Turkey Perfection

Yey – aren’t the posts where this blog turns into a food-blog fun?
Our conquest of American culture began last week when Uri went to play football at the Johnson School’s annual Turkey Bowl (ie football game before Thanksgiving). That attempt was semi-successful. His team won, but he got a ball thrown in his face, ending up with lips so huge Angelina Jolie would be jealous.
Our second attempt was on a more level playing ground: yesterday was Thanksgiving, and we made Thanksgiving dinner. Here is the menu:
Roasted Turkey, Stuffing, Cranberry sauce, Green Beans with Beacon, Brussels sprouts with cheese sauce, Coleslaw with jicama, Onion tart-tatin, Savoy Cabbage with Worcestershire sauce, Boiled butternut squash with parmesan pangrattato, Sweet-potato mash, Pumpkin oatmeal bread with Squash and pecan butter. As for dessert: Butter pecan cookies and my tried and true pumpkin-cheese cake.

Everything was really good, but the turkey was incredible. It looked fantastic (the picture really doesn’t do it justice). Just like in the movies – beautifully browned, and needless to say very tasty.

We wrapped up the holiday with the one thing that is more American than apple pie: Shopping. For a few years now the Friday after Thanksgiving has been referred to as “Black Friday”. All the stores have really massive sales, and people line up waiting for the stores to open their doors. Uri, letting his inner anthropologist shine through, volunteered to stay up and go to Wal-Mart to buy us a microwave for $25. Just to be clear – he didn’t stay up that long after his normal bed-time :)



Last a few thoughts on the holiday:
1. It took us some time to process that since is not a Jewish holiday, the holiday starts on the day of the holiday, and not the night before. We kept expecting Thanksgiving Dinner to be the night before, but why would it be?
2. It turns out that in most American homes, Thanksgiving Dinner isn’t dinner at all but rather lunch. Most dinners start around 1pm and then last all day long.
3. We had a realization that Thanksgiving is the American Passover.
     a. It’s a holiday that passes on the mythology of how the American people came to this holy               land and why they deserve to be here.
     b. It’s a time where everyone gathers with their extended family
     c. It’s a day spent eating.

No Words Needed

Random thought about snow

As most of you know, it has already snowed here a couple of times.  It was a short, and melted quickly to be followed by a sunny day.  Well – today it started snowing for real.  That is today, it snowed on me this morning, the kind of snow that makes your coat turn white.  It’s supposed to snow all day, and continue snowing the rest of the week.

And now to my point: I always wondered how come during group settings on TV shows some people were wearing T-shirts and some heavy sweaters.  I kept thinking – don’t they have people that get paid to look for problems with continuity?

Well – now I have my answer. I am currently wearing an undershirt and a heavy wool sweater, across from me there is a girl with a thin long sleeved blouse, and behind me there is a guy in a short sleeved T-shirt.

Now that I finished writing this down, and I have no way of cleverly ending, I realize that this will probably be one of the stupider posts.  Hey – it’s just a random thought; I’m not claiming it’s too deep.  You rather I not write at all?!?! At least it’s short!

The little engine that could

So... a comment on the recent elections - I'll try to keep it short.
After months and months of tracking the elections through "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" (and in the last few months "spying on the enemy" and watching Fox News), the Big Day finally arrived.
From my perspective, the day could have just gone by - naturally, it effects me, and I try to keep up with the news... but let's not kid ourselves - if I have any time to spare watching TV or reading the paper, I would rather watch "HEROES" or read the marketplace section of the WSJ.
But for all the Americans, and for Uri, it was a very engaging experience. We ended up going to see the results with a group of married couples from the school. It was a very interesting experience. Especially after it was clear Obama won. I think the sentence that resonated with me the most was "I can feel proud to be an American again".
I can certainly understand why this is - not only is Obama someone that you can be proud to call you leader, but also I think Americans can be proud that their country has finally overcome this societal hurdle.
On the flip side - there were also tears shed. I found myself thinking whether I could get so excited about elections in Israel and reached the conclusion that probably not. Uri said it's because I'm too cynical - and in a historic moment, I would probably find some joke to crack. He's probably right.

