Baking bits

I want to bake. I am at this very moment looking for an excuse to bake: it's Sunday - lets bake, we have guests this afternoon - lets bake, it's eleven in the morning - lets bake, and my favorite - we have carrot juice - lets bake. It's my favorite because it works with everything - we have yeast that need using, we have 3 egg whites etc. You get my point. Also it usually works because Hidai hates throwing food or portions of food or things that could be turned into food. So he usually joins me in the "yes of course we have to bake" mantra and then I feel all justified.
But today the Hidai is strong. He does not give in to anything. There are 14 more days to Hannuka. 14 more days to get skinny and then get eating.
So I am going to write about baking instead of actually doing any (I am going to sneak in a carrot cake with chocolate chips because it's called a ginger cake with freckles. And who can say no to that?!).
In the last month or so I discovered the apparently very big differences between Israeli baking and British one. It is the first time I have British baking books. I bought the British Bake Off books and read them cover to cover, and wes frankly amazed how different is everything. I guess it's a taste thing, but it's really weird to me.
First of all, the british books, they don't think it's important to put a photo of every recipe. Why? Looking at the photos is half the fun (and also the ability to see if what you got in the end resembles what you should have baked...). But I think my biggest grievance with this books is - everything needs double (or triple) the amount of sugar they write. Seriously people - it's CAKE. it's supposed to be SWEET. Not semi-sweet, almost sweet or nearly sweet.
If that's not enough, I went for the French recipes. Not sure why. I blame it on the Bake Off. It made me want to try things. Shame on them. I tried three recipes for Brioche breads, 2 for Macaroons, 2 for Croissants, and after that I broke down. I needed some good old-fashioned cake / cookies baking.
So, you know, obviously that's what I did :).
My conclusion from all this French-British-Israeli baking was, naturally, that I need a French baking book, so all I want for Christmas is Eric Lanlard's book Home Bake (hint, hint).

Not perfect Croissants

Other, less significant, conclusions include -
Stop watching baking shows, reading baking blogs and buying baking books. They make you crazy.
There are not enough people in Hidai's work that are willing to eat cakes.
Baking doesn't make you fat. Eating makes you fat.
The temperature outside right now is ideal for slow-proving dough (just like the fridge...)
Sticky buns are to die for.
Macaroons are no fun at all to make (very fun to eat though).
I did not master the Croissants making process yet.
Brioche is yummy (especially if you feel it with cinnamon & sugar, or with creme patisserie & Nutella).
I don't really like vanilla cakes.

Perfect macarrones 

Jokes aside, I find it hard to bake British style. I changed every recipe I tried (except the sticky buns, but I now have a better idea for the sticky part with maple syrup and things. Never mind), to make it more what I'm used to - add more sugar, cream the cake mixture differently so it's more airy, different proving times, etc.
Also, as a not really related side-note, I really find it hard to get used to the whole it's more important how it looks than how it taste sub-culture that's going strong here right now. I get the whole creating something  and the art portion of baking. But in the end it's cake. It's supposed to look good but taste heavenly. And that whole trend is what makes it really hard to get good quality ingredients. Like fresh yeasts. Do you know how hard it is to find yeast?! ridiculous.

Sticky bun (I know my food photography needs improvements. Trust me, it was delicious)

Have to say, this whole writing about baking and trying to remember everything I baked over the last month or two really made me hungry and now I want to bake even then before, so I will leave you all to ponder the difference between British and Israeli baking, and go bake me some cake!

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Almost Thanksgiving

Ron doesn't believe in magic anymore. Hidai said it's magic that we got him to believe this far. I just don't get it. How can you not believe in magic? I told him, everyone needs a bit of magic in their lives. But nothing. Fairies aren't real because it's absurd that people can fly,  Harry Potter is just an actor, and he doesn't need money so no teeth fairy anymore. No witches and no wizards also. He said 'oh, fine' to Santa and the Easter Bunny because they bring him things, but it was quite clear he doesn't believe in them too. How is he related to me?
I still have Yon. Maybe he will believe. One more chance to fix this serious error we made in educating the young.
All this discussion came about because we were walking home from the doctor's office (Ron got the last of his vaccinations. That's it for the next 10 years. Thank god), and we saw a house with a Christmas tree full of lights and decorations. So I told them about one of our neighbours who already had her tree up on November 20th, because she said her life is need of some fairy lights. Truth be told, I am totally ready for some fairy lights and a Christmas tree, maybe some Christmas songs, and definitely some Christmas treats. There is just something so... I don't know... Happy, or maybe hopeful in Christmas, Hannuka and all the festive season.
Halloween is officially the beginning of the festive season, and we did try to have a good Halloween this year, so we found ourselves organising a mini Halloween party downstairs in the common area for the kids - we couldn't decide if we want to take the kids treat-or-tricking or not, so we asked if we could do it in the complex, and ended up with organising something for parents and kids who wanted to come. We actually had around 9 parents and their kids (a huge turn-out for this building apparently). The kids had fun and that's what important, but I found myself missing our lovely Treat-orTricking in Gib with Laura & Mick.

