Avivah Werner

Category: Intentional Spending

  • Almond sesame napa salad

    Here’s a recipe that I created when I bought a case of napa on sale – you don’t even want to know how much that is!  A whole lot, even for a family of 11 that likes lots of veggies!

    Almond Sesame Napa Salad

    • 1 head napa, shredded (you can also use cabbage or romaine)
    • 3 oranges, peeled and sectioned
    • 2 T. olive oil
    • 2 t. Bragg’s amino acids or soy sauce
    • 1  T. sesame seeds
    • 1/4 c. sliced almonds

    Toss the napa/cabbage with the orange sections.  Mix the olive oil and Braggs/soy sauce, adding in the sesame seeds.  Toss in the sliced almonds at the end.

    You can play around with this basic recipe – if you substitute romaine for the napa, you can substitute diced avocado for the almonds and leave out the sesame seeds.  That’s what I made this weekend, yum!  You can also add a sweetener to the simple olive oil and soy sauce dressing, but I prefer the natural sweetness of the orange segments, though sometimes I’ll juice an orange and add it to the dressing.

    Avivah

  • Israel clothing recommendations

    >>(if you are able and willing, could you share your ‘clothing situation’ in Israel?…ie how much to have, to store away, what you had to buy extra once you moved, what is unnecessary to have etc.)<<

    We moved here and brought only what we could take along in our suitcases, so this definitely minimized the amount of everything we brought, clothing included.    If you’re bringing a lift, you have more flexibility.

    We brought clothes for everyone for about the first year – I didn’t want to have to start shopping as soon as I got here.  (Though I ended up less than two weeks after arriving needing to buy uniform clothing.)  I didn’t feel everyone needed an extensive wardrobe – a few skirts/pants per child, a few tops for basic daily wear.  Some dress clothes.  What I made sure to bring more of were items that are significantly more expensive here, and not easily purchased used.

    Those items included: shoes – very, very expensive here, and if I could have I would have brought more (I just didn’t have any more allowed luggage weight); underwear and socks – again, very expensive and the quality doesn’t match what you can buy from Hanes or whatever other company.

    Coats – We brought a coat for each person, and in this area I’ve debated with myself if it was the best use of our space.  Although we’re in the north, we’re actually in a pleasantly temperate area.  Reminds me kind of Seattle.  So it really hasn’t gotten very cold yet – I’ve worn my coat a handful of times.  It might have been a better idea if we had brought our warm lined raincoats; it hasn’t rained much this year, but when it did, I was desperately sorry to have warm coats when what was much more important was being waterproof.  However, once I bought umbrellas for every family member, this internal debate disappeared since we now have a way to be dry and warm.

    If we hadn’t brought coats and had needed them, buying them new would have been an expensive proposition.  (I was able to find a used coat for dd11, whose new coat I got right before we left somehow didn’t make it here, and paid just ten shekels for it.  It’s a decent coat and I’m glad to have been able to find it, but it’s nowhere near as nice as the one I had gotten her.)  But at least here in Karmiel, you don’t need a heavy down ski parka – that’s way overkill.

    Boots – I gave away all of our boots, except for the littles.  Again, this was due to space  restrictions, not because I didn’t think boots would be useful.  I’ve been very glad to have boots for the littles, since they have a fifteen minute walk to school and their sneakers would be soaked on rainy days by the time they got there.  It would be nice for the rest of us, but since it hasn’t been very rainy yet, it’s easier to say that boots are somewhat a luxury here.  But if you can bring them, it’s definitely worth it – even if it’s not raining, they keep your feet toasty when you’re inside.  I kind of regret not bringing them, but again, I didn’t give them away because I wanted to, but because I had to be ruthless about making choices to stay within our luggage allowance.

    Some parts of Israel are much colder than others.  In Tzfat (Safed), just a forty minute drive, it’s noticeably colder than here.  Jerusalem is much colder as well.  But wherever you live, I think that layers are a very, very good idea.  Often the outside temperatures aren’t low, but inside it’s freezing.  It’s happened almost every day last week that inside our apartment I’m sitting in the afternoon with a light fleece blanket over me, and if I go outside, it’s sunny and warm, and all I need is a light sweater or sweatshirt on top of a long sleeved shirt!  That’s because the buildings are made of stone and generally not well insulated – so they keep you nice and chilly, which is good if you run hot.  Which I don’t.

    Knowing this in advance, I tried to pack thermals or long sleeved solid shirts for all of us that could be worn under other clothing, warm fleece sweatshirts that could fit under a coat, and then a coat.  Almost all of the older kids wear layers and sweatshirts on top of their uniform shirts while in school; the little kids are either moving around a lot more or their classrooms are kept warmer, because they don’t more than two layers.  Our teenage girls have the longest walk to school and have yet to wear a winter coat to stay warm on the way, but are the most heavily layered when inside.

    The only clothing items that I brought to store away were little kids shoes.  I had a lot of clothing in storage that I had bought on sale, and donated almost all of this.  But the exception were shoes for the littles; I brought most of the shoes I had in sizes 9 – 13 because I knew I’d use them even if it didn’t fit someone right now, and they were small enough that I could still keep to my limit of one suitcase of clothing per person.

    I hope to build up my clothing storage again, since I was able to save significant amounts of money by ‘shopping in the attic’, rather than needing to go out to stores every time someone needed something.  Some used clothing has come my way, and some of this is now in storage for when it fits someone it’s currently too big for.

