Once again, the wild asparagus season is here.  How many times have I written about this moment?  And why is it that year after year, I never tire of celebrating it? 

Because it is always the same and always wondrously fresh and surprising – the matchless way that each stalk presents itself to the world – its unique color, girth, curve –  solo or in a cluster -  endlessly varied.   And because of the exquisite beauty of their setting, in my favorite oak grove, at this early stage of winter – where I am torn between focusing on the complex pattern of the green carpet underfoot, and the undisturbed expanse of trees and boulders in this discreet and magical place. 

a stalk of wild asparagus

I wanted to see if we could find mandrakes, and we found dozens, at this point with their leaves grand and shiny, and at their heart, a burst of purple blossoms.  I saw my first cyclamen of the season.  We crossed paths with two rabbits. 

mandrake flowers

And no matter how many times I encounter those carvings in the limestone – steps leading down into a burial cave, a shallow, sloping grape press, or a simple 90 degree angle hewn into a stone by someone for some purpose we can never know – I am thrilled to stand on that same spot, just as they did perhaps two thousand years ago.  And to imagine that they enjoyed the wild asparagus of this season as much as we do. 

entrance to a burial cave

 

Balkees in the branches

As you may know, we made plenty of olives this year – green and black – from our beloved Suri olive tree.  But making oil was not on the agenda. Until Balkees pointed out that, to leave the massive amount of olives on our one other tree, of the Barnea variety, would be a shame.  On Tuesday she and her teenage son Fares came over and, for the next five hours we picked the olives off that huge tree.  During that time I had two realizations: 1) picking olives is extremely hard work; and 2) Balkees is happiest in the top branches of an olive tree. 

On Thursday, we loaded up our cardboard boxes full of olives into the car, picked up Balkees and Fares, and drove to the village of Arrabe, near Sakhnin, to the press.  We chose this press for two reasons – 1) because it is the end of the season, most of the presses are already closed, and those that are still working will only take massive quantities. Even though we only had the equivalent of about 2 sacks, the press in Arrabe agreed to take us.  2) This particular press, in addition to operating a modern, industrial style milling system, is one of the last in the Galilee that still has the old-style millstone and press set-up.  This was something I have long wanted to see.

When we got there, we had a number of surprises.  1) weighing our olives, we found that we’d picked 95 kilos! (our most extravagant estimate was 70);  2) They will only operate the stone press if you have at least 300 kilos.  But undaunted, we poured our olives in the hopper, watched as the twigs and leaves were washed away and the fruit was crushed into a purple slurry (particular to black Barnea olives), and then positioned our jerrycan at the spigot where the oil comes out. 

  

into the hopper

 

Feeling optimistic, Ron had brought an 18-liter jerrycan with us.  And as we watched in amazement, not only did the jerrycan fill up entirely, but the owner of the press had to bring us 3 empty 1.5 liter soda bottles to contain the rest.  We hadn’t dreamed that we’d get so much oil from our work on this single tree!

Of course, as we were watching this, on what happened to be the third night of Hannukah, the parallel was inescapable.  Here was oil that was miraculously extending beyond all expectations.  And in the joyful atmosphere at the press, this was the best holiday spirit that anyone could ask for!

18 liter jerrycan

fresh Hannukah oil

But I love black olives too and this year, when our Suri olive tree was left with the loveliest, plumpest black olives still on it, I decided to give curing them a try.  I set my sights modestly – to pick a single bucket for starters.   Picking olives is one of my most enjoyable tasks and on that particular day, the sky was hazy and the light was opaque on the silvery leaves and powdery coating on each olive, which rubbed off at my touch.  In less than an hour, the bucket was full of choice, midnight purple fruit. 

After I finished picking, I went to the nearby Bedouin village and bought one of those expansive round metal trays that are standard equipment in any Arab kitchen.  I also purchased a container of sea salt – an indulgence for sure, but for my first batch of black olives, I wanted only the best.  I would use the technique I’d seen Um Malek use in Kfar Manda – just letting the olives cure with the help of salt and the sun. 