Unfortunately there is a very big gap between Halloween and Christmas, and add to that the fact that we are not so festive at the moment. It's mostly the whole keeping a diet thing. Not baking is not festive. We find ourselves walking around the house mumbling "we want doughnuts... We want chocolate... Why is there no cake in THIS HOUSE!!!!"
15 more days to Hannuka, and believe me I am counting each and every hour until it's officially doughnuts, latkes and candles time.

So today in order to introduce some festive feeling we made our vegetables in an "American Thanksgiving" style. I made mashed-potatoes (everyones favourite), maple-glazed sweet potatoes, sweet cooked carrot (not really American but it seemed fitting), mushroom pie (with diet fitting filo pastry but still), steamed vegetables, and of course - pumpkin pie, and some mixed fruits crumble. My aim was to use all the veg and fruits I had in the house. Mission accomplished. It took me around 5 hours to cook and clean-up, and it took them around 15 minutes to eat.
I had my Thanksgiving.

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Lemon Tree

A couple of weeks ago I started writing this post about what happened in our lives over the half-term and Halloween and how everything is going kinda fine.
And then something weird happened - in about three days it became really really clear that everything is a lot of things, but fine is definitely NOT one of them.
You know the whole "when life gives you lemons...", "everything's for the best", "what doesn't kill you..." and the classic "you only gets trials you are strong enough to triumph" and all that cr^&%$p? I know them all by heart. They are what I teach the kids, what I tell myself when things are not going as planned and all. I found myself saying them a lot last year. And more than that, I believe in them. But fuck it, sometimes it seems like life are just out to throw more and more crap at you, and every time you feel you conquered the hurdles and are finally moving forward, Bam. You get a fresh batch.
The last year wasn't easy on us. In fact, to tell the truth, it was hard as hell. It left us with so many scars. Licking so many wounds, financial ones and emotional ones. Some years are like that, but London was supposed to be our healing place. It was (and still is) supposed to give us the peace and quite we so need right now, to be a happy place for the kids, a place for growth. But starting over is always so hard, and starting with so much baggage is bound to be even harder. The thing is, knowing it's going to be hard and actually dealing with the hardship are two very different things, and they intensify by the layers of anxieties, uncertainties and fears we managed to accumulate over the last year.
So it seems that that though we knew everything will take time and won't go smoothly, it's harder and more difficult than we thought.

This time it started with a back pain. Which led to me being bed-ridden for almost a week (unprecedented), and to Hidai working from home and being in-charge of kids and all. And then the minute I could finally move again without the horrible pain and the even more horrible side effect of the pain-killers, Yon got the flu. It's such a small thing - flu, and Yon had it lightly and for only about 24 hours, but it started a chain of events, with Ron being the second to be ill. Ron never ever gets sick. He has Hidai's immune system, and he hasn't been really sick for years. He usually miss up to 1 day of school for being sick... He did not take well to being sick and wanted to go to school, so he was miserable at home and tended to not say when he was feeling worse because he was afraid we won't let him go to school, and because he was really sick we had to keep Yon at home also because there was no one to pick him up from school. Ron was on-off from school for a week, until he finally felt better on Sunday (day before yesterday). Kids being sick automatically leads to me being sick, so that happened from around Wednesday, and then unexpectedly (never ever happens) Hidai caught it too (mildly but still) which did not help the mood or the getting back to normal thing.
And then, because he was considered healthy enough, Yon got a vaccination shot (2 actually) to get him up to date on his vaccination. Of course he had a fever that night. We still have to go through the same thing with Ron this week, because he is missing one shot. One of the perks of moving countries - the vaccinations are ALWAYS different.

If that's not enough, because of course it's not, it never is, we gained weight. Somehow in the midst of all the baking craze and sickness, we gained about 2 kg each (4.5 pounds) and more important than that, we got used to eating such crazy amounts of sweets and baked goods that did not bode well with the fact that December (also known as the eating month) is upon us. So Weight Watchers here we come! (well, actually it's just me. Hidai doesn't have to do anything to lose weight. Nobody loves him) We started the new regim a week and 2 days ago (but who's counting?), and it's been, as usual, hell on earth. Don't get me wrong, Weight Watchers works, if you eat according to the points system you lose weight and still enjoy eating moderate (okay small) portions of everything (except veg and fruit. you find yourself eating unmoderated quantities of those). I know, because I've been there, and it did work, and really, it's not the food, or the unimaginable amounts of fruit & veg. I'm fine with all of those. Don't care. I am a vegetarian, and I actually don't really eat a lot anyway. But the sweets. and the Chocolate. And the baking. It's killing me. I am addicted to the chocolate and sugar. Believe me, I'm not using that word lightly. I am addicted. nowadays they are responsible for around 75% of my daily nutrition, and like all junkies, I need increasing amounts of them to get my fix. So I need the diet mostly to get back to being able to eat one cube of chocolate, or 13 M&M's a day, as opposed to the whole damm pack. And that is why the first week is also, for me, the week with nothing sweet and especially chocolate. I actually always try to go for 2 weeks, but never succeed. It is a week of withdrawal, and I actually get the headaches, dizziness, nausea and depression associated with it. This week started better, but I am still not where I want to be in terms of chocolate-craving.