    For those of you who have made an overseas move (wherever it may have been!), is this similar to what your approach was?  What did you feel was most important, and what did you think ended up being a waste of space?  What recommendations would you have for someone moving to Israel?

    Avivah

  • How to kasher chicken livers

     >>Avivah, I’m going to hijack your post here to ask you about chicken livers.  Do you know how to prepare them? I have been wondering this for a long time. <<

    Yes, I do!  It’s kind of like making bread dough – in the beginning, hearing about all of the steps sounds overwhelming and then you do it, and it’s really not such a big deal.  I find that kashering livers myself saves me a boatload of money.

    I use a gas burner on my stovetop, so that’s what my instructions are for.  You can use a grill and can use the same steps for the actual kashering process.

    Before I start with the actual livers, I prepare the stovetop.  I take the grates off of all the burners, and cover the burner I’m going to be using with a disposable aluminum pan.  You can see below how I cut a big X and then folded back the metal flaps to create a hole that will fit around the burner.

    A disposable pan cut to be a drip pan

    Put the pan over the burner on your stove – this isn’t necessary but I like to minimize the work I have to do, and it makes it easier to clean up the splatters.  (You can reuse this drip pan for a future liver preparing session, if you like – I had accidentally thrown mine away so I had to make a new one.)

    Drip pan fitted over gas burner

    I bought a two sided hinged rectangular grill thing (sorry, no idea what the term is for this) with two handles – I thought it was impossible to find it in Karmiel so we bought it in Jerusalem, but last week saw it in two places locally (for those who are interested – with kitchenware in Mega Bul and Gama Deal).  I got the big one but have since learned that all the livers can’t simultaneously roast at one time when it’s full, so I really could have gotten the smaller size.  At least it makes it easy to rest on the pan so I don’t have to hold it at all while it’s grilling.

    Anyway, this grilling tool is something you can find with supplies for grilling.  You can see below that the raw livers are on one part of the hinged grill, and the other part is resting at a 90 degree angle.

    Sprinkle the liver with coarse salt.

    Raw liver on grate over burner

    Turn on fire and start to grill the livers.  When one side seems to be done, flip it over to the other side.

    Livers roasting over gas burner

    (The liver above had just been flipped.) The main caution I’d make at this point is to watch the heat of the fire – you don’t want to end up with chunks of charcoal, but you want to make sure that the insides are dry and there’s no blood left.  I usually grill the first side on high and the second side on low.  Remember, don’t stick a fork inside the liver to check it when it’s grilling because it will make your fork unkosher if there’s still blood there.

    When the livers are roasted, put them on a plate or in a pan.  I’ve heard that you’re supposed to rinse the salt off at this time, and tried to confirm if it’s necessary to do or nice to do, but am not yet clear on that so would say to rinse it off.  This is a pain since freshly roasted livers are delicious!  And they’re not quite the same when you rinse them first.  (If you know about this, please let me know – I’d be very glad not to have to rinse them.)

    When I kasher livers, I prepare a large batch at a time (this last time I did three kilos), and freeze it into portion sizes.  As far as using the livers, you can turn them into the classic chopped liver (which I have never done), or use them in some creative concoctions.  My kids like them straight off of the grill, so I have to make an effort to ration them so they last for future cooking experiments.  🙂

    Do you kasher your own livers?  Is this similar to what you do?  Have you found the money spent justifies the money saved?

    Avivah

  • Great resource for supplements

    I just looked in my drafts file, and though I cleaned out over forty drafts a few months ago that I felt wouldn’t be of interest to anyone now that I moved to Israel, I still have 164 posts pending.  Sheesh.  So many things to write about, so little time!

    Anyway, I’m going to try to post some of those pending posts since some of them are waiting an embarrassingly long time for me to finish them up.

    The first of these is about a great resource for supplements for those in the US as well as overseas that I first learned about from a blog reader.  I didn’t want to share about it until I had tried it out successfully, but being that it’s been over a month since my first order arrived, and my second order is sitting and waiting at the post office for me to pick it up, it’s time to share the details!

    I mentioned that we began buying cod liver oil recently, and I’ve been buying from this source, iherb.com.   The prices are good, and what makes it a great option particularly for those overseas is the very low shipping – I paid a flat rate of $4 for each order.

    Another nice plus is that you can see the weight of each item that you order, and since you need to keep your order under a certain weight to avoid taxes on the receiving end, this makes it very easy to be aware of the shipping weight total of your order.  (The weight limit is either 3 or 4 pounds – I’ve seen people saying both, but limited my order to three pounds each to be on the safe side because dealing with the huge taxes that can be slapped onto orders received is no fun.  If you have definitive information on this, please share!)

    I got $5 off of my first order thanks to a coupon code I had – this was only good for first time buyers.  You can use the code OBO992 for your first order to get this discount.  On my second order, I bought my cod liver oil when there was a ten percent discount for two days on everything on the website, so that helped my cost stay a bit lower for that.  But it still was very affordable, under $30 for three 12 oz. bottles of cod liver oil including shipping.

    I am buying the Twinlab cod liver oil, not because I think it’s best, but because I think it’s decent and it’s affordable for us.  I’d LOVE to be able to buy fermented cod liver oil, but even with reduced bulk pricing, I can’t spend a few hundred dollars on a few bottles of cod liver oil, even though it is much more valuable nutritionally.  (I seriously looked into this because I’d love to give it to my littles to give them the significant nutritional boost it offers.)

