#2 chuck blade roast. No where near actual size.

This post contains an unsolicited plug. I just bought this piece of meat at my local makolet, Super Turgeman. It is a #2/Tzlaot, or Chuck Blade Roast. Actually, in this case, it’s pretty much an entire chuck top. They have a selection that was quite surprising, and the prices are suspiciously reasonable [jk - Ed.]. But more on the prices later.

There is a label wedged into the folds of meat on the bottom that says “without added chemicals or water.” See the photo inside the post. Who cares about the chemicals? No added water? Huzzah!

Some of the meat already say Kosher for Passover. What??! Already!!?! Cue the panic scene!

So we have a 3kg piece of meat currently thawing that my wife is eyeing with uncertainty, my cat with lust, my teenagers with impatience, and I with curiosity. Now what?

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There are times when a surfeit of ingredients in a dish weave an intricate pattern of  textures and flavors on your palette in a magical gustatory experience. Each bite proffers its own unique sensation that combines and recombines with other bites into a sometimes-harmonious, sometimes-contrasting (sometimes even balanced!) delight that leaves you struggling for the often inadequate words to describe it.

Then there’s cacio e pepe.

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There are some things that just taste better when you’re feeling bad. It’s a personal thing, and for me, it changes depending on how badly I’m feeling. Carbs is the obvious stand-out winner in the comfort food category, probably because it helps absorb whatever’s upsetting you, but not all of us like the heavy feeling that pasta gives you.

For me, tomato soup has always been my go-to comfort food. Open a can, pour the contents of the can, plus a can’s worth of milk into a small pot, bring to a boil. Simple, straightforward, satisfying. Now that I’m not fourteen anymore, I don’t have to rely on a prepared can of soup concentrate to soothe my turgid, er… soul, but taking a couple of hours to make a whole pot of soup while feeling lousy isn’t always practical. Enter the egg.

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Meat in Israel is a long-standing source of frustration for new olim, especially those from North America. It’s as if cows in America are somehow built with different parts, and trying to find the right piece of meat for your recipe becomes more confusing than it should be. Couple that with the now-permitted hindquarter meats, and you more than double the number of cuts available that people may never have seen or heard of before. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they number the meat like you’re in kindergarten, making you feel that much more stupid.

Enough is enough. I present my definitive guide to buying meat in Israel.

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I’m not a fresh tomato lover. Unless it’s summer and unless the tomatoes are so red they’ve earned the right to be called ‘tomato’. Luckily, the cherry tomatoes I had in the refrigerator were both. So today’s lunch salad was

• Cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• Parsley, rinsed and snipped
• Red onion, sliced
• Zfatit cheese, crumbled
• Walnuts, broken
• Olive Oil, drizzled
• Red wine vinegar, splashed

Proportions? Feh, eyeball it.

Sorry there’s no picture.. I finished it before I finished the post.