Then the war in Israel started, and sent us in to a constant state of worry. And dragged up some memories we would have preferred to keep buried from our last war and our way of life in Israel. It's crazy what you take with you from a childhood like ours. Things and ways of life that we considered as normal, are in fact not considered normal anywhere else in the world... I have no intention to write my political views or what I think of this latest war. It doesn't really matter and anyway I don't believe I have a right to express any opinion. I don't live in Israel anymore (wars being a big part of the reason why), and as someone who chose not to live there I am not entitled to an opinion that sends other people to die (being that in the war or in the constant firing from Gaza). I don't think I'm entitled to an opinion about anything that goes on in Israel. I find it infuriating when people, from the comfort of their New York home, tell the whole world what they think should be done, and as it usually fight, send other people and other people's kids to die so they could keep on working in the New York Hi-Tech industry. I do think I can have my memories about living in Israel and my personal opinion about life as I remember them there. Nothing new though (and no. We are not going to vote these coming elections. For the same reasons). It's just that damn worry. And the news. It only takes a minute to make you a news junky again, reading, watching, listening to everything you can get your hands on. And then we had to explain it to Ron, about wars, and missiles, and the Arab-Jew situation. He is so removed from it all, he doesn't remember wars, or the sirens, he doesn't have the fear, or the knowledge a boy his age has in Israel about the situation there. I deferred the question to hidai who explained about Israel being a coveted place, Jewish and Palestinians not sharing and the lack of a grown-up to take charge of the situation. And then we had to assure him nobody we know died. And that the muslim kids in his class are not related to any of this. And then we sent him to school hoping we were right... Not our proudest moment as parents.

Then on Friday we ran out of money. I guess it's not as bad as it sounds now, but for around 24 hours from midday Friday it was. We had some unpleasant inconsistency with this month paycheque that we were not expecting and did not catch until it was too late and the guy from Sainsbury called to say that the card is refused. Fun times. It's fine now (how is it fine? I don't know. It's just is), we took the money from the last of our dwindling reserves, and sat down for a serious "this is our budget. let's stick to it" conversation. It did not go well. Budgets sucks. There. I said it. nobody likes to live according to a tight budget. And before Christmas. Sucks.
It's not that we weren't aware of our whole situation. We knew very well we will need time to recover from last year and all it entailed, and the move here (so so so expansive to start anew. Just the restocking of the kitchen is a small fortune). But we were intending to start on January. not to ruin Hannuka and Christmas, which we won't be able to save all of now. Sucks. So we went for a second budget conversation, which went better, downloaded an app (Toshl) for budget control, managed to save some of Christmas (not Hannuka though...), made some cuts, and started a new budgety year a month and a half in advance. Like I said - sucks.
And then we had to explain some of it to Ron, who apparently hears everything and assign the meanings for himself. We explained about the mistake at work, and that we needed to find a solution and that we got upset, but that of course we found one, everything is fine, and he doesn't need to worry. Not a great moment. And of course he does worry.

Which led us to Monday, where the cleaning lady who was supposed to come for the last time came late, left early and cleaned worse than Yon, Ron was very distracted in Football and cried twice, the grocery shopping I re-ordered again did not arrive (not really clear as to why), Hidai had to stay late at work, and then we got a note saying there is a package/letter waiting at the concierge. The kids refused to go with me, so I decided not to fight them but in my mind, and in accordance with the way things are going I just knew it was a formal letter revoking our right to live in the UK.
Hidai picked it up at 10 p.m when he got home.
It was the movie Narnia I ordered for Ron for Christmas.

