Summer Lovin'

Kind of in love with these signs on Sderot Ben Tsiyon. Also kind of in love with Tel Aviv at the moment. Perhaps it's all this sunshine?

Weather is here. Wish you were beautiful. 

Proud to be a NEW YORKER

If I was home I'd be guzzling champagne in the streets. 

Grad Speeches

I'm a huge sucker for graduation speeches. Something about the influential, eloquent words from people who've invented cool things or written jaw-dropping books or talk to me from a TV screen every day always leaves me feeling introspective.

Anyway, here's Conan at Dartmouth's 2011 graduation. It's raw and hilarious and 24 minutes long, but find time and watch it. Seriously. He doesn't disappoint.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I've been on the hunt for a cozy neighborhood bistro near my apartment in Tel Aviv since I moved in a few weeks ago. I live on King George Street not far from the Carmel Market (also known as the shuk), and anyone who is familiar with the area knows it's not so "neighborhoodie." So I was excited when this weekend my friend Rebecca told me about a cafe with a backyard garden called Sonya Getzel Shapira, which turns out is literally 50 feet from my apartment! I spent the day there writing, finishing off a plate of shakshuka, and feeding a little bird with my leftovers. Oh, and taking pictures in their retro bathroom.

How fun is the bathroom? Silver records contrast the black-and-white tiles. 

Can you 1. find me? and 2. find the toilet?

Sonya Getzel Shapira 1 Simta Alnomit; 077/527-1234

Penguin's Series for Foodies

from top left: From Absinthe to Zest: An Alphabet for Food Lovers 

by Alexandre Dumas; Recipes & Lessons from A Delicious Cooking Revolution 

by Alice Waters; A Middle Eastern Feast by Claudia Roden; 

The Pleasures of the Table by Brillat Savarin. 

Twenty Great Food titles published by Penguin and written by food experts, writers, chefs, and tastemakers. How gorgeous are these jackets? They were created one of Penguin's senior designers, Coralie Bickford-Smith, and are the perfect garnish to an exciting series. 

Snapshots from Hong Kong

I have finally been able to sort through my photos from the five days I spent in Hong Kong in May - my first trip to Asia and quite an eye-opening experience! The city is alive 24 hours a day with locals selling cheaply made goods and cafes that serve steaming bowls of noodles in broth into the wee hours of the morning. If you need a goldfish you'll find thousands at the goldfish market; some antiques head to Hollywood Road in Central; your future interpreted by one of 50+ fortune tellers awaiting business in stalls behind the Wong Tai Sin Temple. Humid, bright lights, and stuff packed into every nook and cranny of this bustling city; this, to me, is Hong Kong.

Dear Photograph

I read about this great new blog Dear Photograph where you take a picture of a picture from the past in the present. It's such a fun idea especially since we all have stacks of photographs sitting in boxes in closed cabinets from before digital cameras and iPhones. Well now's a reason to finally go through them (hint hint mother. it's time). Submit away!

    Dear Photograph, I drained 3's all day! Janet

Dear Photograph, Thanks for reminding me how easy it was to ice a cake when I was 4. @TJ

Dear Photograph, Grandma loved this beach. Dan Perry

Dear Photograph, I'll always remember the summers in that truck. Anonymous

Three Things to Love About Yafo

1. Hummus at Abu Hassan

Locals and tourists flock to this place for Israel's staple dish and claim there is no hummus like it. The original local is a hole-in-the-wall near the Yafo flea market but has since expanded to include an Abu Hassan restaurant and casual eatery across the street from each other. 

2. Wall Art in Old Yafo
When admiring the galleries that line the streets of Old Yafo don't forget to look up at the handmade turquoise street signs and house numbers embedded in the limestone.

3. Vintage magnets, postcards, and prints at Farkash Gallery
Also located in Old Yafo, this shop has a large collection of reprinted advertisements and black-and-white photographs promoting Israel, its food, arts, airlines and so on. It's fun to browse the many stacks of prints, and leave with a few three shekel postcards as keepsakes or to send friends back home.

Baking 101

This weekend Valerie and I decided to bake "find-anything-in-the-pantry-that-tastes-good-in-a-cookie" cookies, which resulted in white chocolate chip-raisin-cranberry-heath bar-oatmeal cookies. I'm not such a fan of baking without a recipe but these turned out pretty good! We doubled that batch so by 9 p.m. we still hadn't eaten dinner and had about 75 cookies laying around in tupperware. I took a bunch home, which will inevitably be the answer to my sweet-tooth cravings for the next month.

Happy Friday!

yummy challah from the Tel Aviv port market [to be devoured in 1 hour]

Things I discovered today:
- I am not an elegant bike rider.
- Halva doesn't need to be refrigerated and can last up to one year
- Israeli's call champagne "cava"
- Passionfruit jam: such a delicacy exists
- Hydrocortisone cream works magic, as does many glasses of cava

Shabbat Shalom L'Culam.

Bits Of My Day

Today Val, Ishai, puppy Oz, and myself went on a tiyul ("trip" in Hebrew) to an area called Little Switzerland in the Mt. Carmel National Park. I've never been to Switzerland so I can't really pass judgement on the name of the area, however the views were beautiful, the trees in full bloom, and mosquitos out ready to feed. It was nice to get out of Tel Aviv for the day and see some more of Israel. I really hope to develop a deeper knowledge of this country during my time here, so this tiyul was a good start.

Camilla Camilla

Love designer Camilla Frank's Autumn/Winter Woodstock collection. Her creative, colorful caftans always drew me into her shop on Oxford Street in Sydney's Paddington neighborhood.