Ironic Cookies

I’m really getting into this whole “doing nothing” thing. So far I’ve seen A LOT of TV, played some mindless games on the Play Station, did a bit of reading and some organizing of things around the house.
I should also get back to baking, and do something with yeast maybe… In the meantime, while I was organizing things I found a whole bunch of M&Ms that were leftover from a game that was played during my baby-shower. I decided to put them into cookies, and looked for a recipe that would work well. Inspired by Baking Bites, I thought that a chocolate cookie might work better (or at least be tastier) than a regular chocolate chip cookies. I found a good recipe for triple chocolate cookies in Cook’s Illustrated which resulted in what I called “Ironic Cookies”: The batter itself is way chocolaty and indulgent, but then, instead of good quality chocolate chips, you have the M&Ms. It’s a weird combination, but when the cookie is hot it works well since you have the crunch of the M&M shell, and then the chocolate inside is completely melted.

THICK AND CHEWY TRIPLE-CHOCOLATE COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 ounces)
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
16 ounces semisweet chocolate , chopped
12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (about 2 cups)
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons instant coffee or espresso powder
10 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks), softened
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar (10 1/2 ounces)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Melt chocolate in medium heatproof bowl set over pan of almost-simmering water, stirring once or twice, until smooth; remove from heat. Beat eggs and vanilla lightly with fork, sprinkle coffee powder over to dissolve, and set aside.

3. In bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 5 seconds. Beat in sugars until combined, about 45 seconds; mixture will look granular. Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in egg mixture until incorporated, about 45 seconds. Add melted chocolate and chips in steady stream and beat until combined, about 40 seconds. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl with rubber spatula. With mixer at low speed, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Do not overbeat. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until consistency is scoopable and fudgelike, about 30 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, adjust oven racks to the upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Leaving about 1 ½ inches between each ball, scoop dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheets with 1¾-inch ice cream scoop.

5. Bake, reversing position of the baking sheets halfway through baking (from top to bottom and front to back), until edges of cookies have just begun to set but centers are still very soft, about 10 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets about 10 minutes, slide parchment with cookies onto wire racks, and cool to room temperature. Cover one baking sheet with new piece of parchment paper. Scoop remaining dough onto parchment-lined sheet, bake, and cool as directed. Remove cooled cookies from parchment with wide metal spatula and serve.

Free Time

Amazingly enough... I have lots and lots of free time now.

Trying to avoid using it all flipping channels on the TV, I decided to try to delve into the TED database and see/hear some interesting talks.

I'll try to avoid posting all the interesting ones, and maybe just post a list of the ones I liked the most. However, I do want to share this one. I think both the artists and the scientists among you will like it, and I'll say right now that there's a punch line at the end, so it's worth sticking around for the entire 13 minutes.

Merry Christmas

It hard to convey just how much Christmas has been all around us for the last couple of weeks. The closest thing I can think of is the amount of Passover hype you get in Israel. In fact, it dawned on me during Hanukah that the dissonance I’m feeling from all the Christmas hype (conveniently referred to as “The Holiday Season” to be non denominational) is probably how Arabs in Israel feel before and during Passover.

The main problem with the analogy is that unlike Christmas, Passover doesn’t have its own unique colors, scents and flavors, so the hype around Passover blunt but limited. Christmas hype is not: Not only do commercials refer to “Holiday Sales”, but also all the merchandise is suddenly either green or red, and every chain store offers things that are cinnamon and/or eggnog scented or flavored.

Another difference is the extent to which people embrace holiday symbols. Starting about two weeks ago you could already see women with tree broaches and ornament earrings. Can you really imagine anybody walking around with a necklace with a silver matza as a pendent? Maybe it’s because Christmas is a happier holiday (celebrating someone’s birthday is nicer than celebrating exile and a 40 year hiking trip) or maybe it’s because the Jewish people are just naturally more cynical (see “Shit Happens” for a comprehensive comparison of world religions).

But, just as in Thanksgiving (and during black Friday) we decided to embrace the culture around us. The problem was we were unclear as to what Jews in the US do at Christmas. A short quantitative study which included both focus groups and one-on-one interviews led us to the conclusion that Jewish tradition is to order Chinese take-out.

So that’s what we did last night. We had some friends over, ordered too much Chinese food (i.e. We’ll be eating Chinese on Christmas day, not just Christmas Eve) and enjoyed the night. We were also planning on watching Bill Maher’s Religolous (did someone say cynical?), but since one of the guests already saw it, we ended up watching someone else. Overall a fun night. A tradition we can likely embrace.

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Happy Festival of Lights

Since we didn't really celebrate Hanukkah, we took the time in NYC to note the celebration of the festival of lights:

To follow up on yesterday's promise, here's some pictures from our adventures in the city:

And finally - some pictures of us, just in case you've forgotten what we look like :)

The longest post ever

Being Big Apple veterans, we decided that this time we want to explore a different side of the city – the outer boroughs. The idea was prompted by an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservation where Tony visited restaurants outside of Manhattan. It all looked very yummy, like a more sophisticated and less greasy episode of Diners Drive Ins and Dives. The decision was then solidified by the fact that being in Manhattan means that we never spend enough time with our friend Boaz who lives in Queens and by the fact that our friend Eitan just moved into an apartment in Brooklyn. And last but not least – the last nail in the Manhattan coffin (or the last planet to align, for those of you who want to go with the more positive metaphor) is that we weren’t able to stay with marc and Wolly in their apartment in Manhattan, and had to opt for cheaper accommodations.

We found those accommodations on a website called AirBnB.com. The site connects between people willing to rent out their apartments or rooms in their apartment for short term stays with those looking for such accommodation. All in all pretty cool – the place was very reminiscent of what you would picture an apartment in Florentine to look like. Though staying in a stranger’s room, without them really clearing it out for you is a bit bizarre. In hind sight, we might be getting a little old for that kind of stuff, but in the whole “one last hurrah” thing, this is certainly the last time I’ll be willing to take on an adventure like that in order to save a few bucks.

I chose an apartment that was 20 minutes walk from Eitan’s place, which he told us is in a very nice part of Brooklyn. But as in every big city, 20 minutes can make a big difference. Apparently, Williamsburg Brooklyn is divided between north (nice, rich newly renovated apartments, with a lot of artists hanging out in cafés) and south (a little dingy, older apartments with a lot of ultra-orthodox Jews walking the streets). After 2 nights staying in the apartment we were in, I think I found the perfect analogy: that picking the apartment we did was like randomly picking a place to stay in Neve Tzedek in Tel-Aviv, without knowing if you’ll get one of the new rich houses or a an old man’s dump.

Living in Brooklyn meant we had whole new subway experiences – one highlight was riding on the 7, which runs above ground from Brooklyn to Queens. During the ride we got a glimpse of an entire lot (I don’t know what it actually was, maybe warehouses) that was full of super cool graffiti. It was like being in the 80s.

As far as what we actually did – well, it wasn’t all in the boroughs, and most of it wasn’t very touristy:

We went to a taping of The Daily Show (you can see the episode here)

We walked around midtown to see the festival of lights in Rockefeller Plaza and the area. This is a bit touristy, but still very pretty. The only thing that took away from our enjoyment was the fact that it was FREEZING!!! Seriously – by the time we got back home I had frost bite on my legs and taking a warm shower actually hurt!