Back home, I rinsed my olives, spread them out on the tray and patiently sorted through them.  Then I covered them with a thick layer of salt and put them out in the sun.  Now, three weeks later, the olives have excreted their bitter liquids and are wrinkled but still soft.  Tentatively, I tasted one.  Delicious!  This method of curing olives may seem foolproof, but I am still amazed and delighted by the results. 

While I was scooping up the olives from the tray to put them into jars, a bee flew around, alighting on the olives and crawling over their salty crust.  It seemed counter-intuitive to me – wouldn’t a bee that favors sweetness reject salt?  But if even a bee was attracted to my olives, then they really must be good!

Before

After

Lemon grass and Sage

Balkees’ mother, on the other hand, prefers to pick the herbs from the garden and place them directly into the hot water to make her tea.  Whatever is in season, that is what she drinks.  Her favorite mixture these days  is sage, white savory and rosemary.  Louisa and lemongrass are also good.  God gave us herbs during every season of the year, she says, and she’ll manage just fine with them. 

Louisa (lemon verbena)

I belong to Balkees’ mother’s school of thought.   One of my greatest pleasures is picking a few sprigs of fresh louisa from the robust bush in my front yard.  Within two minutes, I have a cup of fragrant, yellow and delightfully reviving tea.  And now, with the winter rains, the zuta plant is starting to come into its own.   Zuta is refreshingly minty but more complex than regular mint tea, and is my favorite winter infusion. 

Zuta (white savory)

Secretly, I sometimes feel sorry for people who have to drink tea from teabags.   

When the seasonal rains don’t come, there is no ignoring it.  The desiccation is ominous.  For practitioners of traditional farming, whether in Biblical times or more recently, the winter rains are essential to soften the summer-baked earth so that it can be plowed and sowed with the new year’s grain crop.  If that rain is not forthcoming and the seeds are not planted in good time, the agricultural year starts out of whack.  Which portends a lot worse than chapped lips and bad hair. 

I try to keep this agricultural perspective in mind on days like today – an awareness of how the forces of nature once maintained a powerful upper hand, and cultivated humility in us hapless, scrambling humans.  To remember a time when a hot dry day didn’t signal that it’s time to hop into the car and drive to the beach, but instead drove people to believe that relief could come through faith. 

The serious work of harvesting olives is to produce olive oil – that staple commodity that keeps every Mediterranean kitchen running smoothly.  To produce quality oil, ideally, half of the olives should still be green and the rest black (that is, fully ripe). 

These days, our walks are focused on checking the status of our favorite olive trees.  Scattered in different places around the moshav, each tree bears fruit according to some larger scheme that we can only wonder at.  Some trees are thick with pale green clusters, weighing down the branches even as the silvery drab leaves point skywards all the way up to their highest branches; others have heavily laden branches, but only on one side of the tree, and some have no fruit at all.  The olives may be fat or demure, but they are all, at this point, still green. 

And for us, this is the time for our own modest harvest, to produce a year’s supply of cured green olives for our family and friends.  Ever since I came to this place, we’ve alwasy picked olives from the same two trees – planted by the German Templars in the early 1900s – fine specimens of the local Tsuri variety.  And it was from those two trees that we filled two buckets – a pleasant couple of hours spent enveloped within their branches.

The Cracking Machine                               Ron and Jarjoura Kanaza

After a day while they were submerged in water, Ron and I took our olives to Nazareth, to the El Babour Spice Mill, to crack them in their cracking machine.  In years past, we used to sit for hours, knocking each olive with a stone to crack its skin so the brine could penetrate.  And then one day I saw the olive cracking machine in action, and I knew that I wouldn’t be stooped over a stone and running after rolling olives anymore.  I’m all in favor of tradition, but this is one innovation I am happy to adopt, particularly when its an excuse to visit the wonderful Kanaza brothers at El Babour.

Urginea Maritima

After the dramatic autumns of my East Coast childhood, living in the Galilee has accustomed me to a more gradual and nuanced approach of the season.  Here, the beginning of fall is marked by the brief appearance of a wispy white flower, a chill in the evening air, and the return of clouds to the sky.  After months without precipitation, these clouds signify that the winter rains will soon be upon us – tidings of hope and renewal.  

