Week 6: Chanukah

Sunday Dec. 21
This week is Chanukah and this is the first time since we left Israel that I'm here during Chanukah. For the lighting of the first candle on Sunday Dec. 21, I had Laura, Orit, Rafi, Micha, Mickey, Ruthie and Elad over at my place for dinner. I went to the shuk early that day and bought fresh food. I decided to experiment with the spice Safron, it's quite the production, this spice! You get a tiny amount of threads for 30 sheqels (approx $10), but it comes in a beautiful little box that seems more suitable for diamonds than a spice. Nonetheless, I enjoyed cooking with it. For appetizers we had fresh chumus, pitas, olives and marinated mini-eggplants that my cousin Pnina made. I made my famouse lentil soup, which I learned from my mom, with a slight modification to the spices. I also made stuffed zucchinis with dried apricot. Pnina taught me how to make these yesterday and they were a huge hit! The crew said that they were the best zucchinis they've ever tasted, so I will definitely be making those again... yes mom, next time we're together for shabat dinner. For the main course I made couscous with safron and vegetable stew with poached chicken. The chicken was fantastic, and everyone seemed to like the stew, but I wasn't a big fan, so I won't be making the stew again. I tell ya, I don't know how I was able to prepare all of that in a kitchen with 2 hot plates and a toaster oven, but hey anything is possible ;-) For dessert, we had sufganiyot and coffee/tea. What are sufganiyot you say? Well this is a treat that is only served during Chanuka. They are like jelly donuts with powdered sugar on top. However, the dough tastes nothing like North American donuts, it's much tastier. Here is a clip of us lighting the first candle:


For the second candle, I went to my cousins Pnina and Itzik's. My aunt and uncle Batia and Fishel were also there and we had a really nice dinner and Itzik explained to me that the candles must be set up starting from right to left side of the Chanukiya (symbolizing moving towards one's heart) and the new candle is the first one to be lit (as that's the candle that is being blessed)... good to know!


For the third candle, I went to my cousins Menachem and Dalia's sister's house, it was raining hard that day, so there was pandemonium on the roads, so we were a bit late. I don't remember ever meeting Dalia's family, but her father remembers me as a child. They were all really nice people, and their 15 year old son plays guitar, so he played Metallica's Fade to Black for me, and the solo in Hotel California, right on! He is pretty good.
After dinner, I went to my samba rehearsal, but this time we were practicing with some scouts for a gig we have on Saturday. They were really good on their own, but when they had to join us while we played Samba Reggae, it was a disaster, I don't think they could find the one. We'll see how the gig goes.

For the fourth candle, I was invited to hang out with the pagode trio, they were having people over to also celebrate xmas eve. We went to Andre's place, he's the guitar/percussion player, Daniel is also guitar/percussion and Nilson is the singer. They made feijoada and we drank cachaca, it was great. At 9pm we went over to play the gig at the usual bar Mazal Ariye (Zodiac Sign of Leo). We also lit the candles at the bar, which was really cool. Nilson got to light the candles because it's his last night playing with us. He's going to Europe to try getting more work there. We played our hearts out 'til 2am, this was a great night! Here are a couple of videos:




and here are some more photos... the guy with the long hair is Andre, the guy with the glasses and beard is Daniel and Nilson is the guy with the hat. Oh, and the band has a website so you can check it out, Sambadobom.



























For the fifth candle, Micha had a party at his place. His mom made food and it was good vibes all around.

For the sixth candle, I stayed at home in bed, 'cause I had some serious stomach issues, I must have eaten something off. But I heard that I missed a good samba party, damn, oh well next time.

For the seventh candle, I was at Gadi's house for his birthday party. Gadi is a guy we met at the pagode bar. He is a bassoon player in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, so he had all his fellow musician friends at his place and we jammed all night. He had notes for some great bossa nova tunes and these guys played this stuff like it was nothing, and there were some really complicated lines. We had a trumpet, upright bass, 2 flute players, Daniel on accoustic guitar, Andre on pandeiro, me on rebola, and a bunch of other people on random percussion instruments. It was fantastic. We're going to try to get some of these guys to join us at the bar Mazal Ariye on Fridays. That would be so amazing.
Oh yeah, earlier that day (Saturday Dec. 27), I had a gig with the Batucada group (Samba Guarana) with the scouts, it went well, it was very low key mainly for the community. But the gig was in Yafo and as you probably heard there was a big attack on Gaza that day, so the event was cut short. Yafo has a big arab population , so on my way back, I had to take another route home as there were a bunch of demonstrations on the main street. I kinda wanted to go and see the demonstrations, but I was told it's not wise for safety reasons. So I took their advice.
Side note: I know this is really strange for most of you reading this blog, but please don't worry too much, I'm pretty safe in Tel Aviv, it's not that close to Gaza or the West Bank and most of the retalliations happen in the cities closer to the borders. Besides, I usually travel by foot or taxi and I will stay away from any compromising situations. Thank you to all of you that are checking up on me :-)