ANSWER: Eggplant, Olives, and Goat Cheese

QUESTION:
What are three things that you wouldn’t necessarily have that often at home that are served at every single breakfast, lunch, and dinner in this country, seven days a week.

I now am aware of at least seventeen different ways to prepare and serve eggplant. It is omnipresent. It is the manna of modern-day Israel. It is uncontrollable. It is in everything. I admit to liking it just fine. But how much of that is because I am afraid of what would happen to me if I decided not to like it, I’m not sure, and it scares me. It is more prevalent than air. Even if you don’t take any on your plate, by the time you sit down, it will be there. It finds you and seeks you out. It follows you home. It waits on your porch for you. It never sleeps. It knows you and won’t let you go. It is, Eggplant.

As for olives, I have always had a certain neutrality about them. I will eat them on a pizza. If I’m at a restaurant and they are served, I will nibble on them, all the while trying to remember the socially graceful way of disposing of the pit. Yet I never find myself sitting around the house and suddenly thinking, “Boy, I could really go for some olives right about now.” I probably should.

Goat cheese. I have come to learn there is good goat cheese and bad goat cheese. The good stuff can taste like a sour but tasty yogurt or a gentle bleu cheese, and is very pleasing to the palate. The bad stuff tastes like……cheese that you imagine some ancient Canaanites got from a goat. ’Nuff said.

Here is my lunch today. 1-2-3, Smile, salad!




A wonderful salad at a restaurant in Mizpe Ramon in the middle of the Negev Desert in southern Israel. It had all three ingredients in there, and was tasty.

In the other picture is a bottle of the country’s popular Israeli beer, “Maccabee”, the Budweiser of Eratz Israel. Note the dish of olives to the right, and goat cheese with carrots and peppers to the left. Where is the eggplant?

Oh, it’s there somewhere. Hiding. Lurking. Waiting. It is......Eggplant.