We also spent an entire day with Eitan & Racheli in New Jersey at the IKEA and at an awful outlet mall that had so many Israelis, it was scary. This included a young couple I spotted in the Tommy Hifiger store, that had an amusing conversation about the fact that since there were handbags on sale there for $10, they would buy 10, so as to resell them in Israel.

As always, the biggest part of our trip was the food – the list is long, so you might want to take a brake:

1. Momofuku – a cool novo-Asian place, headed by a Korean chef that now has about 3 restaurants across town. We ate lunch at Momofuku Ssam, the most casual of the bunch. It was delicious. Asian flavors, but with a lot of originality and some non-Asian ingredients. The pork buns there are very well know, but we also really enjoyed the apple kimchi salad and the rice cake entrée (the combination of the two was fantastic).

2. L’Ecole – a restaurant run by students of the French Culinary Institute. Our money would have probably been better spent elsewhere, despite Eitan’s 15% discount.

3. Sachis Arepas – This is a place I found on Yelp, and I was pretty excited since I had heard of arepas a few times in the past few months, but I had no idea what good arepas tasted like. They are corn-flour based bread that are stuffed with various things (sort of like pita bread). The corn flour used is very fine, so they don’t have the rough texture that’s usually associated with corn. The restaurant fulfilled every expectation I had. It was absolutely delicious – very simple, and not very expensive, but flavorful and just yummy.

4. Sea – This is a night-club like Thai restaurant that has an atmosphere that was way too cool for us, but food that was really good and fairly priced. The fairly priced part was especially nice, because we ordered a large variety of small dishes and could really enjoy all kinds of dishes without thinking too much about it.

5. Temple Canteen – this was the place we (well, I) chose to go to from Bourdain’s show. It’s an Indian Restaurant located in the basement floor of a Hindu temple. Of course the signs caused us to walk around the block once before finally asking someone were the place is. I thought it might be a screening process or a ritual that outsiders had to do (sort of like in Buddhism one must circle mountains to become more divine). This was a surreal experience, partly because the place was virtually empty. The food was good; though I think the dosa, which I was most looking forward to, wasn’t fresh (otherwise I don’t know how to explain that it wasn’t crispy). Everything was super spicy, but good enough to be worth the heartburn.

6. Jefferson Diner – Lucky thing Uri’s cell phone fell out of his coat pocket at the IKEA. And equally lucky that we were stuck for a whole hour in the 2 miles between Mott and the entrance to the Holland Tunnel driving back to IKEA to get the cell phone before heading back to Ithaca. If it weren’t for these two things, we would have been half way to Ithaca by diner time. But since both those things did happen, we were only about an hour away from Jersey, close enough to a diner that appeared on Diners Drive-ins and Dives to detour a bit from the highway to try another place. From the outside the place looks like a million other diners (so much so that Uri and I spent several hours arguing whether we had been there before or not – I was right, we weren't). Just like many other diners, Jefferson has a super long, all over the place menu that doesn't seem too promising. BUT (notice, it’s a big but) the food was really good: Uri had a hamburger that was very juicy, while I ordered the mousaka (see it being made here) that was good in itself, but was also served with fantastic salad (I ate the salad and took the mousaka home).

And that’s it – from there we were on our way home…

Tomorrow: This post will be updated with pictures. Now I'm going to sleep.

One Last Hurrah

The semester finally ended (Yey! Only one more to go!). A few weeks from now, nothing will be the same, so we decided we want to take a final vacation that’s “just us two”.

Business before pleasure – we headed from Ithaca to the Boston area to visit people down in Cranberry Land. Why make a 6.5 hour drive to say hello? Well, when looking for a job offer, it’s always good to remind people who you are, how great you were and how perfect it would be if you worked at a company full time. And it’s always easier to communicate all of those personally than via email. This is not to say that I told anybody that I came especially for that. That would seem pathetic, or at least really desperate. (It’s still TBD whether I am that desperate).

Small side-note here on the fact that the 6.5 hour drive was actually an 8 hour drive due to stormy weather conditions. And at this point in time I’d like to say that Uri is an awesome driver.

A few tales from our time in New England:

We were there all of two nights, so we stayed over at a friend’s house in Tiverton, RI. This friend, who I met over the summer, recently bought a terrific house on the shore. It was pretty amazing waking up every morning, with the sun raising and boats going back and forth in the harbor. It was like a scene from some movie.

Food wise it was a great success: The first night we had diner in Providence, RI at a place recommended on yelp called East Side Pocket. We’ll second the recommendation – very good dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), good falafel very nice atmosphere. The owner, who seemed to be Lebanese (they were Christian Arabs) recognized our Hebrew, and spoke with us a bit in Hebrew (BeTeavon and all that). Providence is really scoring high with us on the foodie scale. If anything comes through with the cranberry folk, it might just be a serious contender for a living option.

Lunch the following day was bought at a little sandwich place in the heart of cranberry land that we discovered during the summer.

The next diner was in Boston, with our friends Ashley and Dan who have a passion for food very similar to our own (Check out the link in Dan's name, it's the blog he's writing about his experiences in culinary school). We trusted them to make the decision as to where to go, and they did not disappoint. They did say though that it was a bit stressful having that weight on their shoulders. Anyway, we went to a restaurant in Chinatown that was likely one of the most authentic that I’ve been to in the US. It’s called the Gourmet Dumpling House, though they make much more than just dumplings. Some of the dishes really had that “China Flavor” that is everywhere in China. Since Dan is very adventurous with food, and Uri never says no to food, we ordered some pretty strange stuff, including fried intestines (the most Chinese tasting dish) and a spicy fish stew for which a whole live fish was fished out of a fish tank that was near us. We had dessert at a place called Finale.

Lunch the following day was in Providence too, through technically it was on the “on the way to New York City” leg of the trip. We went to a place called Louis’ Restaurant, which Uri saw on one of his favorite food shows – Diner’s Drive-ins and Dives (you can see a the clip from the show here). It was ok, nothing more nothing less. The place certainly has a lot of character, and I could see how some locals might make it their local hang-out, just because the people seem nice and the food is American-comfort food )i.e. lots of tomatoes sauce and cheese), but the food itself is nothing to write home about, so I won’t.

Tomorrow – Part 2 of our vacation – NYC like we’ve never seen it before.

Brrr

I’m sitting at a local café called Mate Factor. Interesting group of people that I haven’t completely made my mind up about. I’m here supposedly studying for my final final. Subject: Macroeconomics and International trade.

I don’t know if it’s the subject matter, the pregnancy, the hour or what but it seems I’ve completely lost my ability to concentrate on studying for more than 30 minutes. It’s a good thing there is no free-wi-fi here, otherwise I wouldn’t have studied at all. As it is, I’m just getting around to writing a post.

Events from the past week:

(1) Winter has finally arrived. It started with a snowstorm the night between Monday and Tuesday. We woke up on Tuesday to a totally white Ithaca. However the snow melted pretty quickly because Tuesday wasn’t actually that cold. Then today, the cold arrived.

It’s amazing how I managed to forget just how cold it can actually get here. I guess it’s sort of like how women forget how painful labor was.

