Love Shak(shuka)
I have some updating to do of my recent trip to Tel Aviv and my subsequent sunburn, but that post will take a while to write and I don’t want to fall too far behind in what’s going on day-to-day.
Today, I took a wine tour to Benyamina Winery in the north, near Zikhron Ya’akov, a prominent wine region in Israel. We toured the premises, with its shiny steel processing and damp cellars stocked with huge oak barrels of fermenting grapes. Benyamina is a California-style winery (according to our tour guide) and produces up to 3,000,000 bottles a year. I bought a couple of wines after the tasting, hoping to bring one home. I’m not sure if it will last 5 months here, though…
It’s hard to buy gifts this early on in the trip. What if I find something MORE perfect? Plus, I’ll have to hold onto it for all this time, it’ll probably get dusty… I should probably start looking for good presents though, as I don’t want to be buying T-shirts at the duty free.
(Photo from Humus101.com)
After our wine tasting, we hung out around the main street of Zikhron Ya’akov and found a small restaraunt called Hummusiya Shel Yosko, literally Yosko’s Hummus (place). We ordered a plate of hummus with ground beef (עם בסר) and hummus with shakshuka. I had never had shakshuka but my friend Ethan sweared by it. It’s a garlicy, salty tomato sauce with a poached egg floating throughout. And it’s pretty incredible. The hot meat, tomato and egg spooned into warm, fresh pitas went down smooth when mixed with hummus. A really excellent meal.
The tour guide was pretty awful though. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I wish he had been speaking in Hebrew so at least I could have practiced trying to follow his Hebrew.
