Gourmet

Our second visit to Dan Gourmet Cooking School. We donned our CAARI aprons and meet our chef who explained and demonstrated what we were to do.  It all seemed overwhelming, but we did it with east!

 This  week we cooked Chinese foods including dumplings, beef and eggplant stir fry and "Chinese pickles"!  Making the dumplings were a favorite!  Not much different than making kreplach!
This week again we used the  pasta machine for making the dough.

Our chef made the sauces, and we fried the beef, eggplant and the 3 important ingredients - chopped ginger, garlic and green onions!

 After the preparation, we all enjoyed the tasty food with some wine!  A winner!

Here is one of the recipes for our friends to try!
Chinese Pickles
1.Cut up vegetables (carrot, cucumber, cabbage, fresh hot chili) to chopstick size
2.Salt vegetable for 15 minutes
3/Bring the marinade: rice vinegar and sugar to boil and pour over vegetables
4. Let sit for one hour before serving
5. for serving: remove vegetables from marinade, toss in sesame oil and garnish with roasted sesame.
6/ Keeps for a week refrigerated.
Enjoy!

Tuesday continues at Alexander Muss High School and evening speaker

Impressive!  That is how we described the Alexander Muss High School - the faculty, the school concept, and the students!

CAARI Restores Fire Damaged Forest

Tuesday is Forest Day and our destination was Horshim Forest – one of the sites of the terrible forest fires this past November that destroyed more trees than the Carmel fires in 2010. 

CAARI has worked in this forest for the past 4-5 years.  It is a special forest to Nahum, as it is in memory of his commander, Hezi Sapir z”l a platoon commander killed by a bicycle bomber along with two other officers.  


Although the temperatures were not exactly ideal, and rain was predicted, we packed the bus with our ‘picnic lunch’ and off we went determined to work! 

By the time we reached the forest, the sun was out, partly blue skies and we were ready for the challenge.  

We were greeted by Miri and Yashkeeh, Hezi’s sister and Father. Yashkeh is a survivor from the Lutzk Ghetto in the Ukraine and was a platoon commander in the Palmach. With Yashkeeh’s marching orders, we were divided into three groups. With pick axes, rakes, hoes, paintbrushes, we began our assignments as instructed, to restore the vineyard and antiquities that were damaged by the fire.  CAARI cleaned some of the marked trails and stone paths, dug drainage ditches, painted signs and picnic tables and by noon CAARI was ready for lunch.  Yashkeh took us to the overlook named for his son and Nahum our guide explained the defensive barrier built in response to the Al Aksa uprising in 2000, the green line and the Palestinian City of Kalkilyia and the Community of Alfei Menashe.

Community Service and visit to the Biblical Nature Reserve

Sunday, 29 January.  The weather was not so great over the weekend, but that didn’t stop the CAARI group!  They shopped, walked, visited friends and relatives and enjoyed a lovely Shabbat Dinner and Oneg Shabbat!  Now – rested and relaxed we began a new exciting week to welcome in the month of Shvat!

Following our morning community service, we boarded the bus for a trip to Neot Kedumn, the Biblical Landscape Reserve in Israel.  It is located halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. This unique Biblical setting allows visitors to see life as it was lived by our ancestors 3,000 years ago. 

After a ‘biblical lunch’ our biblical expert, Ya'ir, guided us through this magical setting.  The panorama view was extraordinary, as we could see the skyline of Tel Aviv, another view was the Judean Hills, with both Arab and Jewish communities.  As we walked through the nature reserve, Ya'ir discussed the various plants, trees and shrubs and their biblical reference.  For example, hyssop, which we know as tasty za'atar is mentioned several times in the Bible.  Ya'ir, surprised us with mortar and pestle for us to grind the fragrant hyssop.   We learned about the importance of water in the times of the Bible and the seven species – which we all can now name! 

 

We loved seeing the blossoming almond trees, which is a sign of spring in Israel!  In Israel, the almond trees are a better predictor of spring than the groundhog!  

Several of the CAARI  participants will be leaving tonight and 9 new participants will be joining the CAARI family!