(2) Sunday a few friends at school through me a baby shower. It was actually a pretty big event, as showers go apparently – about 30 girls in all. It was really fun, getting everyone together, getting gifts… I didn’t realize before hand, but apparently part of the whole shower tradition is that is thrown by friends of the mother to be in honor of the woman, so she is not expected to do anything of it. In fact, it is often thrown as a surprise party. That “don’t be involved” part was a bit strange for me. I have a hard time with people doing that type of stuff for me without me helping at all. I finally convinced the organizers to let Uri make muffins, and, unknown to them, I helped him out. (pictures will be uploaded at a later time)

Events for next week:

We’re heading out of Ithaca for the week. First we’ll head to Boston, mainly so that I could have a chance to meet with some people at Ocean Spray (if any of you have forgotten, I am looking for a job for post-graduation). Then we’ll head down to NYC to visit friends, eat in some good restaurants and just generally be in a city with more than 1 high-raise.

After that we’ll head back to Ithaca and we’ll be here pretty much the entire time. I hope I’ll be able to bring myself to leave the house when in get cold.

Thanksgiving, belated

Procrastinating as usual, I put off writing a post during Thanksgiving day. I told myself that I might as well let the whole weekend pass and then put something up that covers the whole 3 days. Sure enough, I not only let the entire weekend pass, but also the entire week that followed.

Some of you might remember last year’s Thanksgiving post. It was already snowing outside and we attempted to host a Thanksgiving dinner. Uri made a beautiful big bird, as well as a ton of other food. We invited people over, but in the end almost no one came. It turned out that “Thanksgiving Dinner” is actually Thanksgiving lunch, and that if you invite people over for 6 pm, they’ll all cancel because that’s just about the time they pass out due to the enormous amounts of food they ate.

This year we decided, in the spirit of the holiday, to see how the natives do it. We accepted an invitation extended by some friends. Uri still made the bird (again it came out beautiful and delicious – thank you Alton Brown). Tamar made a cranberry coffee cake with rosemary strusel, a variation on a blueberry coffee cake from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from my home to yours (recipe at the end).

It was a very nice and international meal. The hosts were the only Americans. Guests included: 3 Cambodians, 3 French people , 3 Japanese people and 3 Israelis.

Why 3 you ask? Well… because Eitan was here! Last time Eitan was here, Uri and him got a little crazy in the kitchen. This time, they got a little crazy in the living-room, spending a ridiculous amount of time playing with the Playstation. By the end even Uri admitted that it was a bit like being 16 and having a sleepover. All in all it was a very fun weekend.

Now, a week later, I'm done with classes, I have one final and a few papers and then - that's it! The semester will be done, and I'll be free to nest (and blog).

Last but not least - as promised, the recipe for the coffee cake

Cranberry crumb cake

Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my home to yours

For the crumbs:

5 tbsp unsalted butter at room temp

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup light brown sugar (packed)

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 tsp chopped rosemary (my addition)

For the cake:

3 tps cranberry sauce (originall:1 pint (2 cups) blueberries (preferably fresh, or frozen, not thawed))

2 cups plus 2 tsp all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

2/3 cup sugar

grated zest of 1/2 lemon or 1/4 orange

3/4 stick (6 tbsp) unsalted butter at room temp

2 large eggs, at room temp

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup buttermilk

preheat oven to 350. butter an 8-inch square pan and put it on a baking sheet.to make the crumbs: put all the ingredients except the nuts in a food processor and pulse, then add nuts and pulse again just until the mixture forms clumps and curds and holds together when pressed. piece of plastic wrap against the surface. refrigerate until needed. (covered well the crumb mix can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.)

to make the cake: whisk together the remaining 2 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

working in the bowl of a stand mixer or in another large bowl, rub the sugar and zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and aromatic ( I didn’t do this). add the butter and, with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat the sugar with the butter at medium speed until light, about 3 minutes. add the eggs one by one, beating for about 1 minute after each addition, then beat in the vanilla extract. don’t be concerned if the batter looks curdled — it will soon smooth out. reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture and the buttermilk alternately, the flour in 3 parts and the buttermilk in 2 (begin and end with the dry ingredients.) you will have a thick, creamy batter. If using berries: with a rubber spatula, gently stir in the berries.

scrape the batter into the buttered pan and smooth the top gently with the spatula. Dollop cranberry sauce on batter and, using a sharp knife of toothpick, make swirls in batter. pull the crumb mix from the fridge and, with your fingertips, break it into pieces. there’s no need to try to get even pieces — these are crumbs, they’re supposed to be lumpy and bumpy and every shape and size. scatter the crumbs over the batter, pressing them down ever so slightly.

bake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until the crumbs are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. transfer the cake to a rack and cool just until it is warm or until it reaches room temperature.

General Sillines

If you’ve been missing Uri’s shenanigans, here’s a taste of Uri in top form:

Note his infamous “Blue Steel” (right) as well as the less appreciate “Magnum” (bottom, left). The hat was a gift from our friends Yuval and Bella (Thank you Nusses). They also sent us Shemo’s new book. I hope I’ll have some pictures to show that soon ;)

Also, I’ve uploaded here our current go-to pick me up:

A Reece’s Moose that I picked up at the drug store. For those of you who remember our mascot from China, Moose, you know that we have an affinity to these animals, specifically when they are plush, stuffed and shorter than 12 inches. So here it is – prepared to be marginally amused:

Ode to My Dad

Strange, but true – one of the strongest memories I have of my childhood is of my dad eating breakfast. He would take 2 different yogurt flavors, and pour one into the other, creating a pretty collage. Then he would pour in cereal and mix it all up with his spoon, but his spoon motions were up and down instead of round, figure 8 motions that most people make while mixing.

I wonder why I remember it with such detail. Maybe it’s because they were so constant and so often, it was almost ritualistic.

A few days back, for whatever reason, I recalled my dad’s ritual when it was actually relevant – in the morning when I took my yogurt. I love how evoking such a memory can make a simple breakfast to much more than it actually was.

Every pot has its cover

Dear friends and family
Usually I let my wife use this form of communication, but I decided to give it a try.
For the first time in A couple of years I have a routine for each day of the week. I know exactly what I'll do and when I'll do it. It is an unusual feeling for me, though it is going to be short lived experience with the baby and all :-)Most of you know that this year I started teaching. All together it's going pretty well. The fact that I don't have to prepare them for a test at the end of the school is a blessing in that it gives me a lot of freedom to teach almost any relevant material that I find interesting. The flip side is that some students don't have any motivation to study since not all of them are curious enough. But overall, those who are interested make it worth while.

The were also two other things I was thinking of sharing with you: First of all. I saw the new Cohen Brothers movie. It is the most Jewish and the most weird movie I have ever seen. I cannot recommend it, although, if any of you are going to see it, I can say that it is a very unique experience. Please let me know what you thought. The second thing goes to a well known fact about me - that I love to cook In big quantities. Despite the fact that over the years it has been somewhat exaggerated, it is mostly true. The nice thing is that now that I'm cooking for others on a regular basis, I have the perfect excuse with cooking for other people. That gave me another excuse to do something else I love to do: I bought a new big pot. I haven't used it yet, but I am excited to try (it also has other uses as well).
This is the end of my experiment,and I hope you enjoyed it
uri

What would you do?

