First guests in TLV

So last week our we had our first house guests here in tel aviv.  our friends Alana and Jin arrived from vancouver a week ago today.  they are staying with us here in tel aviv for a week, going to jerusalem, petra and eilat for 5 days, and then back with us for a final week.

its interesting now that i have been here for 5 months, to tour someone around as your home.  they were very excited to stay with us, because you get a different view of a city than when you go to a hotel.  for the first three days, we just took them out to restaurants and the beach, biked around the town, and just showed them fun area’s in tel aviv.  then we decided we would go raft down the mighty jordan river one day, so we did that for one day trip, and another day trip was to Gan HaShlosha, or translated as the three pools.   Noa and i have never been there, and well, we ended up going to the national park next door instead by mistake, which only had TWO pools.  i think we got ripped off.

here is us in front of what i think are a type of mangrove tree

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(photo courtesy of Jin and his sony auto face detecting camera)

noa and I in tiberias, also known as the tackiest resort town in israel

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(photo courtesy of Jin)

and us in one of the pools at Gan HaShlosha

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(photo courtesy of Jin, the sony camera with face detection, and the wall of the pool)

Im finding it really interesting actually to read the lonely planet guide book.  for example, Gan HaShlosha is not in there, and it recommends visiting a store here in the little local mall, which is nice and all, but really, not a must for seeing and experiencing tel aviv.  it also gives you a whole rundown about where to stay if you visit Gaza city, which currently, is not accessible unless you happen to be a foreign aid worker.  not even for reporters.  it also thinks it only takes 30 min to travel from tel aviv to jerusalem, and unless your flying, i dont know how that is possible with the traffic in jerusalem.

dome of the rock from mount of olives

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western wall.  separated men and womens section.

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But anyways, i digress.  we started with the mount of olives scenic view, followed by an action packed day of seeing the old city of jerusalem.  we went to the western wall, then hit some of the other highlights and finally dropped them off at their hostel yesterday.  i will say this though.  its really fun playing tourist in your own city,  as i finally got to the beach to go swimming.  funny how you end up in a daily life routine, and miss out on somethings that are right there.  But on the flip side, im also exhausted.  running around the city, driving to the north, eating out and waking up early every morning has left me pretty tired, especially after only resting 3 days after italy before they arrived.  Im still working through my backlog of photos, and trying to post about italy, all the while touring around.  but i suppose theres worse problems to have.

so thats why i havent posted anything from italy for a few days.  but im going to get back to that this week, while they are away.  i need to get through those posts, as we only have 2 and a half more weeks before we start our travels in North america this summer.  and before we leave we have them still here, and another friend from vancouver will be here for three days.  fun but hectic.

stay tuned.

 

Florence

So after two days in Italy, it was finally time to see stuff.

leaving the villa i saw this road and liked it

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so we were headed to Florence.  it was about 1.5-2 hours away from us, to the north.  since we had two cars, we decided to meet at an overlook, and from there would go down into the city.

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me taking these photos. (photo credit to noa)

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at this point we still had reasonably nice weather out.  it was hot, and not too cloudy.  this couple was taking advantage of the nice weather and outlook for some wedding photos.

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we took the opportunity to take some photos of the family.

me, noa, and the tripod.  funny how you sometimes forget things in the photo and then it totally annoys you later that its there.

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having finished with the overlook, we parked near the old city, and started walking.  these were just some cool things we saw walking around.

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and then, it was already 1, and we were all starving.  so we sat down and had a pasta lunch

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after lunch, more walking around.  i started taking texture shots of walls and doors.

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okay, now, by this point we had been in florence for a few hours.  after the overlook the weather kept deteriorating.  it had not rained yet, but it was certainly threatening too.  we got to the Ponte Vecchio.  a famous bridge for always having shops on it, previously butcher shops, now all high end gold and jewellery stores.

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these cops just walked back and forth over the bridge

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its cool how the shops on the bridge are built.  they pretty much are able to close up into a wooden box, as can be seen on the left

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The little guy

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some cool looking streets.  its hard to get a good photo of a narrow street. especially with a lot of people walking around.

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so gelato.  we were into day three, and i had yet to taste any gelato.  so i issued a formal complaint to the complaint committee, filled out the appropriate forms in triplicate, and then we came across the first acceptable gelato place.  it was tasty

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This is a wild boar.

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more duomo’s and majestic towers

 

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so then i spotted a photo shoot occurring.  i couldn’t help but jump in and get a shot.