    You can strive for ideal, but when ideal isn’t an option (and it frustrates me sometimes that in the real food world so many people seem unable to validate that ideal isn’t possible sometimes, that there are real budgetary limitations), you can do nothing or you can do the next best thing.  So we’re doing the next best thing.

    I’d like to be able to find what we need locally, versus having visitors from the US regularly bringing me all those things I miss from there.  So far we’ve done really well in making a shift to Israeli brands and products for just about everything, but sometimes you can’t find what you want here, and it’s nice to have an affordable way to get it!

    Avivah

  • Dietary changes since moving to Israel

    I recently answered the question about how we’re adapting to the differences in availability of certain foods since we arrived in Israel from a philosophical perspective.  Today I’ll answer the nitty gritty details.  😛

    >>How are you finding the price differences in food?<<

    Food prices are for the most part higher here on just about everything but fruits and vegetables.  When you take into account that the average Israeli salary isn’t as high as in the US, food costs make up for a much higher percentage of income here.

    But even in the US, I wasn’t buying food at retail prices; I had discounted sources or bought on sale for just about everything.  Therefore, I was able to feed our family of 11 a high quality diet on $650 a month.  Our budget hasn’t drastically changed – we’re budgeting 2000 shekels a month for food ($555) and so far this is working out very nicely for our family and the guests we have almost every week – but we’ve had some shifts in what we’re eating.  I’m including prices of some basics since I was asked about that in the comments section of a previous post.

    If I mention a price and you’d like to figure out what it would be in dollars, the conversion rate is currently 3.6 shekels to the dollar; 2.2 pounds equals a kilogram, and 4 liters is about a gallon.  (Yes, I stand there in front of the display shelves in the supermarket doing these calculations in my head to figure out if things are a good buy!  I fortunately have to do this less and less as time goes on, though.)

    Dairy – We used to use lots of butter, raw milk, homemade yogurt (from raw milk), kefir, organic cottage cheese and sour cream, and small amounts of hard cheese.  Now, we’ll occasionally have some butter or pasteurized milk, or maybe a yogurt or two, but dairy is no longer a staple in our home.  I can’t stand that soy fillers are added to ground meat and cheeses here to make them cheaper (this was a surprise to me the first time I looked at a package of frozen chopped meat that was on sale), so you have to really, really read the labels to be sure you’re getting what you think you are.

    On a related note: I was invited to a party last week at which I was the only English speaker, and when I looked at the so-called natural juice on the table, I saw it had artificial stabilizers added.  I chose to drink water instead, but the woman next to me asked me why I put the juice down.  I told her, and since everyone else at the table was listening, they showed me the ‘no artificial colors or preservatives” claim on the front, and then one of them turned the bottle around to show me where it said it in English (in case I didn’t get the point!).  I turned the bottle to the ingredients and showed them – in Hebrew – the problematic ingredients.  They couldn’t believe it.  Lesson – you must read labels carefully!

    Back to dairy.  The least expensive cheese that doesn’t have soy fillers in it is about 42 shekels a kilo when bought at the counter (ie not prepackaged, so it’s the cheaper way to buy).  Milk is between 4.50 – 5 shekels a liter.  Butter is about 7.50 shekels for 200 grams. An individual unsweetened yogurt (150 – 200 grams) is about 1.20 – 2.35 shekels, depending on the fat content (sour cream is on the higher end of this price).  Cottage cheese is 5 shekels a container on sale; I don’t remember how many grams this is, maybe 250 (I haven’t yet bought it) but it’s about a cup.  These prices aren’t for organic or raw dairy products.

    I’ve been unable to find raw cow’s milk, and the raw goat’s milk I’ve found is quite a drive from here.  I had a discussion with someone who raises goats and sells raw milk, but she was very adamant that it should be pasteurized before drinking.  She had some good points, basically about the importance of knowing not only the person who raises the goats, but each goat itself to see how it’s feeling that day to determine if there might be any infection that would transfer to the milk.   In any case, I don’t have a vehicle and renting a car to get milk once in a while would be a big expense.  (The cost of the raw goats milk was 7.5 shekels a liter.)  So due to cost and quality concerns, I’ve chosen to drastically minimize dairy, to the point of just about eliminating it.

    Eggs – I used to buy pastured eggs directly from the farmer for an amazingly low price and used them very freely – it was common to go through two dozen eggs just at breakfast.  Here for non-pastured eggs I’m paying 27.50 shekels for 2.5 dozen non pastured eggs.  Organic eggs are much, much more.   We still use plenty of eggs, but closer to thirty dozen a month instead of sixty dozen.

    Chicken/meat – Though we’ve cut down on the eggs and dairy, we’ve switched to more poultry.  This is an area where I think we are able to compensate a lot for the nutrients we used to get in milk and eggs.  I buy a lot of chicken giblets, a very nutritious organ meat, and use it almost daily for lunch (purchased on sale for 7 – 8 shekels a kilo). We usually have chicken on  Shabbos (the price of chicken varies drastically by kosher certification, ranging around 10 – 28 shekels a kilo for a whole chicken).