My Consumer Behavior class has become in and of itself an experiment in consumer behavior. About a week and a half ago the most interesting experiment took place: The professor came into class and announced that given that he thinks the majority of our final project proposals are weak and boring, he is giving us another option for a final project which involves analysis rather than research. In his mind, this second alternative better plays to our strengths as MBA students. The problem was this: that same day was the first of two possible dates to submit the first part of the original project. Moreover, in giving the new, easier alternative, he also changed the criteria for the grading of the original project: before that project’s grade was divided between 3 “mini projects”, now, the entire grade rests on the final paper submitted.
So what do you think? Put yourself in the following situation and tell me what you would have done: Your team decided to submit the first paper on that day. During the past week each of you worked 5-8 hours on researching and writing the paper. When you come to class you find out that (a) you now have an easier option, (b) the work that you did do (that you now the professor prejudges as is poor) will not count towards your grade and (c) there is part of the class that did not do that work yet and given the new option might not have to do it.



If you are an MBA student in the US, I’m sure that it’s clear to you that the answer is 3. I’ve actually seen this happen on several occasions – something related to a project is changed in a manner that makes the project easier for everyone, and those that already put in work get pissed off, completely ignoring the fact that they can benefit from the change as well.
My initial reaction was to raise a question as to the general emotion of social solidarity among my classmates. If everyone were to choose the new option those who had already handed in the first paper in the original project had a sunk cost while other didn’t. That difference was so outrageous to those who did the work that they were willing to give up the benefit of the new option, thereby putting everyone at a disadvantage.
But there is another interesting question in this scenario, even if you don’t consider the relationship between the individual and the group – the fact that to the people who had done the initial work, the sunk cost seemed so much greater than the benefit they might get from switching to the new option. On this topic, I actually found somewhat related research done by On Amir and Dan Ariely, published in the Journal of Marketing Research (Feb 2007). Their research showed that when a rule based decision mechanism is triggered a person is more likely to make an illogical decision rather than break the rule.
The researched focused on money as a cue for triggering such rule based decision mechanism, and actually showed that effort (in their study, a longer drive) does not trigger it. However, I think that this study still is relevant here. My working theory right now is that for American MBA students, there is a rule of fairness which dictates that hard work should be rewarded while slacking off is should be punished. The events in class triggered that rule and made them irrationally prefer continuing with the original project rather than choose the second option, forsaking their own benefit from switching and completely disregarding the implication to others.
It’s a working theory, still not worded perfectly, and I still this that last part (disregarding the implication to others) is a cultural thing has to do with social solidarity. I wonder what Ariely and Amir (both Israeli Professors at American MBA programs) would think.

PS - when putting in links for this blog, I noticed that this month's JMR has an article written by 2 of my professors, one of them the professor of the aforementioned CB class.

Oh - and another think, the link to Dan Ariely is a to the TED website. he has 2 talks there, both very interesting, neither very long.

Dinner Delight

I have exciting news to report to you live:

I just found mold on some rolls Uri bought a week and a half ago!

Isn't that great?!? Bread that's actually natural enough that bacteria found it attractive!

Not that I actually ate it.. I'm going to stick with my fabulous 45 calories a slice Pepperidge Farm Light (Extra fiber is my fav). But it's exciting to know that real bread is available, especially in roll form, any rolls we bought thus far have lasted over a month with no mold in sight.

Weird Science

Baked good for the weekend: Apple cake from various apples I still had that I bought at the Ithaca Apple harvest Festival using the recipe for the apple cake in Sheshet.

Pregnancy observation for the weekend: My belly button has become huge – as in its opened up like a big cavern. Super strange!

Other strange pregnancy matters: I find that an increasing number of people are asking me “how are you feeling” with a somewhat over sympathetic voice. As though there is something more than “fine” that you can say to a person you hardly know that you are quickly passing in the hallway. Actually it takes me longer than the whole interaction to process that their referencing the pregnancy.

In general, I’ve been finding that my life hasn’t really changed. At least not in the usual ways – I’m eating less, exercising more, sleeping the same (well, maybe a little more). The hectic life at school doesn’t let me focus on the pregnancy too much – for good and bad. Thus, the fact that my body is physically changing is really weird and detached from anything else in my life.

When you pause to think about it, the fact that I’m growing a life in me is super bizarre. I mean, what else have I ever grown in my life? I’ve successfully killed 2 gold fish, and over a dozen plants. And, just so you don’t misunderstand me: It’s not that I’m complaining that I’m inept for this pregnancy. It’s just an observation that I’ve never had any urge or interest in growing anything, but here I am so fascinated with the growing life inside of me. Indeed, it our modern society we’re so disconnected from the origin of anything. All manufacturing starts out in a land far far away. So it’s surprising that something that happens so frequently as childbirth is still, in part, done in a manner that’s so un-facilitated.

Weird Jello

Just so you know that I haven’t broken my baking promise in the few weeks I haven’t blogged:

This is my mom’s recipe for roses, but instead of meringue with vanilla pudding mix, it’s homemade chocolate creme anglais (aka fancy pudding). I would have actually liked it o be exactly like my mom’s roses, but the two times I tried making the filing, the meringue completely fell as soon as I put in the pudding mix. I assume it’s something in the Jello mix, but I don’t know what it is. If anyone has a clue, please tell me. Anyway, the result of trying to make meringue twice was a whole lot of egg yolks, so that sort of lent itself to making pudding as a filling.

Here’s the recipe for the dough – in terms only Israelis can understand:
1 small package self rising flour
200 g butter
1 unit sour cream (or Eshel)
Combine all the ingredients in a food processor using the metal blade. Form into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and let sit in refrigerator overnight.
I’ve actually been having some rather deep thought s lately about American culture, cultural relativism and social solidarity, but I’ll leave those for other days. Meanwhile, and interesting take on consumerism and relative wealth , for those of you willing to spare 16 minutes.

I'm not fat

It’s not that I was purposefully trying not to mention it. Well… maybe I was. But I was afraid that maybe I’d forgotten to tell someone, and that this would be the first place someone would read about it. But now, first of all it’s physically evident (sort of), and moreover, it’s just the context of more and more stories. So if I did forget to tell someone, I’m sorry but you should know that I’m not fat, I’m pregnant; 23 weeks pregnant, to be exact.

That is the reason that I’ve taken a ridiculous amount of courses this semester, which is the reason that I’m completely overloaded with schoolwork. And that is the reason that I’ve neglected to write for quite some time.

So what’s up? Uri is in Israel. I think he’s having lots of fun… that’s what he says. It actually sounds like it’s one of his better trips to Israel. I’m trying to franticly make up for spending a weekend in NYC (ie, not doing enough schoolwork during the weekend). I’m also trying to constantly remind myself to dedicate time to finding a job. And the pregnancy? I sort of feel like I’m neglecting it.. I mean, I think I’m OK, sort of like women that have already had children are. But I imagine that most first timers dedicate a lot more time to reading up on things. Oh well… My latest pregnancy story is that last night I went to the supermarket at around midnight to by some antacid, because I had run out and I felt as though I wanted to rip my throat out. Good thing too, because I had a lot of other things I needed to buy (milk, bread), and I’d been putting off getting those… HA.

Soft and Chewy Brownies

For a while now (over a year), I’ve been signed up to be one of America’s Test Kitchen Recipe testers. This means that they send me recipes to make and then I need to fill out a survey on how the process and the end result were. In all this time I think I only made 2 recipes (and it might even be only one). Last week I got a recipe for brownies. Given my new pledge to bake once a week I saw an opportunity. You see – this is what I’m in business school for, to learn to recognize opportunities!