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these guys were hilarious

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inside the duomo

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and some street art

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phew, are you exhausted.  cause we were.  and hungry.  we had a good recommendation for a restaurant across the river from where we were.  so we got the car, and drove over there.  found the place with not …too.. much trouble, and were for sure one of the earliest groups there for dinner.  but we sat down, ordered a liter of wine for me, and got too ordering food.

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the antipasti platter.  omg.  so much good stuff

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gnocchi, these were probably the most disappointing but still good

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this was amazing.  it was risotto, and had strawberry sauce sprinkled on top…. (editors note: it was a basalmic and strawberry sauce)

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and a damn good pizza.  really good

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and then after another long and filling italian meal, back home, to rest, for more intense Italy sightseeing.  its only getting better from here.

 

 

 

 

Cooking in Tuscany

Having rested the previous day, we woke up excited the next day to go to our cooking class that we had booked.  Noa, her sister and I were going, and it was advertised to be a whole day affair.  Noa found the class by googling online, and by the description we were sold.

!!—Beware.  please eat before seeing this post. —!!

So that morning, we took the car up to Cortona to meet in the square there in order to meet the group and our host.  We meet up around 9 am, and sat down at a little coffee shop to have espresso’s and tea. In total there were 8 of us taking the class together.  We met our cooking instructor, Alessandra, and she started telling us about herself, asking about us, telling us what we could expect from the day and laying out the menu.

At this point we got the first magical quote from Alessandra.  “When life gives you lemons, make limoncello.  lemonade is for losers.”

Cortona

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So then she took us to all the good places in Cortona to get food, basically shopping for the upcoming meal of the day we would be cooking.

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Fresh Pecorino.

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apparently here is the hierarchy of cheese.  another great quote.  if you have rooms for cows, you raise cows and have cow cheese.  if theres no room for cows, you raise sheep and have sheep’s cheese.(pecorino)  If theres no room for sheep, you raise goats and have goat cheese.  Those things will eat anything.

a nice wall i saw

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then we got to alessandra’s house, where we were to cook in her very nice kitchen.

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The first thing we got were aprons, and then we all went to work.  First off is making the pasta.  not a new experience for us, but we were making raviolis, which we have done before, but they were not the nicest looking ones.  so learning how to properly make them was great.

making the dough

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after that was done, it was onto one of the antipasti’s.  tomato’s with filled herbs, slow roasted.

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then me and another fellow decided it was time for the wine to flow.  why wait for lunch.

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this was a crucial step.  sifting the ricotta makes it smoother in the raviolis we were going to be making.

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Then it was time to roll out the pasta

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and fill them with a mixture of the sifted ricotta, parmesan and some herbs

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this was the part noa was very excited about how to do properly

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after cutting them out, everyone got a chance to try to make some

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Then we made the last antipasti – thinly sliced apples layered with thinly sliced pecorino, drizzled in heated honey and sprinkled with chilli peppers.  A-Mazing.

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and the table set and laid out.  along with the apple/cheese there was prosciutto, melon, and some amazing chilli jelly with slices of grana padano

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so we sat and ate the antipasti finally around 2:30 i think.  we had it with more wine of course, and great conversation.

then after sitting and relaxing for a bit, back into the kitchen to cook the ravioli for Primi.  we topped it with my favourite spice, Sichuan peppercorns.  good stuff.

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after that, more relaxing and drinking while we wait for the main course, secondi.

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Secondi consisted of a tenderloin slow roasted in herbs, and borlotti beans cooked in tomato puree. at this point i wasnt so much on the paying attention of how the beans were made.

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then another rest, and some photos of her cats

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and then limoncello

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and then dessert.  strawberries soaked in sugar and lemon with a chocolate lava cake.

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by this point it was around 6:30 or so, and we continued to talk.  people started to slowly leave, and we hung out for a little bit longer finishing to make some pasta noodles with the left over dough.  i think we left around 8, after a wonderful day of cooking.  looking back, i think this is one of our fondest memories of this italy trip.  whenever we cook anything italian from now on, we will always remember advice we got from Alessandra about this or that.

the last quote i will leave you with that we learned, is about when I asked about the local pizza in tuscany and rome. First I asked for a pizza dough recipe, which she told me she does not make.  she goes out to eat pizza.  fair enough!   and being from napoli, Alessandra informed us that eating a pizza here was like eating “a cracker with tomato sauce”.  having eaten a late night local pizza the previous night, i couldn’t agree more.