The Jewish New Year begins in the fall.  In Biblical times, and today, this season marked the beginning of a new agricultural cycle.  Here, to put things very simply, there are traditionally two agricultural seasons – winter and summer, for grains and pulses, and for vegetables and fruits, respectively.   The rains of autumn soften the summer-dry earth so it can be prepared for tilling and planting wheat and barley.  And now, as one year ends and another begins, we are busy with the final harvesting of the summer fruits – grapes, pomegranates, figs, dates, and finally olives. 

The billowy white clouds in the sky underscore our most fervent desire, still today as it has been for millennia, for a year of rains that come in their time – the early and the late. 

To all, I extend my best wishes for a new year blessed with rains in their time.

Lately, I’ve been waking up at 4 AM with the sound of the Muezzin’s call from the neighboring Bedouin village.   And I think of my friend Balkees and her family, roused from their beds and sitting around the table in the darkness, sharing a meal of fresh whole-wheat pita bread, home-made labaneh sprinkled with zaatar (also home-made), and chunks of sweet, refreshing watermelon – an intense dose of hydration for the dry day ahead. 

But my turn to fast is still a few months away, so today I am indulging in my favorite Galilee lunch:  farike, vegetable salad and yoghurt, topped with toasted almonds.  A marvel to behold and savor!

Kareh-ah’s container-like shape makes them perfect for stuffing, which is how I generally have eaten them at Balkees’ house – filled with a mixture of rice and chopped meat.  After they are cooked, you cut them open in your bowl and pour some of the tomato sauce in which they were cooked over the filling.    

Yesterday Balkees offered me some of the “baal” bottle squash she’d brought from Um Salekh’s field (see last few blog entries for more about “baal ” vegetables).  I declined, explaining that I didn’t want to do the whole stuffing thing.  But there is more than one way to cook a bottle squash, and she promised to teach me, sending me home with two big specimens in a bag with a few tomatoes for good measure. 

First I was to peel them and cut then lengthwise in quarters.  Then I should cut away the seeds before chopping the squash into bite-sized pieces.  I was expecting the interior with the seeds to be woody and inedible but when I took a tentative taste, surprise surprise, it was delicate and lemony – like a soft and delicious cucumber. 

I had chopped and sautéed some onion in olive oil for a few minutes, then added the squash.  According to Balkees’ instructions, it was supposed to cook until all the liquid evaporated, but no liquid was coming out so I hoped I was doing things right.  Then I had to peel the tomatoes – yes, no shortcuts – before chopping them into pieces, saving all that flavorful juice.  When the squash was soft, I added the tomatoes and juice and cooked it all for another few minutes.   A perfect summer dish – soft and soothing, yet intense with summer flavors.

So now, if you run across those lovely, pale bottle squashes, you know an easy way to cook them.  And if you can pronounce them in Arabic, more power to you. 

In the cool twilight, we joined the family members who were trolling the rows, pails in hand, gathering what had ripened since the previous day’s harvest. We joined in the work – and I felt almost ashamed of the joy I derive from what for them is tedious toil. There is no romance of heirloom growing, or local food magic here. Just hard work and precious little compensation.

We picked okra until my hands and arms itched from their little hairs, and then moved to the tomatoes. We picked until the sun went down on one side of the sky and a full moon rose on the opposite end. I took home a small bag of okra and two bags of tomatoes – green and red. The red, Balkees instructed, are for making tomato sauce and the green are for eating.

Today I cleaned and cut up the red tomatoes and put them in the food processor. Then I strained the tomato crush through a sieve, pushing out every bit of moisture as I’ve seen Balkees do. I washed and trimmed the okra, and the oversized ones that I once might have rejected as being too tough, I cut into pieces since Balkees said that those are her father-in-law’s favorites.

I sliced some garlic, sautéed it for a minute in olive oil, then added the okra – and after a few minutes of stirring, poured in the tomato juice, for a good long simmer.  The father-in-law was right…

Tomorrow we will have the green tomatoes for breakfast.