Since it’s a test recipe, I can’t give a link for it, so here it is in full:

Soft and Chewy Brownies

Our goal was to create a soft, delicious, homemade brownie with chocolaty flavor and chewy texture.

Makes twenty-four 2-inch brownies

Note: For the chewiest texture, it is important to let the brownies cool thoroughly before cutting. If baking the brownies in a glass baking dish, to prevent them from over-cooking remove them from the pan after they have cooled for 10 minutes. While any high-quality chocolate can be used in this recipe, our preferred brand of bittersweet chocolate is Callebaut Intense Dark Chocolate, L-60-40NV and our preferred brand of unsweetened chocolate is Scharffen Berger.

1/3 cup Dutch process cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso or coffee powder (optional)
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, very finely chopped (see note)
½ cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 ½ cups (17 ½ ounces) sugar
1 3/4 cups (8 ¾ ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon table salt
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into ½-inch pieces

1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut 18-inch length foil and fold lengthwise to 8-inch width. Fit foil into length of 13- by 9-inch baking pan, pushing it into corners and up sides of pan; allow excess to overhang pan edges. Cut 14-inch length foil and fit into width of pan in the same manner, perpendicular to the first sheet (if using extra-wide foil, fold second sheet lengthwise to 12-inch width). Spray foil-lined pan with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Whisk cocoa, espresso powder (if using), and boiling water together in large bowl until smooth. Add unsweetened chocolate to mixture and whisk until chocolate is melted. Whisk in oil. (Mixture may look curdled.) Add eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla and continue to whisk until smooth and homogenous. Whisk in sugar until fully incorporated. Add flour and salt and mix with a rubber spatula until combined. Fold in bittersweet chocolate pieces.

3. Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until toothpick inserted halfway between edge and center comes out with just few moist crumbs attached, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer pan to wire rack and cool for 1 ½ hours.

4. Using foil overhang, lift brownies from pan. Return brownies to wire rack and let cool completely, about 1 hour. Cut into 2-inch squares and serve.

They ask not to change the recipe, so despite really wanting to substitute some of the sugar with brown sugar, I made the recipe as is. There was one thing that I had to change – I added some white chocolate pieces as well. Also, I didn’t use the ultra-expensive brands they recommend. For the unsweetened chocolate I used Baker’s chocolate, and for the dark chocolate I mixed between Baker’s semi-sweet and Hershey’s new Fine Dark chocolate. I know the latter sounds kind of strange – me using Hershey?!? I mean, in Israel I refused to by Elite, and here I am baking with Hershey’s. But they’ve actually come out now with a series of fine chocolates that are actually pretty good and are very reasonably priced, so they might just become my go-to chocolate.

The cake is out of the oven. It baked 40 minutes. I tasted an edge and it was super chocolaty. It’s a rather adult brownie, because it’s not overly sweet, like a dark chocolate version of a kid dessert. Below are pictures, they aren’t that good, I’ll probably be able to take better pictures after they cool down and I cut them, but I could wait to upload this post.

BTW – the pics were taken using our new Sony Cyber Shot. It’s the same camera Uri used to take pictures in Mexico. While both Uri and the camera made it back safely, the USB cable that connects the camera to the computer did not. And since Sony has to be so different, its USB cable is unique only to its camera’s and so costs $20 to replace. So, marking a year in the USA and the deepening our assimilation, I went on eBay and placed a bid for a cable (there is cost $4). The cable arrived last week, and what do you know – it actually works!

Weekly recap

Back to school it is – And back to not finding time for the little things. So now I’m back to recapping a whole week’s worth of events.

Friday I actually made my goal of baking one a week. I made another Dorie Greenspan recipe. This time it was biscotti. I opted for “tropical biscotti” changing her recipe a bit to by swapping the almond essence with Tahitian vanilla and the almonds with a blend of dried fruit, coconut and pistachio. The recipe lends itself to American biscotti, which are cut rather thick and not the slender fine biscotti that I made before. It was fine by me, because the thick biscotti are much easier to make. In the picture, I completed the tropical thing by making some chai Thai tea. I frothed the milk with my handy Bodum frother :).

On Saturday we attended the Israeli Student’s Association’s annual start of year BBQ. It was a nice event, a lot of good food, a lot of new people. Most importantly though we held elections for officers and so I am no longer the president. Woohoo!

After that – school officially started, and I quickly realized that the real problem with taking as many courses as I’m taking is the amount of reading that I have to do during the week, complicated by the fact that I don’t have too much time to do the reading during the week because I’m in class. Here are the courses I’m taking: Consumer Behavior, Services Marketing, Macroeconomics, Cases in Business Strategy, Financial Statement Analysis and Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling. I got tiered just writing all that down.

Uri had a busy week too. He did a lot of prep work for Saturday’s BBQ, and as usual took charge of all the actual BBQ-ing for everyone while we were there. Then on Tuesday we invited people for dinner which was planned as a pot-luck, but ended up being Uri cooking for everyone, last but in no way least, he was hired to cater an event for 80 people. The event is today (Saturday) but since it’s in the synagogue, it has to be kosher, so Uri had to finish cooking by Friday night. He worked all of Thursday and Friday (well his version of “all of Thursday”, meaning he started at 1 pm and worked until 10 pm). The end result was a huge amount of food, hopefully enough (I really don’t know what enough food for 80 Americans looks like). I’ll report back with the client’s feedback next time.

Not naked on my first day of school

Yesterday was the first day of school. In some way, it’s nice to be back. I had two classes that seemed to be very interesting – Consumer Behavior and Integrated Marketing Communication, and a third class – Financial statement Analysis, that wasn’t as scary as I was afraid it would be. So all together, it was a very good day. The real test will be the end of next week, seeing how I deal with a whole week’s worth of classes. I really packed my schedule this semester, and right now it seems like it’s going to be alright, because the classes seem interesting, but we’ll see if that’s true or not next week. This was what my Outlook looks like so far:

It was also nice to see everyone, and hear how people spent their summer. It was a bit weird not having the 2nd years there, and alternatively having all the 1st years there, a whole bunch of unfamiliar faces that suddenly “took over” the school.

More updates soon,

Me.

PS – for those of you who aren’t food buffs, the picture from the last blog is the pasta leaves that we hung to dry in our kitchen. Since I haven’t complained about our house in a while, I’ll remind everyone that we have pipes throughout the house (for fire safety reasons). They add that final touch on the house feeling like a bunker. So an added perk to our pasta making was that we were finally able to put them to good use.

Last days of summer vacation

Without school, life in Ithaca has been pretty boring. I love it. School starts Thursday and so I looked forward in the public folder in the school’s event’s calendar – wow, it’s really full. I almost forgot how fast paced things are. So I’m enjoying every second of these last slow-paced days. Whenever the subject of school and my second year came during the summer, I said that I feel that this year I have thing much more in perspective, and that I think I’ll be able to priorities better, I’ll be calmer about things etc. But looking at all the events that start as soon as we get back, I remembered it’s easier said than done.