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Jews at 10

I am actually waiting for Jews at 10 to start, and am feeling only slightly ashamed for it :).
I have to say I sometimes find it surprising just how Jewish we are. I mean, obviously we are Israelis, and Jewish, and it's important to us, but usually when we think of ourselves it will be as Israelis, but not as Jews. You don't really think of the meaning of the Jewishism (I know it's not an actual word), and the difference between Jewish and other people. I was shocked at how many times I found myself nodding while watching the show, and how many times I said "wow. So that's a Jewish thing?". But Seriously, I had no idea that British people don't take Friday night dinner as a serious family meal. They go to the pub. And all those mummy issues. They are NOT only Jewish. Are they? and the constant critique of everything? Jewish? Really?
So yea, I have to admit I enjoy the show immensely, and am waiting for the last episode today about Jewish food.
One of the things I like the most is the fact that the show touches issues that for us as Jews who chose to live outside of Israel are important and relevant (even though, unlike many of the participants in the show, we are by no mean strict Jews, and the fact that we are somehow ended up organising a Halloween party tomorrow can attest to that).
The thing is, keeping a Jewish or an Israeli way of life and traditions outside of Israel is hard. It takes a lot of work, and some hard life choices that frankly we always said we won't make. I guess the thing is you have to move a bit more to the extreme in order to get what you take for granted in Israel. And as much as it was hard in Gibraltar, it just got harder with the move to London, mainly I think because of our decision not to live in a Jewish or Israeli community, together with the fact that the kids are getting older, the fact that the English and the British education system are becoming more prominent in our house, and the sad sad fact that local holidays (and no, not Christian, just local) are so much more... Well, fun.
When we moved to London our aim was to live somewhat in the north (as it is a known fact that the more Jewish areas in London are to the north), with an easy access to synagogues and Jewish facilities (like a Sunday school or shops) if we want, but without the suffocating feeling of living in an Israeli / Jewish community. What we ended up with is living somewhat up north, but by no means in a close proximity to Israeli / Jewish facilities. The fact of the matter is, in Ron's school he is the only Jewish child (I don't know about Yon's nursery. It's just that the head teacher told us about the school), and although I am quite sure we are not the only Jews in our neighbourhood, we have yet to hear Hebrew anywhere here. It's mostly fine with us, as it was after all our choice, but sometimes it's just weird. What is even weirder is that you get so used to the non-Hebrew state of things, that it takes your brain a minute to register the Hebrew when you hear it, and then you just can't tune it out like you can with the English. Last time we were in Israel it took us a few days to get used to it and stop listening in on everyone's conversations...
So we try to find our way to raise Jewish children in a non Jewish society. We are well aware that the kids will not be Israelis since they were so very young when we left, and I guess you are where you grow up, but we would like to keep the Jewish pride alive and well. To give them some sort of roots, of connection to their tradition, and maybe more than that - to us. This is our tradition, our history, our way of looking at the world. And we want them to have some of it.
But be that as it may, Judaism does not make it easy on you. Now I know I am an overprotective parent. Truly, I am aware of that. But I still don't like telling my kids about wars, death, Hitler, you know everyday life in Israel. And I know all the reasoning behind all the holidays, and I grew up like that and turned out fine (mostly), but even when I did live in Israel I found it a terrible decision. I am not ashamed to say I want my kids to stay kids. For as long as they can. To believe in good and in fairy tales for as long as they can. Before the reality of grown-ups destroys every shred of that belief. Combine that with the fact that I cannot, for the life of me, understand how I am supposed to say to a child that goes to school with so many kids from different countries - we hate all X nation because they tried to kill us, and we celebrate this holiday because Y nation didn't succeed in killing us, and so on and so forth. I don't really see it as a point of pride that most of our holidays are war related. That's why we try and soften the stories or make our own holiday explanations. It's nearly impossible in Passover but works fine with all other holidays with the kids. With the grown-ups we usually go for the (apparently very acceptable) explanation of "someone tried to kill the Jews. Didn't succeed, let's eat".
Because the food, the food is great. And I know I'm biased but it's true. The fact is, when we go to Israel we usually spend ALL of our time eating, when my parents visits us they bring food with them, and once a month we go to Golders Green to buy Israeli food.
The first time I went to Golders I was shocked. I was used to the two very small and not very well stocked shops in Gibraltar, I was not expecting to walk into a bizarre combination between an Israeli and a British street, filled with bakeries, religious Jews, Israelis, and supermarkets filled with Israeli food. I can't help it, my first reaction was checking that I know where the bus-stop is. That I have an escape route. I don't do that anymore, but that is just because I know where it is... Once you are inside Kosher Kingdom though, if you ignore all the Jewish pressure outside, it's like a heaven filled with all your favorite I-am-at-home food, at an almost reasonable prices. And we buy (that's why it's a once-a-month thing). How can you not? We missed the food so much when we were in Gibraltar (though I do have to say the Gibraltarian stores did improve over time), and though we did get used to the British food, there are things that just don't have a proper replacement. Like Hoummus. Or pitta bread. Or Cottage cheese. These things you can't even make at home. I mean of course you can, but the whole point is getting the authentic store-bought taste.
I have been to Golders four times by now, and even signed up for a loyalty card for Kosher Kingdom, but I still don't feel at home there. Truth be told, I don't feel particularly at home anywhere anymore, it is a price we pay for our way of life, the not belonging to anywhere or any place. I think that's why people live near others from the same place, keep or buy a house in the country they came from, and talk about going back all the time. We have none of those things. We don't have a house in Israel anymore, or plans to go back. We don't live in a Jewish or Israeli community. We don't even know if London (or the UK) is our last stop (probably not). Where does it leaves us? with trying to establish our own traditions. I think this is why it's so important to us that the kids will have some of our culture, so we try to merge our culture with theirs. That is why we insist on keeping the Friday night dinner (another great show by the way) tradition, including baking the Challa and lighting the candles, why we celebrate every holiday (okay, almost every holiday, but definitely more than we did when we were in Israel), and do it correctly (more or less), while adding the local holidays for the kids.
Identity is a weird thing, we don't even realise at first how much of it is related to where we come from, where we live. Somewhere along the way and the moves I guess we lost parts of ours, and as the kids grow up their identity is connected to a different culture, a different place. So we adjust, we try and build new parts, find new things to belong to, and fill the gaps that are developing between us and the kids.

