Browsing All posts tagged under »olives«

The Hakura

February 1, 2013

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I recently received a telephone call from a man named Adel, from the nearby Bedouin village of Ayedat.  He is in the final stages of submitting his master’s thesis and needed help with editing the English abstract.  I frequently edit English texts on you-name-the-topic, but when he told me the subject of his thesis, I […]

A Time to Pick Olives

November 10, 2012

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Once again the olive harvest.  I like to speculate that not an autumn has passed since they were first cultivated, back in obscure pre-history, that people haven’t gathered olives here in this place that I live. Taking part in this ritual makes me feel like the tiniest link in a very long chain. But the […]

Defying Closure

September 13, 2012

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Looking out my window at the full-grown green olives weighing down the branches of our tree, I am reminded that the Jewish New Year does not begin neatly at the end of one traditional agricultural year and the beginning of another.  These olives, last of the summer fruit to ripen, will only be harvested in […]

A Meal With What You Have

June 17, 2012

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I believe there is an art to creating a satisfying meal out of what you have in the larder.   The other day, I was fortunate enough to be at my friend and culinary muse, Balkees’s home at lunch time, when she was doing just that. So what is in Balkees’s kitchen on an early summer […]

Breaking Bread in Galilee

May 3, 2012

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I consider it very auspicious timing, that my new book – Breaking Bread in Galilee – A Culinary Journey into the Promised Land – has entered the world during the height of spring.  These days, there is gold everywhere you look, in vast waves of wheat stalks rolling in the breeze, or shorn and flattened […]

A Hannukah Olive Oil Miracle

December 24, 2011

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    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 […]

My Olives Taste Good!

December 13, 2011

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Ron and I cure olives every year – but always green ones.  We have the technique down pat – and have even found a convenient shortcut for cracking the olives, in a handy little machine at the El Babour Mill in Nazareth (see my post from Oct. 9).  But I love black olives too and […]

A Green Olive Harvest

October 9, 2011

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The first serious bout of winter rain descended several weeks ago, marking a traditional and unofficial opening of the olive harvest season in the Galilee.  In fact, late September is too early for olive picking, which generally extends from late October through November.  But that first rain fulfilled its function of washing off the summer […]

Cracking Olives

October 19, 2010

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The olive harvest is officially underway here in the Galilee.  At this point, though, relatively early on in the season, most people I know are picking olives for eating – the large scale harvesting to make olive oil will probably begin in another week or so.  As we do every year, Ron, our good friend […]

Olive Harvest Fund-Raiser

November 11, 2009

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The olive harvest in the Galilee usually starts after the first serious rain, which rinses off the dust and plumps up the fruit.  In the one year on, one year off cycle of olive trees, this is an off year, and the price of oil – more than $150 for a 16-liter container – reflects […]

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