In the last few days we did do quite a bit of cooking. We invited some new Israeli neighbors for dinner on Monday and made home-made pasta. We finally made a pasta that I’ve been wanting to make ever since Uri’s cousin Talya came back from a trip to Italy. She told us of this little place where they ate pasta that the dough itself was packed with ground black pepper. Doesn’t that sound good? Whenever I thought of making it, I could really envision the dish, which is something that never happened o me with something that isn’t a dessert. In my mind it was the fresh pasta with a really light and fresh tomato sauce, one without many flavors, so that the flavor of the pepper from the pasta would come through. What a perfect summer dish, since tomato is a summer fruit! Well… not in Ithaca… despite the fact that it’s summer it’s impossible to get really good tomatoes, so I used canned whole tomatoes which a puréed and then put through a sieve. Side note: I put the residue that didn’t go through the sieve in cheese puffs (buyakos, page 66, The blue Sheshet ). The end result wasn’t exactly what I had in mind – we put the pasta in the sauce, and it drank the sauce up super quickly. Next time (I hope there is a next time) I’m going to ladle the sauce either over or under the pasta in each dish.

I don’t remember what happened Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, but Saturday was a very eventful day. Cornell had something called the “Dump and Run”. It’s basically a huge yard sale of things people left in their on-campus housing units. Most of it is junk, since most of it belongs to undergrads. Adding to the junk effect is the fact they really put anything in the sale – thinks like half used cleaning supplies, or Mardi Gras beads (I’m pretty sure the latter is the leader in the junk category, though I’m equally sure that there are people who actually buy them). Anyway, it’s become a really popular event which means a huge line to get in. I came first thing in the morning, and still stood an hour in line. Was it worth it? Well you judge – I bought 3 really good winter coats (a new one costs $250 and up), 2 cute winter hats, a sweatshirt and a kitchen rug for, all for a total of $32. Later in the day Uri and I made dolmas (stuffed grape vine leaves). When I said “Uri and I” it’s because ewe both rolled them, Uri is the one that actually made the rice blend to go in, so he should get the real credit for how delicious they came out. It’s not hard to get dolmas here, but all of them are from the lemony – loose rice variety and not the sweeter, gooey-er variety that I like. I think my favorite are the ones that are sold in the Iraqi counter in Dizingoff center’s farmers market), Uri’s didn’t come out as sweet as these, which is probably better because they’re gooeyness is probably 50% attributed to the amount of oil she puts in them, but they did come out great – just the right amount of sweet that makes you savor each bite, but doesn’t make you feel like you’ve gotten to the dessert course. Oh – as I typed that last sentence I remembered another really good dolma, and since I already mentioned Talya in this post, I’ll also mention that Talya’s mother in law (aka Ido’s mother) also makes really good, sweet and gooey dolmas (also sweeter and gooey-er than ours).

Yesterday, we went to dinner at Dafna’s house. Not that we need a reason to get together, but the excuse was that our friend Amit, who will be spending this semester big the Big Apple came up to Ithaca for a week. I made another desert from Dorie’s book – chocolate mini-bundt cake. They didn’t come out that good. I mean, they were fine, but nothing to write home about, and since half didn’t come out of the pan properly, nothing to send a picture home about either. Dafna and the majority of the people she invited for dinner are vegetarian. So the dinner was a vegetarian meal. Since I was the one that planned and prepared most of Tuesday’s dinner, it was vegetarian as well. This means that Uri ate 2 non-meat dinners in one week! I think this is the universe’s way of balancing out the atrocity that was our diet during the road trip.

As for today – both Uri and I have back-to school things we need to get done. So that’s what we’ll do. For me, it’s mainly bureaucracy stuff, but Uri actually has to study up since he’s starting to teach next week. It’s his first time really sitting down and “cramming” since before he graduated – so he’s a bit out of practice. Wish him back, and I’ll report later if it helped or not.

Wednesdays with Dorie

Have you ever had one of those days where you don’t really feel the need or have the desire to leave the house? I had one of those yesterday. I know that TV and movies usually associate that with being depressed. Trust me, that was not the case. It was more that having been out of the house for so long, it was just nice to stay indoors. Also, I just really had no reason to leave. Around 4 pm that reason finally came. I had to go out to buy heavy cream. Everybody is starting to come back to town before school starts, and Dani (who goes to the business school with me) and Yael (formarly his girlfriend and currently his wife) came back from Colorado, where Dani did his internship. So we had them over for dinner. It was nice seeing them again and catching up.

The dinner itself was great – Uri made roast beef from a sirloin roast that he marinated a bit in olive oil and mustard. As a side we had corn on the cob, a big green salad and some garlicky oven fries. To the cooks out there, especially those who are married to people who love fries, I recommend this recipe (You can find it, with pictures here). They came out really great, despite the fact that mid-way in making them the garlic press broke. But that doesn’t really have anything to do with the fries, I think it has more to do with Eitan using it garlic press as a lobster hammer a while ago.

Small note: The recipe in the link is a bit different from the original (did someone say scared of copyright?).

1. The original recipe called for 6 cloves of garlic, not 8,

2. You can use vegetable oil, it really does not have to be olive oil.

3. Originally it was 2 tbsp of cornstarch, not 3

For dessert, Uri said he wanted something chocolaty. I was feeling a bit more decadent then a simple chocolate cake, so I made a “Tart Noir” from Baking by Dorie Greenspan, or simply put a made a chocolate tart with a chocolate base.

Making chocolate pie dough is something that I’ve done may times, and so I’ve had enough experience to develop the opinion that the extra effort of chilling the raw dough and then rolling it out rather then quickly pushing it to the corners of the tart pan does actually give you superior results in the texture of the dough in the finished pie. Despite this, I decided to follow Dorie’s recipe to the letter, and go with the shortcut. My reasoning? Well Dorie has a huge following; there are dozens of food bloggers who make her recipe on a weekly basis. Here for instance, you’ll find a post about the week they made her chocolate cream pie (not the same as the one I made, though the pie dough is the same). So I wanted to see – maybe there was something in her recipe that would change my mind. The tart came out very good (and pretty), though I put a bit too much salt in the dough (oops). As for the dough itself – Dorie did not make me a believer. The dough was crumbly instead of flakey, and was much thicker than it would have been had I rolled it out. I will say though that it took me under 30 minutes of actually prep time from start to finish (pie dough and filling)– so at least there’s that.

Recipe?

The dough you have in the link (here it is again), the filling is as follows:

8 ounces of good chocolate

250 ml of heavy cream

4 tbsp of butter

Chop the chocolate, heat the cream, pour half of the hot cream over the chocolate, stir until all melted, and then pour the other half. Stir in the butter a bit at a time, stir until smooth and lovely. Pour in the chilled pie shell, refrigerate. Take out 30 minutes before serving.

Is it really new to you that we’re a bit weird?

For our last day in Toronto we did a bit of sightseeing in downtown Toronto, mainly in the ”Old York” part of town. It was a more pleasant day, so we were in a better mood for sightseeing, which means I should have had more pictures to share, but unfortunately I left the camera’s memory card in my laptop. But you could always search Google Images, or Picasa or Flikr for someone else’s pictures. I especially recommend looking for a picture of the Hockey Hall of Fame, which ironically is located in a very ornate heavy set building.

We also, of course, went to the St. Lawrance Food Market were we tried a Canadian type of ham called Peameal Bacon. For lunch, since we were trying to complete the diversity/ multi-cultural Toronto thing, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant - the Ethiopian House, that was very good.

After that it was home sweet home – well sort off, we started the drive back home, crossing the border at Niagara Falls. We decided not to stop, since we had been there 3 years ago, though it was neat to see the bridge where we stood that time, on the US side, from the Canadian side.

