1. I like food, a lot.
2. I was a culinary professional for many years and have a lot to say about food.
Here is a photo of the lunch I had today. I went to a little kosher cafe called Kadosh. Kadosh (which literally means holy). Kadosh has a bakery, espresso machine and full bar (including several beers on tap). The servers are what can only be described as the Israeli equivalent of hipsters. Needless to say, I love it.
The first time I went, I had Burekas (A bureka is a triangluar Turkish puff pastry, filled with cheese, or mushrooms, or potatos, or spinach, or really anything imaginable). I had potato filled burekas. The lovely folks at Kadosh, sliced open said burekas and stuffed them with pickles, tomatoes, spicy sauce, sliced hard boiled egg and tahina. Along with a cappuccino Hazzak V'Katan (strong and small). It all came to about 28 shekel ($8ish).
Today, I had a sandwich of eggplant, potato, pickles, tomatos, spicy sauce and cream cheese. It came with a small salad. And another cappuccino hazzak v'katan. It came to 37 shekel ($11ish).
Next time I'll break into the full bar.
On my walk back to school from Kadosh, I found this addition to the "Doesn't grow in Maine" category of photos. In fact, it might belong to another category called "Doesn't grow anywhere in the solar system." I've tried to classify it according to some proper scientific taxonomy, but alas...nothing.
So here is what I'm calling Alien Pod Fruit or in a little bit of made up Hebrew. Zera Zar (alien seedpod).
2 comments:
The alien seed pod is an Osage Orange. The Osage orange (sometimes hyphenated) or Osage apple or simply Osage (Maclura pomifera) is an ornamental plant in the mulberry family Moraceae. It is also locally known as mock orange, "wild orange", hedge-apple, horse-apple, hedge ball, bois d'arc, bodark (or bowdark mainly in Oklahoma and Texas), bodart (in northwest Louisiana), bodock (mainly in Tennessee and Alabama), and bow wood. "Osage" derives from the Native American people inhabiting the valley of the river of the same name in Missouri. Slang terms for its inedible fruit include monkey brain, monkey ball, monkey orange, and brain fruit, due to its brain-like appearance.
The species is dioeceous, with male and female flowers on different plants. It is a small deciduous tree or large shrub, typically growing to 8-15 m tall. The fruit, a multiple fruit, is roughly spherical, but bumpy, and 7-15 cm in diameter, and it is filled with a sticky white latex sap. In fall, its color turns a bright yellow-green and it has a faint odor similar to that of oranges.[1]
Maclura is closely related to the genus Cudrania, and hybrids between the two genera have been produced. In fact, some botanists recognize a more broadly defined Maclura that includes species previously included in Cudrania and other genera of Moraceae.
Recent research suggests that elemol, one of the major components of oil extracted from fruit of Osage orange, shows promise as a mosquito repellent with similar activity to DEET in contact and residual repellency.[2]
Uncle Henry
i love family members who know random things like this. the osage orange. i wish i had a story related to the osage orange. i'm sure it would be a funny story.
alas, the only thing it reminds me of is osage avenue in west philly, my former home, which i have started dreaming about again. i just moved to copenhagen a few days ago, and every day i start really missing a different former home. west philly had a grungy, artsy, anachistic, multicultural, green atmosphere. i miss the food co-op there, and my circle of lesbians, and...
it's no use. that west philly hardly exists anymore. now it's mommys with strollers and hipster baristas and penn students. god bless them.
the city of philadelphia once bombed a house on osage avenue, home to the MOVE organization. meanwhile most people have moved out and have been replaced. we no longer bomb anti-establishment organizers, we silence them otherwise.
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