I have no songs or words of wisdom with which to end this post. Every Israeli family we ever met outside of Israel struggled with these questions and difficulties. There are moments with the kids (different for everyone) that breaks your heart, that you feel like you are losing them to a different world. It was never a conscious price we chose to pay. But it is a price we pay anyway.

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Grandparents in London

My boys are watching yet another football match (it really sometimes seems like the football matches never end... If it is not this league it's the other one, if it is not a live one it is a recorded one, or a show about one). Whatever. I closed myself in the room with my ever-trusty Mac, and am trying to finish closing my gaps. It's not only here that I have huge gaps to close - I managed to open gaps everywhere it seems, and now that I decided to close all of them it sometimes feel like an impossible mission.
Hence the Sunday writing...

My parents arrived for a 2 weeks first visit just after Rosh Hashana. It was not their first visit to London of course. As my brother lives here they have been here many times over the years. It was also not their first time visiting us since we've left Israel of course. We try and go for 3-4 times a year. It was not even the first time they visited us here, since they came with us from Israel for our first 2 weeks in July. It was, however, their first visit since we officially moved here - their first time in our new place, after we've established a routine of sorts.
We knew it was going to be hard. It was harder.
Visits are so important, and on so many levels. First of all, and most importantly, I miss my parents very much. Talking on Skype is not the same as sitting for a chat, or drinking coffee, or going shopping together. It is a million times better then not having Skype, or not being able to call when you want, but it is still not the same as face to face on the same time-zone. The second thing is that it is so much better for the kids to get some grandparents time - who else will spoil them shamelessly, try to feed them all the time, and let them get away with murder? :)
But beside that, the visits are the only way anyone can really understand how we live here. We had the same thing in Gibraltar, you can't really get a lot of the finer points of our lives from a Mediterranean away. Wherever you go in the world the rhythm of life is different, in a way I think that is so hard to grasp from afar. It is the same for us whenever we visit Israel, we are amazed at all the little things we forgot or don't understand anymore.
For us here I guess the meaning is understanding how you can live well inside London without actually ever getting to LONDON. It's not that we don't live somewhere you can get (quite easily) to wherever you want / need. It's that, well, who has the time to? Yon goes to nursery for 3 hours a day. After you take the kids to school and Hidai to the bus in the morning, it's already 9:15. You have to be back at nursery at 12:00. It takes at least 30 minutes each direction wherever you want to go. So more often than not - you just don't go anywhere. There is nothing NOTHING more depressing than getting to Oxford st. and having 1 hour to spend there before you have to rush back so Yon's nice teacher can go eat lunch and the mean receptionist won't scold you.
But when you come to London you want to see LONDON, go shopping, eat out, go to a show, tour all the main attractions (it's fun no matter how many times you've been there). You don't really want to be stuck close to home because Yon goes to nursery for 3 hours. So it's a battle between wanting to spend time with us and doing everything together like we did in Gibraltar, and between wanting to enjoy London as one should when visiting it. Add to that the fact that there are 2 kids to visit and not only one, the fact that each and everyone of us likes different things and want to go to different places, a weather that is colder than what Israelis are used to in September (or at all), and obligations towards the grandkids in Israel, and a terrible toothache for almost the whole visit (for 1 grandparent, and "just for a few days" for the other one), and what you get is a right big mess.
And a lot of unhappy people.
So another change has to happen in life, and again adaptation is called for, so after we realised everything I wrote in the paragraph above, that was what we tried to do.

We took grandparents to Upper st. to get the feeling of being in London (and because Yon was showing withdrawal symptoms after not having Starbucks Chocolate Muffin for quite some time now) and do some minor shopping, before heading back home to have Uri & Ev for afternoon coffee.