By dinner time we were in the Rochester area. Since we needed to eat, and also do some shopping to re-stock the refrigerator, we decided to stop at Wegmans. But not just any Wegmans, THE Wegmans, the Wegmans in Pittsford aka Super Wegmans. Yes I know – this sounds silly, we made a pilgrimage to Wegmans. It is kind of silly, but we thought it was funny, and as long as we can amuse ourselves with such trivial things, I think we’re in a good place.

Anyway, if you refuse to take part in the silliness you can skip this paragraph, because I do have to talk about how impressive this store is. It's not just that it’s bigger and has more variety than the one in Ithaca, because that’s not really that impressive. What really got us was the size of the “Market Café”, which among other things, includes a sit down bar where they prepare food a la carte. They also have a tea room and a fine dining restaurant next door. Crazy. Ah... Wegmans, what would we do without you?

BTW – in the pictures, note Uri looking super cool with his new hat.

It's a small world after all

Toronto – it seems like a great city, probably worth more than a day and a half… maybe we’ll come back some day... maybe. Yesterday was an incredibly hot day, so we didn’t do that much. We attempted to walk the city a bit, walking around an area known as Cabbagetown.

Cabbagetown factoids:

1. It has the largest continuous area of preserved Victorian housing in North America

2. It got its name because it’s original dwellers were Irish and they grew cabbage in their backyards (from this you understand that one of the historic features is that all the houses actually have backyards)

3. Nowadays even the small houses sell for over a million dollars.

4. Parking is free except from midnight to 7am.

We started our tour by eating lunch at an Indian restaurant that claims to be South Indian and Sri Lankan. In was very good, Uri actually says it’s one of the best he’s ever eaten. Then we headed out walking through the hood. We actually cut the tour a little short because the heat was pretty unbearable, or at least, it just didn’t make the touring all that fun. Just as we were about to give out, we saw a little truck go by, ringing a bell – no it was not an ice-cream truck, it was a guy offering knife sharpening services. I was very amused, and so was a little old lady that was walking just behind us. The truck struck a conversation between us and when she found out we were tourists, she offered us to take us to “a little hidden corner near by”. She was the one who told us the origin of the name and about the gardens (though Uri thought of the Irish thing himself). I actually thought she would show us a hidden garden, but that wasn’t the case. Oh well… anyway, she was very nice, and the street she showed us (that was marked on the lonely plant tour we were using) was cute as well. It turns out that she spent 13 years in Ithaca, teaching in Cornell (is everybody hearing the music to Disney’s “It’s a small world” now?).

After meeting her we decided to do the smart thing and go indoors, we went to see a movie. Sorry Toronto, the AC calls. Oh – and no criticisms from museum goers, we weren’t in the mood (we hardly ever are). We saw Julie and Julia, which I whole heartedly recommend everyone see when it comes out on DVD. We had to wait about an hour for the movie to begin, so we walked around the mall. Uri bought himself a hat in H&M, so there’s a chance he might become a hat person now. Also, I noticed two interesting shops:

Yes! It’s Fox and the Super-Pharm from Israel. I had actually seen the Super-Pharm all over Toronto, and didn’t know if it was the same one as in Israel, but since we had time to kill, I went in and saw that their private label brand is called Life – so it is the same chain! I know Fox is originally Israeli, but I suspect that the Super-Pharm is originally Canadian, since that explains much better why the logo has an S in it. Do you think that the fact that I’m excited about this means I miss Israel? Or does it mean that I’m becoming one of those strange Americans that loves all things Israel without any judgment? Can we chalk it up to me being interested in brands, and just say it’s a professional interest?

Oh – apropos Israel, you remember I mentioned Anthony Bourdain here a few of times? I recently subscribed to his blog. I read a post yesterday about Thailand, and thought it might be nice to add a comment about the papaya salad guy in the night market in Chiang Mai. When the other comments, I saw that there were two people (both clearly American by their name) that recommended he go to Israel. They were doing it in a rather annoying way, complaining that he had gone to other Middle Eastern countries but not Israel. But they are so right – it’s been my one thought since the very first No Reservations I saw (which was on Egypt). So I used the opportunity to explain why he should come to Israel. It came out as a little manifesto, since apparently I can’t write anything short, you can read it here (comment 34). I hope someone actually reads those things. It would be so cool if Uri and I could take him to Israel!

Oh Canada

We’ve been in Canada for a day and a half now. And it seems like most of the time we’ve been driving. To our surprise (or not) it is noticeably different from the US, mainly in that we really feel that there are less people. Also, there’s a lot less billboards on the highways, there are less major highways and chian-type fast food are further apart. The last undoubtedly has to do with the fact that we spent most of our time in “the country”, areas where the biggest town has a population of 5,500, but still, in the US there’s a McDonalds even in towns of 300, or at least it seems that way.

Yesterday after crossing the border, we just drove to get as close as possible to our next destination – Manitoulin Island, the world’s largest sweet-water island. The drive was actually quite beautiful, afterwards I actually read somewhere that the stretch of road heading towards the island is considered to be one of the most beautiful in Ontario. Had I known that, maybe I would have taken pictures, as it was I assumed the same landscape would continue. Sorry.

Today we did some hiking on the island, namely the “Cup and Saucer Trail” (I still can’t figure out why that’s the trail’s name). It was a lot of fun, and confronted us both with our slight 9and very sane) fear of heights.

It turns out that to get off the island in the direction we wanted to go, there is a ferry that runs only 4 times a day and takes 1.75 hours, that pretty much set the rest of our schedule for the day too. The cruise was nice as well, I say cruise because that’s the only way that I can rationalize the ridiculous amount of money that we had to spend on it. It’s pretty crazy how big these bodies of water are. There was about 30 minutes during the cruise where we could not see land on any side.

After getting off the ferry, we continued on. I say we all the time, but I do want to give credit to Uri who did all the driving today. I emphasize this now because, as I said, no major highways, not much happening on the sides of the road – it was a pretty boring drive. Again, given the ferry schedule, we decide to skip hiking in the Bruce Peninsula – though if any of you are planning a trip to Canada any time soon, it is supposed to be very beautiful. We headed straight for Toronto. Once again, we booked a room through Hotwire, providing us a great deal, though this time we’re not as centrally located (upside: we get to save on parking too). I think Toronto, like Chicago, will mainly have culinary highlights with a theme of celebrating the city’s ethnic diversity. We already started tonight with a fantastic dinner at a Persian restaurant. Mmmm.

Michigan is long

To counter yesterday’s long post, and also since it’s the Sabbath and you’re not supposed to be reading anyway, today’s post will be very short.

The day was marked by us making our way through the Lower Michigan Peninsula. On the way, we stopped to hike in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. This park, like Warren Dunes and others on the shores of Lake Michigan has many sand dunes, but since we already hiked up a sand dune, we opted for a more forest type trail called the alligator trail. It was a nice hike; we saw so many types of mushrooms, that at a certain point I felt like we might find the village the Smurfs live in.

I feel obligated to mention food now… so I’ll note that it’s cherry season in Michigan. Since we were driving on state highways (which are actually pretty small roads) and country roads (even smaller roads) we saw a lot of farm stands selling cherries and peaches. I couldn’t resist the urge to by some cherries, and they are some of the best cherries I’ve ever tasted. They helped me considerably in resisting the urge to stop at stands offering cherry pie. Every time we passed such a stand I took a couple of cherries, and we drove on. They also provided a nice pastime while we were on the hike since, if you didn’t read this in-between the lines, the most interesting thing there were mushrooms (which can, I guess be very interesting, but we’re too good for that). After we took a small break to eat some cherries we had a little pit-spitting contest. Guess who one? Yes – despite the laws of classical mechanics, which state (if I remember correctly) that Uri should have won due to his height advantage – I won!

