An Obligation
My aunt has come to visit from Africa.
But she is not the obligation of which I speak...
Nor am I obliged,
Beyond common courtesy and extreme gratitude,
For the pomellos that appeared on my doorstep.
No, what has put me under an obligation is my latest
Jaffa Flea Market purchase...
Being sold as a job lot just behind this gorgeous old Morris was a shoebox (admittedly child-sized) filled with funky cocktail forks. Cleaned and polished, they look pretty impressive!
So why is this an obligation?
Well, I have enough cocktail forks to supply a marching band (sixty nine to be exact), and now I feel obliged to start making interesting cocktail snacks that need to be speared by funky cocktail forks.
Good thing that New Years is this weekend!
In the meantime, I am entertaining (very happily) my aunt who I have not seen in 16 years. This is a great treat for me, pure unadulterated quality time with no external distractions and a really wonderful opportunity to learn who exactly my aunt is, not as a wife, mother, daughter or grandmother, but as a person.
That kind of opportunity doesn't often happen with family,
Usually you have to share...
And, not only do I get to be completely selfish this weekend and have my aunt all to myself, but I also get to show off the small everyday joys that make up my life here in Israel...
Masabacha from Ali Caravan and
The bounty of my weekly CSA box
(tomatoes, clementines, coriander)
The Jaffa Flea Market
The local street cats...
Neve Tsedek
Tomorrow will bring what tomorrow will bring... but rain or shine I know that I will drag my aunt, this person who I love, to see another corner of this place that I love.
4 comments:
Happy New Year to you ! ;)
aja my dear, only the best for you in 2007 in faraway israel-land. :)
about the pix:
1- aunty is tres cute. hope you had a wonderful reunion.
2- go capture that cat for me. WHAT A FACE ON HIM/HER!!
3- soap with menorot on them? who'd have thought?
4- such fancy forklettes. however at first i thought you purchased that big blue piece o' nostalgia. a step up from a shkooter, i'd say!! :) here's to fondues and forshpeis.
5- and finally, such artistic pomello delivery! a neighbour perhaps?
FEEL BETTER! i hope you're eating them.
Happy New Year!
Your pictures are just beautiful - they make me want to jump on a plane and get back to Jaffa.
Are the pomellos good? I've never had a good one here.
Hey Chanit,
Happy New Year to you too. (saying שנה טובה just doesn't sound right somehow 8^)
Hey BB,
Yeah, I lucked out, my aunt is a pretty amazing lady - full of vim and vigour.
Alot of the cats here have dirty faces that look like they could be angelic when you get them scrubbed up - but you just can't get near enough to put facecloth to face...
The soap, I think, is for Sabbath and high holiday cleaning. It looks extra strong and stinky, the sort that leaves your hands red, raw and hurting for days afterwards - the kind they used in Victorian times in cold water in workhouses and all of the little children ended up with chilblains... not nice stuff, but pretty for pictures.
The forks are fun!
And the pomellos were courtesy of my dear neighbour SistR.
Hey Pam,
Thanks for the compliment and the New Years wish. The pomellos were (and are) wonderful. My aunt and I noshed on them for breakfast every morning of her stay. Unfortunately, they didn't carry enough vitamin C (and they were packed full) to protect me against the dreaded 'lurgy, and I came down with a horrendous case of genuine olde fashioned influenza that has had me in bed the whole week, unable to even look at my last remaining pomello. Hopefully tomorrow I will be up to eating it.
I'm glad you liked Israel and that my pics make you want to come back again! We'll always be here if you do jump on that plane! 8^)
Hey Paz,
What wonderful cooking are you going to get up to in the New Year? Aren't surprises fun? 8^)
Have a great 2007!
aja
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