    A lot of the beef in Israel is raised in Argentina, where the vast majority of animals are pastured.  I buy this once a week for Shabbos (when I can get it on sale for 3 kilos for 100 shekels).

    Liver – I wrote a while back about my experience kashering liver.  After undertaking to kasher 20 pounds of beef liver, I was so burnt out that I didn’t reattempt it once we used up that huge batch.  However, in light of the lack of raw milk and high quality eggs, liver is again reentering the picture in our home.  🙂

    Dd17 bought a two handled rectangular grill thingy that I can kasher the liver with on our stovetop when she was in Jerusalem a couple of weeks ago – there was nowhere in our city that they’re sold and I was really happy she was able to find it!  (Liver is very bloody and since Jews are forbidden to eat even a drop of blood, liver has to be roasted in a special way to ensure no blood is left in it before eating – this is called kashering.)  We kashered the first one kilo batch of chicken livers a few days ago, and it went pretty quickly, so last week dh picked up another four kilos.  By purchasing these on sale, I pay between 18 – 20 shekels a kilo.  (If you buy them kashered, the price goes up to around 100 shekels a kilo.)  This isn’t something that we need to eat lots of since nutritionally a little goes a long way; I’m planning to use about a kilo of liver a week for our family.

    Broth – We are able to buy chicken bones for 4 shekels a kilo on sale, and usually have a pot of broth in use in some way.  We use this as a basis for soup, grains, and of course, with dh being on GAPS for over 1.5 years, broth is a staple for him.  In the winter I particularly enjoy drinking it instead of hot tea.

    Fats – This was the thing that took me the longest to come up with some good choices after we moved and caused me the most frustration.  In the beginning had to use regular oil (soy and canola) from the store.   That was the worst since we haven’t had things like that in our house for five or six years and I think they’re nutritionally damaging, versus  less than ideal.  We used a lot more extra virgin olive oil during this time than usual.  Fortunately, we now have palm shortening for most baking and cooking (9 shekels a kilo).

    I bought beef fat for 13 shekels a kilo last week  (the butcher discounted it down from 25 shekels a kilo for us – here the fat sells for almost as much as the meat!) and rendered it.  We use extra virgin olive oil for salads or to add to hot foods after they’ve been cooked.  None of these are cheap options but this is an area where I’m willing to spend more. I also try to regularly buy avocados, which range from about 6 – 8 shekels a kilo.

    Produce – We still have lots of fruits and vegetables, and this is an area where we spend less in Israel than we did in the US.  I used to limit myself to produce that was under $1 a pound.  Here I’ve been limiting myself to produce under 4 shekels a kilo (this has gotten a little harder with the cold weather approaching and I might have to bump this up to 5 or 6 shekels a kilo at some point), though I occasionally go over for something like avocados, and can still find a good selection to choose from.

    Beans – Legumes are famously known as budget stretchers, and of course we continue to incorporate these into our diet.  They average between 5 – 8 shekels a kilo when purchased unpackaged in the bulk section (prepacked is more like 8 – 11).  We soak and sprout all legumes to mazimize the nutritional value and to increase digestibility. 

    Nuts – Since I believe that grains are best in limited quantities, I spent a lot of time a couple of years ago experimenting with nut flour recipes to minimize our grain usage – pie crusts, pizza crusts, muffins, desserts of all sorts – I got very good at this!  I was able to buy nut flours in bulk (50 lb sacks) for up to $4 lb.  Here, nuts are very expensive.   In my recent bulk order, I got 50 lb of sunflower seeds, the cheapest option, which is still not exactly cheap (17.20 a kilo plus 16% tax – sorry, I know that’s annoying but that’s how it’s itemized).

    Sesame paste (tahini) is the only other affordable nut/seed option that I can think of.  Sesame seeds are about 10 or 11 shekels a kilo; tahini is about 20 shekels a kilo.  We make a batch of techina every week and use it as a dip for veggies.

    Grains – I brought my grain grinder along, but thanks to someone’s recommendation, didn’t buy an adapter in the US for it (they said it was a waste of luggage weight and something we could easily buy here).  This was a big mistake.  When we got here, we learned that the transformer we need in order for it to work on the 220 electrical currents here was ridiculously expensive, over 600 shekels.  I’m planning to buy one from the US and ask my mother to bring it to me when she comes for our upcoming bar mitzva, but until then, I have to lay low with our usual grain grinding.

    For the last few years I’ve been using primarily freshly ground hard white wheat or spelt when baking.  Without my grinder available to use, I’ve been using white flour, something that I haven’t used in many, many years.  Unless grain is freshly ground (due to the high phytase content), there’s a lot of controversy about if whole wheat or white flour are less damaging due to the phytic acid issues.  I’m not convinced that whole grain flours that have been sitting on the shelves of the store for weeks (at best) are a great source of nutrients, and there are definitely digestibility issues.  I’m not going to idealize white flour, believe me, but I’ve chosen to do this although I could get whole wheat flour for about the same price as white.  It’s a question of what’s the lesser of two evils and I’m not really happy with either choice.  I’ll be thrilled to be back to grinding our grains in the near future.  Using white flour keeps me very conscious to use it minimally and keeps me from falling into the thinking that as long as its freshly ground flour, then it’s healthy.  (I don’t think flour is ideal even when freshly ground and sprouted, but I do believe that those things make flour as ideal as it can be.)