 On their first Sunday I got everyone tickets to the first Cake & Bake show, and was super excited about it, both because it was supposed to give me a chance to find some baking supplies and ideas that are hard to find here (like, apparently - fresh yeast. That being said, after a very very long search it turned out that a) the health shop near my house sells them, b) kosher Kingdom sometimes have them, c) Ocado started a new Scandinavian range that for some unknown reason includes yeast), and also it's a chance for me to give my parents a glimpse in to my life and what I do. Unfortunately, it did not go as planned. It was the first cake & bake show, and even though we went on the second day, the entry queues were still very un-necessary long (the tickets were sold-out in advance. they should have adjusted the security and the facility accordingly, but didn't), so it took us a while to actually get in. When we did get inside we discovered that things were not going to improve. Long queues to get anywhere, not enough people who can actually help you find what you want, stalls standing too close to each other so you can't pass, no water points anywhere (water fountains, bottles water machines. Whatever), 3 coffee shops with stale food, long queues and outrageous prices and too-small sitting areas, and not one of the stalls offering tastings. I mean seriously? who puts on a cakes / cookies/ cupcakes/ chocolate/ bread stall and does not offer tastings? As a principal, I don't buy at places who are too cheap to offer tastings, so we didn't. Also, for some reason the organisers apparently believe that the only thing people bake is cupcakes, plain ones at that, so they could decorate them elaborately afterward. That is the only explanation to the sad sad fact that there were almost no stands offering non-cupcake-decoration items. So there you have it. All in all, not a success. They did apologise for some of it later on Facebook (though not on the official newsletter they send out), but it was too little too late. For our family it didn't matter - grandparents hated every minute of being there, and after around 3 stalls and 45 minutes in the queue to the coffee place, we sat on the floor and decided to part ways. kids and grandparents went back home (which as the day went, shouldn't surprise you didn't go all too well in itself and the rain didn't help...). We did get a chance to meet Paul Hollywood (the judge from the Great British Bake Off, that Ron & I watch religiously) and buy some sugar paste before they left. Afterwards Hidai & I wondered around the whole place, but because cupcake-decorating is not a very big deal in our house, it was less fruitful than I hoped.

Meeting Paul hollywood (highlight of the day)

Eating on the floor (low point of the day)

On Monday grandparents went out for a day of shopping and an evening with Uri & Ev, and Tuesday was Yon's eye test so they went for a morning of shopping and were with Ron in the afternoon (unfortunately it was the only time he had a bad experience in the after school club, which led to some comments which led to a raw about our parenting choices / skills. It was sorted the next day as I went straight to the head-teacher to find out what's going on).
At least Wednesday showed an improvement, when Ron (who used this opportunity to explain to his Jewish head teacher that he is celebrating Yom Kippur with his grandparents. To my non Jewish readers - Yom Kippur is a day of fasting and atonement...), Hidai, and grandparents (after a visit to the dentist here) went to watch the Arsenal match in the Emirates stadium. It was grandparents first time in a football match, and after we made sure they dressed properly, and after they climbed what looked like a thousand stairs to their seats, and after they survived the first half which was quite boring, they had a chance to see Arsenal win 6:1, and meet Uri who also came to watch the match (but through ha work thing, so separately). They had a great time, it is such a huge experience to walk with all  the rea&white dressed people on the streets before the match, and of course watching the match itself (I really can't describe it more because I remain the only one in the family who wasn't in a match...). Anyway grandparents came back total fans, and now they want an Arsenal shirt for Christmas and a match in every visit :)

Outside the stadium

Thursday was breakfast at Ottolenghi day. We had some recommendations and decided to check it out. What can I say? WOW. Everyone of those recommendations was right. The first difference I can see between places run by Israelis is that they are brighter and the walls are whiter than in British places. For me, it makes the place feels cleaner. The second is that the coffee is usually better. We drank good coffee, and ate French toast from brioche, and 2 bread selections with gorgeous breads and even better spreads. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I am just waiting for when I can have a morning alone with Hidai to go back there. After that it was almost time to go back since Yon, you know, finishes at 12:00...

Friday was the real low point of the visit, with a very serious talk about all the different expectations all of us had from this visit. It was good to clear the air and we could change the second week of the visit a little at least...
So on Saturday we went for a walk around Piccadilly circus. My aim was the Fortnum & Masons first because they had an Autumn thing going on, and second because it is supposed to be a great place to visit. It is. For us, however, it did not go so well, and some people in our party did not enjoy it so much, which led to being there a very short time before heading to Pret to eat some sandwiches. Anyway I do recommend a visit, and am planning to go back near Christmas. Afterwards we went by the Rainforest Cafe and the M&M's world shop (a slight improvement in the day, but not by much)

The Rainforest Cafe

All of us and an m&m

before heading back home to eat home-made brioche flower shaped buns and salty treats (high point of the day).

High point

Sunday I think was the highlight of the visit for grandparents - we took them to Golders Green to do some grocery shopping. For some unknown reason, grandparents found it to be lovely and enjoyed it immensely, while we (as usual) were just happy that there is bus to take us back home. We did some shopping at Kosher Kingdom and Carmelli ( I try to get there once a month to get some Israeli imported foods. It is oh so expensive but for us, totally worth it) and enjoyed the whole "the same as in Israel" feeling, while at least having the chance to show the kids what a sukkah is and explain about Sukkot (we do try and celebrate most of the Jewish holidays. Our rule is simple - if the holiday does not have some kind of food associated with it, it is not worth celebrating. Unfortunatly for Sukkot it falls down in this category. And also, you need an outdoor space to build a Sukkah, which we don't have).

