Comments on: we can work it out

By: zahavah

zahavah — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:40:52 +0000

Thank you for reading and sharing your opinions.
@Steven – hope and idealism are great qualities and I’m glad to see we share them.
@Yvonna – breaking bread, as you so beautifully wrote, “over a table of artfully prepared food” could be a wonderful opportunity to realize that we share more than we differ.

By: Steven

Steven — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:55:23 +0000

From one idealist to another, great post and great recipe! Thank you for sharing both – and thank you for sharing your sense of hope. Steven

By: Yvonne, My Halal Kitchen

Yvonne, My Halal Kitchen — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:04:10 +0000

Beautiful pics and very interesting site. Perhaps over a table of artfully prepared food, people can really come together in peace!

By: zahavah

zahavah — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:21:55 +0000

Thanks, Noam, for visiting and your Israeli perspective. Glad to hear it looked authentic for you. I love adding avocado and sometimes pickles. Olives are great too.

By: noam

noam — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:52:48 +0000

Wow, your classmate was a real tool. Israelis are simple, no self respecting Israeli would call a tomato and cucumber salad an “Israeli salad”, they would call it a “tomato and cucumber salad” Also, there is really no difference between an Israeli salad and an Arabic salad the only difference is who makes it:-) What I really love about this salad is that almost anything can be added to it. I like avocado, I like to use different kinds of peppers and I also add green olives. Either way, your salad looks fabulous and got me hungry.

By: Marina

Marina — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:50:24 +0000

tasty lookin salad:) i like

By: zahavah

zahavah — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:49:27 +0000

Thank you, Ariela, for all of these great suggestions on how to prepare this versatile salad and giving some great history and background! I love all of the different “salatim” in Israel and throughout the Middle East/North Africa. Especially the decadent addition of avocado. Using cilantro in lieu of za’atar is a great way to adapt this salad for Passover.

As for za’atar on flatbread — this so reminds me of being in Israel and sometimes when I make challah, I’ll rub some on top before baking.

By: Ariela

Ariela — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:30:33 +0000

Beautiful pictures!
I want to add that, contrary to what your classmate said, the salad is extremely versatile. For example, it CAN include lettuce, but people would include only a small amount of lettuce, balanced with the other ingredients (not like American salad where lettuce is the base and the other vegetables are often garnishes), and the lettuce would be sliced in thin ribbons maybe 1 cm wide. Another way I’ve seen people do it, especially a friend’s French-Moroccan stepmother living in Ashdod, is to make it very avocado-heavy with a lot of lemon juice. The avocado is diced like the other vegetables. A few times that same woman served an unbelievable salad of JUST avocados diced, drenched in lemon juice. Mmmmm….

I don’t care for zaatar on my salad. The way my Palestinian Arab co-workers in Nazareth taught me to eat zaatar is in a liquidy paste made out of the powdered zaatar mixed with (ideally homemade) olive oil, and you dip (ideally homemade) flatbread into it. One of my co-workers lived in a little town near Baka al-Garbiya and during olive oil season she brought in a huge jar from her mom. I thought the jar would last a year but we made short work of it in about 2 weeks. What works better on this salad, in my opinion, is fresh cilantro (koozbara in Hebrew). In Israel in the summer, I used to have this salad just about every morning for breakfast (but with scallions instead of pickled red onion) topped with some 9% cottage cheese (hey, I was pregnant most of the time!), olive oil, and freshly ground black pepper.