    Sweeteners – My staples in the past were organic sucanat (used for all baking), real maple syrup, honey, and xylitol.  I brought some xylitol and one 12 pound container of honey with me; the xylitol because it’s not available for purchase here and I use it for toothbrushing; the honey because I had already spent the money on it, and was able to use it to weigh down a suitcase of clothes that was full but under the allowed weight.  I was really glad to have brought it since honey is so expensive here but that’s finished now – we went through it much more quickly than we generally do since since organic sucanat isn’t available in Israel, and I used more honey.

    But I also have bought – gasp! – white sugar.  I don’t believe that brown sugar, demerara, rapadura, or any other of the supposedly healthy forms of sugar are actually of much value, and definitely not worth spending extra money on.  (I did all this research about three years ago when learning about sucanat.)  I’ve shifted my cooking to lots of savory foods rather than sweet in order to minimize the use of sweeteners that are either nutritionally empty or very expensive – there doesn’t seem to be anything in the middle.  I don’t make the healthy muffins and quick breads that I used to serve many mornings for breakfasts, since with the ingredients I have now they wouldn’t be healthy enough for me to consider it nourishing food.  I’ve mentioned before that I cut the amount of sweetener that recipes call for in half, and this generally brings it down to the level of sweetness that our family is comfortable with.  Flour and sugar are now mostly saved for Shabbos challah and desserts, which I’m basically okay with since it’s so limited. 

    Our food remains unprocessed and everything is made from scratch, which is also a big factor in our food budget remaining so low even while here in Israel.  I hesitated about sharing how much we spend monthly because I’ve noticed two tendencies people have when seeing this information: a) to gloat because they spend less, or b) to be discouraged because they spend more.  I hope that everyone realizes that this is just our budget, and that this isn’t the place to compete or compare.  If someone wants to cut their budget, I’ve shared extensively over the years about how to cut costs in this area (look in the frugality section), and this has helped many, many people get their food costs down significantly.  If someone thinks we spend too much, well, this is what we’re comfortable with, and we’re not looking to get down to the bare bones.  We enjoy having guests, and we enjoy having nice meals – you can see from what I’ve shared above that there are things we could cut out if we were looking for the cheapest possible food. 

    Okay, I’ve spent ages writing this up!  Is this helpful or interesting information for you?  Is there something you would have liked to know about that I didn’t mention?  Have you ever had to shift your diet to accomodate local availability, and how do you feel about it?

    Avivah

    (This post is part of Real Food Wednesday.)

  • My dryer status

    >>Are you planning on buying a dryer? I don’t have one and with three boys and dh and I, and constantly doing laundry, I can’t imagine having a family your size without one!<<

    I honestly don’t yet know the answer to this.  So far we haven’t purchased a dryer, and my hope is that I won’t need to.  Drying laundry in the sun is a no-brainer six months of the year here, when it’s sunny with not a drop of rain.  The challenge comes during the rainy season, which we’re in right now.

    In the rainy season, it gets much more labor intensive to consistently hang laundry outside.  All the Israelis to whom I mentioned not having a dryer think I’m crazy.  This last two weeks have been sunny, but for a couple of weeks before that it was consistently raining – which is a beautiful blessing in this country that is so dependent on it – and it was very, very tough to deal with the laundry.

    Here’s what it looked like: wake up, look for a break in the rain, and quickly hang the laundry up.  Keep your eye on the overcast sky the entire day.  Tell your kids to let you know if they see any rain.  At the first sign of a sprinkle, the kids come running and yelling that it’s raining, and you bring in all the still wet clothing.  Hang the damp sheets over doors.  At least that’s one thing that dries.  Keep your eye on the sky. Rehang all clothes when you see a break in the rain.  Try to remember to take them in before you go to sleep even if they aren’t yet dry, or hope that if you take the risk of leaving them out overnight, that it won’t start pouring in the middle of the night.

    Take your risk since you really want these clothes to dry and you’re 2/3 of the way there….and you lose.  Wake up in the middle of the night as you hear the rain suddenly pour down, and frantically jump out of bed and maniacally begin taking in the laundry, until your rational brain tells you to stop because it’s too late.

    Once they’re soaked in the downpour, leave them hanging another two days until you’re at the same place you started, with clothes as damp as if they just came from the washer.  Bring them in once more when they are halfway dry and the rain comes again, and hang them once more when there’s a break in the weather.  Five days after you first did the load of wash, bring them in with gratitude that you are finally finished with this load, look at the huge pile of dirty laundry needing to be washed, and start wondering how long it will take you to cave in and buy a dryer.

    No, I am totally not exaggerating.  Five days and I hung and rehung the same laundry three times during that time.  I’m telling you, I felt like my family needed to say a lot more than ‘thanks’ for those clean clothes!  Thankfully the laundry was finished after five days and then during the next week with nonstop rain, I got smart – before I went to sleep at night, I covered the clotheslines with our heavy duty plastic tablecloth, and only took it off when there was a break in the weather.  Moving a plastic tablecloth was a big improvement over taking all the laundry in and putting it back out.

    Because the air is so damp and cold, even when it’s not raining the laundry doesn’t dry quickly.  So it still takes a while to dry but with my new system I don’t think it will take more than three days, and probably only two, for clothes to dry.