Kosher kingdom purchases 

On our way home we stopped at Peacocks to but the kids some Wellies and rain-coats, as it became abundantly clear that a) it rains in London, and b) Yon adores puddle splashing... They had a chance to wear it the very next day, which is also known as "The Monday of Horror" for the fact that we managed to get lost on our way to Ron's football club practice thanks to some miscommunications, the fact that there are 2 bridges in Finsbury park area, and my not checking the map. We got to the practice after a whooping 45 minutes of walking in all the wrong directions possible, and without any will to live (to add insult to injury it turned out to be so so so easy to get there from the school...).
It took a while, but things (me) calmed down after a while (meaning, Hidai apologising), and we moved on to Tuesday, also known as Family Gathering Day, in which we had everyone (Uri, Ev, Jo, Adrie and the kids) over for dinner. It was a small, simple thing, that just needed 2 days of menue planning, 3 stores shopping and one whole day of cooking, and only included 4 kinds of biscuits, 2 salads, burekas, potato filled pastry, mushroom filled cups, sweet rolls, and cake-pops for dessert. There is really no need for me to say it again, right? you already know there wasn't enough food :)
everyone had a great time and it was a really lovely evening (even though Uri & Ev were about an hour late), and since there wasn't enough food, we only had leftovers for one day...

Some of the food (the main course)

Thursday morning we went for breakfast at Gail's, which we found to be less nice than Ottolenghi, but closer to Hidai's work. They do have the most amazing chocolate cookies (pricy as hell, but totally worth it) so if you are around, go buy them.

After that  the weather took a turn for the worse side and it became cold and windy, which automatically sent grandparents to 2 days of shopping for winter clothes (if you consider what I have from Gibraltar as Autumn clothes at best, grandparents came from Israel with, lets face it, London Summer clothes)...
On their last day here, we decided to go out in in the morning instead of moping around the house all day, and we went to Covent Garden and around for a stroll. It went surprisingly well (if you consider all the other outings this past 2 weeks) and we managed to finish the visit on a high note, and they still want to come back for Christmas :)

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On Autumn and Connections

I seriously can't believe it's the end of October already. Time is such a funny thing isn't it? On the one hand it tends to fly away (especially when you have lots to do, 3 hours a day to accomplish everything you need and a tendency to watch TV instead of work), while on the other hand it takes its time... 
It is our first Autumn here in London (and yes I know it's also Fall, but Autumn sounds so much more romantic don't you think?), and it is nothing like we have ever experienced anywhere else, and everything like you imagine a proper Autumn should be - cold, rainy, and filled with orange-red leaves everywhere. I love it (well, when I am inside the house I do). I fill the house with Autumn appropriate music, eat soup for lunch, and wear all my winter clothes (when winter hits I will need actual winter clothes. Everything I have is Autumn fitting at best).

Kids at the park

One of the main things in Gibraltar we could never get used to is that there are no trees. I mean obviously there is the Rock itself, which has foliage and stuff, but there are no parks, it is not a green place. It is a blue place as it sits just on the Mediterranean and our flat was on the edge of one of the harbours. Don't get me wrong, it was the most beautiful view in the world, and there is nothing like getting a giant tourists cruise-ship just outside your window, but I missed the green and I adore the fact that we now have green everywhere - grass, trees, leaves, parks...
It makes for a great change. 
Though tomorrow things are supposed to get rougher and this is the last above 10 degrees Celsius (50 F) day we will get for a while, so they already shut down the bubbles and lights in our gardens until spring (weird that when they built it they didn't think about the fact that this is London, and the winter here is in a water freezing temperature...), and on Sunday it's the end of Summer Time so it will start getting dark around 5 already. Another change. 
Life is all about that though, don't you think? changes are everywhere and all the time. Maybe not exactly changes, but adaptations. For me at least it seems that it never stays the same. It is never quiet. And when it does, we move :)
For years now Hidai and I have our mutual agreement that the only constant in our life is the being of our family (no more changes there thank you very much). Everything else is under constant movement. 
And it's not just the big things, it can be the way we dress, because they dress differently here - all with the short skirts and tight jeans and knee high boots, and Hidai now has to dress properly for work (not a full suit but close enough), or the holidays we celebrate nowadays, or the fact that the kid's accent is moving more toward the English one I guess, so it's the little things, the ones you don't even notice at first that change. 
One of the changes that happened over the years since we left Israel is realising the importance of connections. Don't get me wrong, we are still unfriendly as ever :) but keeping that in mind, we try harder (again, as all is relative in life, that should probably say relatively harder), or at the very least we acknowledge the fact that we should try harder, because if you don't create your own connections than you sit alone when there is a holiday, or you have no-one to ask if you have some silly questions, and basically you are in charge of not being alone/lonely. I guess It would have been easier if we chose to live in an Israeli or a Jewish community, and I guess that is why most people do, but we chose not to. 
So we are left with the building complex, that does not have a lot of people with kids Ron's age, mostly "young professionals" who leads a life that is so un-similar to ours or parents with their first baby/toddler that keep looking at me funny when they see how I treat Yon's falling down performances (seriously that kid deserves an Oscar or a Brit award for the way he does melodrama-in-the-street), that you just have to patronise and say "fine. You just wait and see", and the nursery/school, in which we have yet to find like-minded souls or people willing to talk to us (hopefully Tyler's mum). 
And so we arrive to family issues, and the fact that Uri & Ev live in London does helps with the holidays (or most of them anyway), but it does not change the fact that their lives are totally different and separate from ours. 
So basically the only people we know in London who lives near us, have kids in similar ages, and are nice (a bonus point), are Jo & Adrie. That's why we totally used the family connection we have through Ev and declared them family :). We had one dinner at their place, 2 dinners at our place (holiday dinners no less), 2 park outing, 2 chance park meetings, one restaurant dinner, one birthday party invite (only Hidai went since that was the week I was ill), and one coffee and play date this past Sunday. (No it is not weird or anything that everything we do is written in the calendar). It feels so good to have people we like to hang out with, that it actually made me realise how much we came to take that for granted in Gibraltar. It did take us a while, but after we found our small but loved group of friends, losing all of them when we moved here was so much harder than we anticipated, and Jo & Adrie are making this loss and loneliness a little bit easier for us. 