Anyway, at the very end of the day we did cross from the Lower Michigan Peninsula to the Upper Peninsula, and now we are right at the border, though still in the US. So today we will be crossing, and tomorrow’s post will be from Canada [I’m preparing you, since I’m sure everything, including my writing will be very different ;)]. Here is the plan for the rest of the trip:

View Larger Map

Back to Eastern Standard Time

So I missed a day – what can I say, old habits die hard. Now you’ll just have to endure reading about two days in a row.

On Wednesday we decide to go all-out tourist. I put my baseball cap on, Uri took his backpack and we went out to see the sites on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. We started by going up to the observatory on the 94th floor of the John Hancock Building. Being tourists, we paid the $15 admissions pass to the observatory instead of going up to the lounge/ bar on the 96th floor and paying $5 for a bottle of water. In hindsight it was probably the right choice, since the fee included an audio tour narrated by David Schwimmer of the sights seen through the windows and a bit of Chicago history. This was good since we were too lazy/ cheap to buy a good Chicago guidebook.

After that we started walking down the famous street. While the buildings were impressive, Uri and I both agreed that NYC is much more impressive. We thing part of it is that the streets of New York are more crowded, the buildings are closer and the street itself is narrower so you feel more closed in, smaller as compared to the large impressive city. Sort of like the logic behind the way cathedrals were built in the Middle Ages. Anyway, the Magnificent Mile doesn’t have that.

The buildings themselves are nice, Chicago has a lot of art-deco architecture, and I really like that aesthetic, but at the end of the day, they are sky-rises, and the ground level of most of them are just fancy stores that you can see in most large cities in the US. So, as uncultured as it might seem, other than the observatory the biggest highlight for us was probably the Lego store.

It was only on the next day that we actually reached the end of the Magnificent Mile - Millennium Park, home of the famous Chicago land mark “the silver bean”. What a great park! The bean itself is really nice; a smart idea the weird shape allows you to see a reflection of the Chicago skyline and the sky. What’s funny is that to see that reflection, you actually have to walk to “the other side” of the bean, as in - make your way around it from where you first see it as you enter the park. But most of the tourist just stop either at “the front” of the bean, or underneath it, since there you can see a neat 4 way refection of yourself. We also go to hear the Chicago Symphony rehearsing in the park’s amphitheater (designed by Frank Gary). They apparently were paying Beethoven’s 9th (that’s what the guy in one of the visitor’s information stands said). Despite the fact that neither of us are classical music buffs, we both really enjoyed it, and sat and listened for a while. When we finally left we agreed that combination of the fantastic acoustics with the effect of seeing a live performance (including the conductors very passionate and somewhat animated movements) greatly contributed to our enjoyment, it pulled us into the piece, which is something that hearing it on the radio was never able to do.

After that we hit the road again – back to Michigan for the next leg of the trip.

What?!? No food stories?!? Well – of course not, I was just saving them to the end so that you’ll keep on reading. So for “brunch” on Wednesday (more just on our way to the Hancock Canter) we saw a cute cupcake shop, more like cupcake boutique, and Uri had a cupcake. He went with the flavor of the day – chocolate with soft caramel center, though I really would have wanted him to take one of the weirder cupcakes like the maple bacon – a corn cupcake with bacon bits and a maple-cream cheese frosting. For lunch we went to the Frontera Grill, a restaurant owned by Rick Bayless who some of you might have seen if you watch either food network or Top Chef. I don’t want to say too much about it, since it wasn’t that good, maybe I just didn’t spend enough time reading the menu and then ordered wrong, but what I got was very different from what I was expecting. Oh well... you win some, you lose some. For dinner we went to a pizza place called Burt’s Place. This is the same place we drove to on Monday and discovered was closed. What a quirky experience: To start with the good – the pizza was great, and the atmosphere was fantastic (or maybe the other way around). So what was bad? Well – since the place has such weird hours, we decided it’s probably best to make reservations, so we called in the morning but got that strange sort of ringing like there’s something wrong with the line. We forgot about it for a while, but when we got back to the hotel at 5 pm we tried again. Burt answered the phone and as he took my reservation he asked what pizzas we’ll want. Huh? Apparently, to make a reservation you have to order in advance and then when you get there the pizzas are ready. I asked to call back, since some friends were joining us, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t ordering something that they wouldn’t eat. It took me about 45 minutes to do this, and so by the time I called back that busy/ off the hook signal was back. Oh boy… what to do? Should we give up and just go for one of those “The original pie! #1 pizza in Chicago!” places? But I wanted to try Burt’s pizza! And I did call! If he takes the phone off the hook, why didn’t he tell me that I have to call back before 5:30? What we finally decide to do was try to get there earlier than we had told him, and hope that he would be sympathetic. When we got there, we were greeted by his wife Sharon, I say greeted as though she was super nice, but actually it took her time to come around, we told her the story and she went to check with Burt. Then when she came back I emphasized a little more that we had come 15 minutes early, and that we were ready to order and just wait for our friends to come and the pizza to be ready. I think with that she understood that we do have respect for their craft or something, and so we became ok. The pizza was indeed great. At the end of the night we actually got into a whole discussion with her, and then with Burt. Turns out she’s Jewish, and very pro-Israel, so who knows, maybe there will be a Burt’s place in Israel sometime in the future.

The next day was our last day in Chicago – so food wise it was the hardest. This city has so much to offer, and unlike NYC, it’s not like we’ll be back soon. What to do? Ever since that elk hot-dog, Uri wanted to go back to Hot Doug’s, but there are other hot dogs that are supposed to be good too…. Decisions, decisions. This is what ended up happening: we went for a hot dog at Wiener Circle, which is a neighborhood called Lincoln Park (since it’s located near Lincoln Park). Small digression here – really nice neighborhood, finally we saw how people who live in the city actually live, and we like it. When we parked the car we saw that there was a Five Guys there too. Since most of you don’t share Uri’s infatuation with US politics: I will explain that when Matt Lauer interviewed Obama in the White House, the two of them went for lunch at Five Guys (hey didn’t fly to Chicago, it’s a chain that started in Virginia), which Obama said was one of his favorite burger joints. So after the hotdog, we went there for cheeseburger. I do actually see why Obama likes the place.

What then, well I said that while I really liked Burt’s pizza, I don’t really know to compare it to a classic Chicago pie, and that I feel that maybe I should taste one of the really famous Chicago pizzas, so I called a Lou Malnati’s I found in the GPS and ordered a small pie. Now I know that Burt’s was hands down better. And that’s it. We were on the highway again, headed towards northern Michigan. On the way we stopped for pie at a place I read about in the Lonely Planet guide – Crane’s Pie Pantry Restaurant. The book had actually taken us to the wrong place, and we had to backtrack a bit. Initially I thought it wouldn’t be worth it, but it sort of was the pie was good (though I think my apple pie is better) but the place was really charming, a nice place to take a few minutes to rest. Today we’ll go hiking in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park, and then we’ll cross the border to Canada.

Until then, have a great weekend and good night. Oh… and happy birthday mom!