    I’ve developed strategies to stay on top of the laundry despite the weather.  Firstly, wash clothes regardless of the weather.  Then you have them ready to hang as soon as you have a chance.  (Usually, I wash one load, hang it, wash another load, hang.)  Secondly, really keep an eye on the weather.  You know the saying, “Make hay while the sun shines”?  That’s my motto.  When the weather is sunny, I do a ton – sheets, towels, rags, anything that needs washing so that I’ll be set if it rains the next day.

    In general in the winter, I try not to let dirty clothes build up.  If it means putting in a load of clothes and the machine isn’t totally full, that’s okay.  Waiting another day for the machine to be totally full could be the difference between trying to dry things in the rain or the sun.

    When I wake up in the morning and see the blue sky, I am SO grateful because I know I’ll be able to get my laundry done.  Really, you don’t know how nice it is to hang the laundry one time, and then take it down when it’s done.  And even leave it overnight without worrying.  The small pleasures in life. 🙂

    Here’s a reminder about a post I wrote a couple of years ago about tips for hanging clothes to dry outside: http://oceansofjoy.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/how-to-dry-clothes-on-clothesline/

    All that being said, I very much hope we’ll have a very, very rainy winter and I’ll be constantly pushed to deal with my laundry that isn’t drying easily.  We need the rain!

    Do you line dry clothes year round?  Why or why not?  If you do, how do you deal with inclement weather?

    Avivah

  • My first bulk order in Israel!

    Oh, my goodness, the excitement!  You wouldn’t think making a bulk order would be such a big deal to someone like me who’s been making orders like these for years!

    To back up, I thought this order would have happened right after getting here.  Before moving to Israel I learned about a bulk baking supply company, and took their phone number with me in order to place an order as soon as we got our phone line hooked up.  The woman I spoke to, upon hearing that I lived in the northern part of Israel, suggested I contact one of their suppliers in the north, and order directly from him to make things easier for me.

    Great idea, I thought!  I got on the phone right away with him, but he didn’t seem to think selling to me was such a great idea at all.  No problem – I’ve convinced a few sources who usually only sell directly to stores to sell to me, and so even though this was in Hebrew and there’s a definite gap between my English and Hebrew fluency, I set to work to convince him as well.  He finally agreed after two or three weeks of conversations, and I happily placed my first order.

    My happiness was premature, however, since he called a day later to apologize.  He told me he really wanted to find a way for it to work for me to order with him, but since I wasn’t registered as a business, the computer system was rejecting my order since my identity number is linked to a private person – and he was only allowed to legally sell to businesses.  Oh, shucks.  I couldn’t find a way to get around this, aside from finding a business that would be willing to tack on my order to theirs, but I don’t yet have the connections to make this possible.  So there went that idea.  (Someone since suggested that I register myself legally as a business, which might be an idea worth looking into but will take a lot of legwork and time in government offices.)

    At the same time, I was negotiating with a different store to sell to me in bulk, which they agreed to do but they hadn’t told me what the discount would be for buying in those amounts.  I literally spoke with five different levels of management about this, getting referred to a higher up each time, and it’s clearly the first time anyone spoke to any of them about this.  But I finally lost my interest in continuing to persist, since the top guy kept telling me to call him in the few days, and then he’d be in a meeting or not have the numbers in front of him or whatever.  I still have his number for a time when I have nothing to do but but repeatedly call until I get a final answer.  (I don’t think this will happen – when I lose interest, I move on – I don’t have time and energy to waste.)  So there went that idea.

    Then I thought to arrange a bulk order locally from the first place that’s far away, and to split the gas costs to pick it up.  There was only lukewarm interest in the idea, and later I realized that to do something like this, you first have to teach people how to buy in bulk, how to store in bulk, how to split orders, how much money can be saved.  It was too much work to get this together with other people, so finally I decided to make my own order.

    Dh rented a car to go pick this up, and between the rental cost and the gas cost ($8 gallon), it really decreased our savings.  But there were a couple of things that justified it because I can’t get it locally at all (eg palm shortening) so we felt it was necessary by this point.

    So three months after arriving, we got our first bulk order, and it literally felt like old times!  My kids were shlepping all the bulk bags up and asking me where to store things, and it was so something that our family does, and it was a nice heartwarming feeling.  For me, anyway.  🙂

    It doesn’t seem like so much when it’s written down, but in the little rental car with three kids along for the ride, dh was hard pressed to find a place for everyone!  Here’s what I got:

    • 60 kg palm shortening
    • 12 kg chocolate chips
    • 5 kg cocoa
    • 5 kg shredded coconut
    • 5 kg baking powder
    • 25 kg baking soda
    • 25 kg oats
    • 25 kg sunflower seeds
    • 25 kg coarse salt
    • 10 kg powdered sugar (for dd17)
    • 1 kg garlic powder
    • 2 kg cinnamon
    • 1 kg cumin
    • 2 kg sweet paprika
    • 1 kg oregano
    • 1 kg curcum (sorry, I don’t know if this translates to curry or tumeric, if someone knows please clue me in)

    I like having what I need on hand and not running out!, and I really like paying 25 – 50% or less of store prices!  The challenge is always where to store things, which in much more compact Israeli apartments is definitely a legitimate issue.  (This is where I think doing a shared bulk order is a win-win; people get the cheaper price but don’t have to store large amounts of food.)   Initially I was surprised that with food costs so high, Israelis don’t seem to think of buying in bulk or getting lots of things when they’re on sale, but it seems the space constraints as well as the ‘buy it fresh the day you need it’ mentality don’t lend themselves to bulk buying.