Some things we never got around to telling

A friend recently wrote us a nice, long email (hint hint, nudge, nudge). At the end, she asked us all kinds of questions as to what's going on with us, and it made me realize that there are a few basic things that we haven't wrote about yet - we meant to, but then too many other things started happening and we either wrote about them, or didn't have time to write. So here is my answer to her, published, because I thought it would be interesting to everyone.

Hey!
It was so great hearing from you. Everyone keeps asking us how we're doing, and not telling us what's going on back home. So it is really great to hear what's going on there and feel that we're still "in the mix".
Here all is well. I recently started my 2nd quarter, which means 3 new courses. It seems that this semester will be a bit harder. Not only are the courses harder, but we also have a lot of other things going on. Most importantly, we have to really intensify our job search. After this quarter ends, we have a break for winter (more on that later) and then when we come back interviews start for internships. So that means that we need to start figuring out which companies we want to interview with and start reaching out to them so that we actually do get invited to interviews.
Also, we have all these things going on with clubs we have - bringing in lecturers, going to events . Last but not least, I'm also involved in something called "Big Red Incubator" (BRI for short). This is a school run program that gives us the chance to do real life consulting. I will consulting for an Italian Restaurant in the area. It seems really cool, but will also be pretty time-consuming.
At the point that I'm in now, it seems like the end of the quarter is really far away, just because there is so much that will happen, but the truth is that it's not far away at all, it will just be really intense. The quarter ends mid-December. And, in answer to your question, we will both be coming home for a visit. I'm really looking forward to it.
It will also be nice to get out of the cold for a couple of weeks. Autumn has started here, which means that it's as cold here now as it is in winter in Israel. You would think I'm exaggerating, but I'm really not - yesterday I wore one of my heaviest sweaters from home.
What else did you want to know?
What do we see from the windows? Well that's probably the 2nd most depressing part of this apartment: from the front window we see the stairs to the upstairs apartment, and from the back windows we see the fence of the golf course and then trees. It's part of the reason the apartment doesn't get much light. Hopefully it will also keep the cold away during winter. However - after those trees and that stair case, Ithaca has amazing views. Here are some pics that Uri and I took last week:

What are we eating? Well - we're certainly eating more meat and less vegetables, but not that much more/ less. The meat (and fish) is much cheaper and tastier than back home, and the vegetables are much more expensive. In vegetables/ fruits there are a lot of things that we have here that we don't have at home - like a million varieties of apples and pears and all kinds of veggies. There aren't a lot of things that you can't find here, but it might be really expensive (like peppers) or really not tasty (like mango). I think probably the biggest change in our diet is that we're eating a lot more sandwiches, because that is the most common thing you can find here, and more often then not, the only thing you'll find on the menu.
You also asked about our neighbours - but I think I'll leave that to the next post. Apparently there are people who think that I write too much...

Love,
Me

More Pictures! Yey again!

This time around, a few more words. It's been a busy two weeks or so. Uri came back, and then Lior came, and now my mom and aunt are here.
I tried my hardest to do as much work as I could while Uri was in Israel, and just before he came back I hit a low point when it seemed like despite my hard work, I was getting as much (or as little) done as everyone else. Well, in the last week I discovered that it wasn't so. I did, somehow, magically, manage to be ahead of the game. This let me go hiking with Uri and Lior, and go shopping with my mom and my aunt. Yey! for me. Now, the pessimist in me has to say that I'll see if I'm, ahead of the game or not when I actually get my grades back for the finals I have this week... but the fact is that I did feel I can take the time off. Let me tell you - it was fantastic! Now I'm back to studying hard - 3 finals in 3 days is a lot. after that, Uri and I will head to The City for a few days, and then I'll be back for the 2nd half of the semester.
What about Uri you ask? Well, he should have his new computer in a few days, so he'll once again be able to write. In the meantime I will say that he is really enjoying his new PS3.

Pictures! Yey!

Lior visited us last weekend.  It was a great weekend of gaming, cooking, eating, hiking, coffee drinking and picture taking.  Here are the results, straight from Lior's Flicker.

PS - Lior, who for the sake of the following statement, is a coffee expert said that while on the east coast, it's worth coming to Ithaca just for the coffee