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My Way

I miss baking.
I started writing this Post about 2 weeks ago. Because I did. I do. I miss baking. It grounds me. It makes me calm. It makes me happy. I find that whenever we move, I need to bake. So I miss it. And still, it took me a while to start baking again. Why? because I gave it up.
And it got me thinking about all the things we give up along the way. Usually it is done for a reason. More often than not, I guess, a good reason like health, or kids, or time with a spouse. But eventually you wake up one day realizing that a part of you is missing.
Why did I gave up baking? Because after you lose 13 kg (around 2 stones), you tend to want to keep them off. And when I bake, I eat. I am very fussy about baked goods, so it is very hard for me to find other bakers I like, that's why if I don't bake it myself, chances are I won't eat it.
But I miss it.
It might not even be the baking itself, but the sense of accomplishment, of purpose, of creation it gives me. I usually don't like life choices related regrets and try to live my life in more of a Had A Few, Too Few To Mention But More Than This I Did It My Way kind of way, but something about London and in particular this building complex that makes me ponder the road not taken, the have a proper job-get married late-don't have kids when you are 26 side of the road. And it's hard. Because when I look at my life right now, standing on the kids at home all day-no time for myself-no job I can talk about-no money to spare side of the road, it doesn't look appealing. More like appalling. And I know, because Hidai keeps reminding me, that it's a phase, it's going to get better, and the kids will go to school eventually. But honestly, I can't see it. And that is where baking comes in.
So I started slowly, because a) I am missing so many ingredients it's a wonder I could bake anything, b) it takes some time to get used to the oven, c) Hidai only lets me bake one thing at a time (something about having to eat too much cake if you can believe that).
And it was wonderful and hell at the same time. It gave me everything I wanted, and it made me anxious as hell. I guess that with the move here I need to find myself again, carve out a new me again. Who do I want to be this time? It is without a doubt one of my favorite things about moving to new countries, the whole new identity thing, the have no life before here thing. You can be whomever you want to be, share as little or as much from your past as you want. A clean slate every time. But the decision which person to be gets harder with time, and you leave more untold stories, more unknown history behind you.
What does that have to do with cookies? That was a big part of my identity in Gibraltar, and it is still an unfulfilled dream of mine to have a bakery, to learn more, to go pro.
Do I want it to be part of my identity here? it is already starting, and I feel an overwhelming need to prove myself all over again, that I can do it. That I am a good enough baker. That it is good enough that that is a big part of my identity. All the things I accomplished with my baking in Gibraltar are wiped off and the ugly side of the clean slate emerges - you start again.
So I bought ingredients (basics for now. Why is it so damn hard to find a good store to buy these things here???) and started baking again. it is going to be part of my identity here as well. Because it is a part of me I can not leave behind (and also, the kids will hate me if i don't bake for them).

Okay, so not a funny Post this one, and not at all the direction I was planning on taking with it, but there it is nevertheless. What I was aiming for here was a little lighter Post that will explain that food (okay, sweets. Okay, chocolate) and baking are a big part of who I am and that is why I am planning to start a different section of the Blog that will be dedicated to it in the next few days (or weeks. Tops).

And because it seems like an apt way to close - Frank Sinatra My Way

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