    Avivah

  • When your food budget is limited…coming to terms

    >>Now that you’re in Israel, and the food available is different than the food available in the US, and the prices different as well (not to mention different bulk things available), I was wondering how or if your focus on healthy foods changed…. I was wondering how you prioritized health and made do with what is available here.<<

    Rather than go into detail about the specifics of how our diet has changed since we moved to Israel three months ago – I’m happy to share about that in another post if there’s interest – I’m going to share how I think about the nutritional limitations that I’ve felt, and I think many others do, when seeing that the amount of money available doesn’t extend to the the foods they feel are necessary to buy for an optimum diet.

    Last year was a difficult year for me in many ways; I often felt like I was chasing my tail, and as a result, I wasn’t cooking as well as I had in the past.  We still had a healthy diet – but too often I’d get discouraged because I was looking at what I wasn’t doing, rather than all that I was doing.  But what I was doing was still significant!

    I really enjoy learning about nutrition, and I enjoy feeling like I can take concrete steps to nourish my family.  This is something I’ve enjoyed learning about since I was 17, and I’ve been blessed to have been able to continually learn more and make nutritional improvements over the years.  But there’s a fine line between doing all that we can nutritionally, and developing an unhealthy perfectionism, an attitude of all or nothing.

    It’s so easy to get trapped by this, and because it’s coming from a good place, of wanting the best for our families, it can be harder to see that we’ve crossed the line of balance.  Sometimes, people end up feeling that no matter how much they do, it’s never enough.  I certainly did.

    I had to mentally recalibrate then, and I periodically have to recalibrate now.  Good nutrition isn’t about an all or nothing approach.  It’s a journey, and sometimes you’ll have different tools available to you than other times as you walk this path.

    One of the tools for the journey is money.  Some of us have more, some of us have less.  Accessibility of certain foods is another too.  Physical energy to prepare food from scratch and shop is another tool, desire to learn more is another tool.  The support of our spouses is a tool, the willingness of our children to eat what we make is another tool….there are so many tools!  All of us have some tools in abundance, and other tools are kind of spotty.

    When I focus on what  I’m missing, it’s going to keep me from seeing all that I do have!   And to gloss over the amazing abundance we’ve seen over the years because it didn’t provide for every single thing I would have dreamed of would be almost criminal.  Over the last five years, our monthly food budget has ranged from $400 up to $650 (for our family of 11) while living in the US.  It’s been hard for many people to imagine how we fed our family on this amount, let alone kosher, healthy foods – but we were able to integrate many wonderful nutritional components into our way of eating.

    Whenever I would go food shopping, I would often feel that G-d made sure I found wonderful bargains, and helped me meet people who were able to help us further expand what we had available (farmers I was able to buy from directly, store managers who were willing to sell to me at wholesale prices, etc).  We were provided for in so many ways.  I felt that our money was blessed and it was able to stretch so much farther than seemed likely!  Does that mean that I had everything I wanted? No. But I had everything I needed.  Big difference!

    Of course there were things that I would have liked to have been able to afford.  And now there are things here in Israel that I wish were available or affordable.  But if I get frustrated about what I can’t have/do or get stuck on what I wish I had, it keeps me from seeing and appreciating all that I do have.

    Getting stuck in negativity is a bad place to live from, and certainly a bad place to eat from!  Even the best food can’t fully nourish you when you are filled with negativity.  I believe that the frame of mind you eat in also affects your health, and eating less than ideal foods from a place of gratitude and joy is going to do good things for you.

    Focusing on all that I have, validating my efforts, and trusting that we’ll be sent the tools that we need for our journey to health and in every other area of life, help me feel at peace with the constraints that I’m often faced with.

    Avivah

    (This post is part of Real Food Wednesday.)

  • Weekly menu plan

    Shabbos (Sabbath/Friday night)- dinner – challah, chicken soup, chicken, roast potatoes,  carrot/apple/onion bake, warm cabbage salad, beet salad, apple pie

    (Sat.)  b- cinnamon bubble loaf;  lunch – challah, techina, hummus, Turkish salad, beef stew, crunchy coleslaw, savory beet salad, Moroccan carrot salad, traffic light salad, baked yams, oatmeal cookies, chocolate cake, rugelach

    Sunday – lunch – beef stew, coleslaw; dinner – stir fry, salad

    Monday – b – polenta fries; l – meat sauce and pasta shells, salad; d – apple lentil bake (double for tomorrow’s dinner), beet salad

    Tuesday – b – eggs; l – butternut coconut curry, rice, carrot salad; d – apple lentil bake

    Wednesday – b – rice pancakes; l – chicken pot pie (double and freeze one for next week), beet salad; d – split pea soup, cornbread (double for tomorrow lunch)

    Thursday – b- oatmeal; l – split pea soup, cornbread, salad; d – Russian borscht

    Friday – b – eggs

    The fruits that are accompanying breakfast this week are red grapefruits and apples.  A neighbor invited us to pick navel oranges, two kinds of lemons, and mandarins in her yard last week, and we went through those very quickly!

    The kids take freshly baked bread every day for their ten am meal at school, along with some fruit and/or a veggie – usually pepper strips or cucumber; this isn’t listed on the menu.

