Baking bread during the winter months in a cool, drafty kitchen is a particular challenge. Yeast likes a fairly warm environment to do its thing, and trying to proof dough on countertops that register 50°F are going to result in flat, dense loaves.

Proofing boxes are temperature and humidity-controlled walk in monsters found in professional bakeries. Home bakers need something a little less unwieldy.  As it turns out, a simple incandescent light bulb will do the trick, providing enough heat to proof  a couple of loaves worth of your favorite bread dough.

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Along Emek Refaim are a motley collection of restaurants ranging from fast food to haute cuisine. Sushi Bar Rechavia trends towards the higher end of the spectrum. My wife and I enjoyed a quiet dinner for two at this busy restaurant. We were fortunate to have our meal sponsored by dear friends of ours. Not to seem ungrateful, the restaurant was overall a pleasant and delicious experience. When billing as a high-end restaurant, though, consider that your clientèle are more discriminating, and therefore expectations are higher. While this might seem like nit-picking to some, it is nothing more than my professional evaluation, and not a review. It is perhaps how I would do things.

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Gelato is an Italian creamy iced confection. It’s more like ice cream with less milkfat and more sugar, not like the Marino’s Italian Ices cup, which is like scraped ice. In Israel, Aldo is one of the local gelato stores. Local to Emek Refaim in Jerusalem, that is. In addition to their main selection of  gelato flavors that often include Twix bars, Ment [sic] Chocolate Chip, they have a parve sorbet counter that is constantly overrun by sweet-toothed locals and tourists who stop in for a little something sweet. Or a huge something sweet. It’s a little commercialized, but the product is good, it’s quite apparent that it’s made fresh, and they have a decent selection of non-standard flavor combinations. Sometimes, these flavors include alcohol. Heh.

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Selena is an upscale restaurant on Emek Refaim. If this seems to be a trend in my restaurant posts, well it’s because this is a very popular restaurant street in Jerusalem. We were seated right away, and a pleasant waitress told us the specials, then took our order after about ten minutes of our deliberations. The ambiance was nice with soft jazz playing in the background without being overpowering, and it was warm in the restaurant, which was a relief from the cold December night. We noticed that the restaurant’s clientèle were all English-speaking.

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Moshava 54 is a casual, family-friendly restaurant in the German Colony on Emek Refaim in Jerusalem.

The interesting gimmick of Moshav 54 is how the menu  is organized. Rather than the usual appetizer, salad, entree categories, the menu is sorted by price from 20 shekels up to, you guessed it, 54 shekels. There’s a wide variety of bistro-style dishes on the menu, appealing to a wide variety of diner’s palettes, styles and budgets. It also gives you a reasonable idea of what the portion is going to be like, which is a good thing whether you’re out for a full dinner or a quick bite. (more…)