Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Matzoh but Were Afraid To Ask

Some of the vendor's stalls from my Monday quest

All I needed were a few eggs

and a couple of fish

What's matzoh without a little cream cheese

This looks like bread but somehow it's not

When we made the commitment to come to Israel, Jay and Bonita started giving us survival tips and this week they came in handy. One of the first things they told us was to expect a "baligone" (chaotic situation) every now and then. I have no idea how to spell this word but I certainly learned first hand what they meant. Monday morning I went to the shuk as usual to do the weekly food shopping for the the Distribution Center. As we need a receipt (ka-baa-la) - no idea of the spelling of this word either - for everything we buy, I always go to one specific man who gives a kabaala with no difficulty. Unfortunately (for me) he was not on duty that morning probably due the Passover holiday and the person filling in for him wouldn't give me a receipt. I had of course chosen the produce, he had weighed it and I was getting ready to pay when I asked for the kabaala. "No kabaala." "Yes, need kabaala. Always get a kabaala here." "No kabaala!" So I had to leave everything there - all 15 bags of various fruits and vegetables and start off for another stall that would give me what I needed - a receipt. Sounds pretty simple - not. What should have taken about 30 minutes max ended up taking over 2 1/2 hours. I had to go from stall to stall asking for the "K" word - sometimes I could get it but it might be for 5 apples, then I'd find a stall that would give me one for 2 heads of broccoli - are you getting the picture - some sell just fruit, some just vegetables or maybe just one product as nuts, meat or bread. I was lucky to find one where I got 4 items. I left there with 9 kabaala and headed for the supermarket - Monday was right in the middle of Pesah (Passover) and the shelves were pretty sparse ...no eggs, no bread of course and even things like peanut butter were covered up and couldn't be bought. What do I know? I got what I could at the first supermarket and headed to another - that was another two, (you know, "K's") for a total of 11. I had not found everything on my list but just decided "enough." My fascination/love affair of the shuk has now officially ended. Now the one thing that we had plenty of this week was matzoh.

Pizza matzoh Regular matzoh

Chocolate matzoh

Did you know that you can take regular matzoh, soak it in a little water, put it in a skillet with some oil, add an egg and - you have an omelet! You can take regular matzoh, soak it in a little water, put it in a skillet with oil, add some apples and bananas and - you have some kind of a dessert! Take regular matzoh, soak it in a little water, put it in a skillet with oil, put on a layer of tomato sauce, some olives, cheese or what ever you might like and - you have a pizza! I'm just happy that we can start to eat bread again on Thursday. We have some people at the DC who feel they have to be especially careful of what they eat during Passover (bread, pasta, etc.) - they are Jewish believers so as the cook I try to be sensitive to every one's wishes. I froze the bread and covered the pasta but I still did a no-no. I thought as long as the meat and milk weren't mixed in the same recipe, it was okay but it's what is mixed in your stomach that counts so that means no meat and dairy at the same meal. Today I made my "old standbys'' Country Chicken Kiev and Nebraska green beans -the beans have sour cream - first mistake - and the chocolate pudding I mixed with whipped cream - second mistake - the chicken and potatoes were okay. Those following the kosher path have to wait as long as 6 hours to eat dairy if they have eaten meat or vice versa. Others at the DC feel they are free to eat what they want as they are not under the Law. That has made for some interesting conversations this week between the two groups. Barbara (from Australia) and I were rather pleased about the chocolate pudding thing - lots more for us. Pesah has presented a very interesting week - I'm rather glad we won't be here for Yom Kippur. I can only imagine.