    I use bone broths as a base for all my soups as well as to cook grain or bean dishes.  This adds a lot of nutrients to a meal that would otherwise be vegetarian.  I was delighted last week to stumble on a sale on chicken bones – 4 shekels a kilo, and so I bought all that they had.  As much as that seemed at the time, we go through broth at such a quick rate (three sixteen quart pots a week) that they won’t last nearly as long as I’d hope. And now that we don’t have raw milk every morning, I’ve been thinking maybe we should get into a habit of drinking broth daily to compensate.

    I started soaking the lentils on Sunday, so they’ll have time to sprout by the time that I’ll be cooking with them.  I also started a new batch of kimchi, about two and a half gallons this time – the first four gallon batch that we started a couple of weeks ago still isn’t ready, though it’s breaking down nicely and is about two gallons in volume now (the cabbage breaks down as it ferments).  I like to have a cup of the juice as a morning probiotic drink, so that also accounts for the lessening volume!   By making a new batch of kimchi now, when the time the first batch is finished, the second one will be ready.  Cabbage based ferments take a lot longer than pickles or carrots, so you have to plan ahead unless you don’t mind not having any kimchi for a few weeks while a new batch ferments.

    Cucumbers are going up in price quickly, double what the summer prices are, but they’re still affordable.   This week I’d like to buy a big batch and make a few gallons of pickles before the prices really shoot up and I set aside pickled cucumbers until they come back into season.  The kids enjoy this a lot, and we have them regularly with our lunch meals, though I don’t list it.

    Have a good week!

    Avivah

    (This post is part of Menu Plan Monday.)

  • How to make olive leaf tincture

    I firmly believe that in every locale, there are potentially medicinal plants that will be of value to you.  However, it means letting go of thinking there are certain herbs that you must have – for example, in the US I had easy access to plantain, dandelion, and burdock, and it’s a mental shift for me to not feel like I need them when those were well within my comfort zone.

    Here in Israel, there are olive trees all over.  And I already knew that olive leaves were good for you, since I bought them a couple of years ago as part of a big herb order.  Seeing the abundance of olive trees here on our very first day prompted me to learn more about how I could include this in my natural medicine chest.

    First of all,a little about olive leaves (the following is from the Bulk Herb Store website, where I ordered my herbs from):  Olive leaf is a natural antibiotic and antioxidant that can help or prevent many diseases. The active compounds have been reported to act as an anti-microbial agent, which slows invaders enough for the body’s natural immune system to react. It exhibits powerful anti-parasitic and anti-fungal properties that fight over one hundred viral and bacterial conditions. The result is a natural antibiotic and antioxidant with similar effects to garlic and onions… It also works to lower high blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, improve respiratory response, improve skin health, heart disease and fatigue. Olive leaf can rejuvenate your vitality and energy, enhance your immune system, supports your cardiovascular system and promote general health and well-being.

    An easy way to use olive leaves is by making tea with them – just brew the leaves with some water, mix in a little sweetener, and drink up!  I also used a concentrated olive leaf tea to wash down ds12’s foot when he had cellulitis.  Be warned that the effective ingredient in the olive leaf is bitter, which is why I suggested sweetener!

    So that’s one way to use it, but I like something even faster – having a big family means that I have to find ways to accomplish what I need to as effectively as possible.  There’s also a limit to how much tea you can drink, and when you’re really under the weather, it’s likely you’d like something that will be powerful and effective, without leaving you bloating and running to empty your bladder every fifteen minutes.

    Enter olive leaf tincture.  (Read here to learn how amazing olive leaves are – I felt so lucky after learning all about them that I can easily harvest them for free here.)  Making a tincture means that you draw out the medicinal qualities of the herb, and simultaneously preserve it for long term use.  Ideally this can be done with alcohol, though in the past I’ve chosen to use vinegar and glycerin to make tinctures, since I thought my kids would prefer those flavors.  Alcohol stores the best, though.

    The instructions for making olive leaf extract/tincture are ridiculously easy:

    1) Wash the leaves well, chop finely or shred in a food processor, then  place in a glass jar.

    2) Cover with 80% proof vodka.  (A funny story – I asked dh to pick up some vodka at the store for me to make this.  When he went to get it, an elderly Russian man approvingly commented to my husband, who tried to explain that he was getting it for medicinal purposes.  I had also asked dh to pick up some lemon juice for salads, and when a little later in the store the same elderly man saw dh holding the bottles of vodka and lemon juice, the man smiled knowingly and smirked, “Right, medicinal.” )

    If you’re using fresh leaves, then the ration of leaves to vodka is 1:2 or 3; ie, if you’re using 8 ounces of leaves, then you’d need to cover them with 16 – 24 oz of vodka.  If you’re using dried leaves, the ratio is 1 leaves: 5 vodka.

    3) Seal the glass, and let it sit in a dark place for at least two weeks, but up to six weeks.  (Mine was ‘brewing’ for almost four weeks.)  Shake it every once in a while and make sure the leaves are all covered by liquid; add more vodka if you need to.

    4) After two weeks, you can now strain it out.  If you have those wonderful amber colored dropper bottles (like I did, but gave away before we moved, sniff!), then pour it in there for easy use.

    5) Use your tincture!  Here’s a good site with information about how to determine your dosage.

    Avivah

    (This post is part of Monday Mania, Homestead Barn Hop, Traditional Tuesdays, and Real Food Wednesday.)