I made slutty brownies!

What are slutty brownies you ask?  Well, they are a brownie made up of three distinct parts - a chocolate cookie bottom, Oreo middle and chocolate brownie top all combined into a brownie slice.  And boy, are they something.

It is my South African housemate's birthday today and I am not one to shy away from a challenge especially after I baked a homemade apple pie in our toaster oven proving you can basically bake anything in that thing.  I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she replied that she likes basically anything be it chocolate, caramel or vanilla.  Well, what better birthday treat is there than one which combines all of those examples?!

I set about baking the slutty brownie yesterday and BAM, it was a massive success! From the photos below you can actually see the separate layers! YAY!

Happy birthday K! If anyone wants a slutty brownie for their special day, contact me :)

MM x

Birthright visit

I found out about ITF when I came on Birthright/Taglit last year (the free 10 day trip that gives you a snapshot of Israel by taking you to all the best places).  We spent one morning of our trip at the school I now teach at playing with the kids and doing an art project.

Being an ITF means I now get to help organise Birthright visits!  

Yesterday, a Birthright group from America visited one of the schools in Rishon to take part in an English carnival.  We had six different stations (ranging from sports to art to basic English games) and the kids and Birthright participants rotated through four of them.  There was also an amazing opening ceremony where the kids danced, sang a song and gave brief presentations on themselves.  

Opening ceremony

My station was called 'sort the words' (I wanted to call it words with Mona but they wouldn't let me).  There were 3 or 4 teams and each round they got given a small bag with words in it and they had to sort them correctly into a sentence and then draw a picture to represent that sentence on the board.  The teams also had to come up with a team name, with Team Mouse being the best one I heard all day.  Aaaaaaaand it was super competitive meaning every time I said go, kids and Birthright participants alike would be screaming and jumping up and down to make sure they won.

My favourite sign

Flag art station

Balloon preparation

All in all, an absolutely amazing day!

MM x

My first real project with my kids

I absolutely love teaching my kids but there are only so many textbook and workbook pages you can do before you want to set the books on fire and cry.  So, in order to stop this from happening, I decided to do a bit of a sneaky project with one of my advanced grade 6 groups.  

This particular group is a group of girls who have fairly advanced English skills and are super pumped to play games / have a chat.

The project I came up with (with a little assistance from my housemates) was "Dream Vacation".

We started out by all choosing a country that would be our dream vacation.  I choose Japan because it's the bomb and the girls chose Italy, Spain, France, Australia (yay!), the USA and London.  After this, we answered the following questions:

• Why do you want to go to this place?
• Who will you go with?
• How long will you stay?
• How will you get there?
• What will you see, do, buy and learn?

The girls absolutely blew me away! Each knew a lot about the country they wanted to visit, especially the girl wanting to visit Spain.  She told me she wanted to see all of the Gaudi architecture in Spain.  I was gobsmacked because I barely know what Gaudi architecture is!

After discussing the different dream vacations, we set about making posters which is crafty aka the best ever.  That's one thing I've learnt about myself while being here - I absolutely love craft.  I don't care that it's lame.

I made an example with Japan for the girls to take some inspiration from.

I honestly couldn't be prouder of the girls.  The final products were amazing!

MM x

A casual Friday in Tel Aviv

Yesterday we ventured into Tel Aviv after hearing about a street party near the Tel Aviv Art Museum and lucky for us, it turned out to be amazing.  They had DJ's playing throughout the afternoon, bars (selling real apple cider!) and some craft and food stalls.

It felt exactly like a summer music festival in Australia including teenagers smoking who were wearing too little clothing and too much makeup.

As with everything in Israel though, there were some differences, the biggest being security.  There were snipers on top of all the buildings around us which I guess is good because it makes you feel safe but also a little unnerving because there is obviously a reason they are there.

Snipers on the roof

It all ended at 4pm because of Shabbat (the sun now sets around 4:30pm!!) but before we went home, we decided to get some food on Ibn Gabirol St, a main street in Tel Aviv.  We went to The Diner by Goocha and it was amazing.  A housemate and I shared a burger and home fries which are cubed potatoes covered in a sauce which is like sweet chilli sauce but less sticky and more oily and without the chilli.  

It was absolutely amazing!  I'm tempted to say that the burger was the best burger I've had in Israel thus far.  The meat was so smokey and delicious!  They also do a 2 for 1 burger deal Sunday to Thursday so I will defs be hitting them up again.

Home fries!

MM x

Christmas in Israel

Being the only Jewish state in the world, Israel does not do Christmas at all.  In fact, I was at school today as my first day back from Hanukkah break - ironic right?! But being the very good Jews that we are, the housemates (and one ITF from upstairs) and I decided to do Christmas anyway.  We did a Christmas dinner and secret santa and it was the best!

I embarked on a fairly ambitious menu; a whole roast chicken, sides and a homemade apple pie.  I've never roasted a chicken before and I've only made apple pie from scratch once before so I was fairly nervous.  However, it all worked out and the food was delicious (if I don't say so myself).

One of my housemates, the one who loves Christmas the most, prepared the most adorable table settings as well.

 

Homemade apple pie!! delish!

Pumpkin soup to start - made by ITF from upstairs

My secret santa gift! I love it!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to you all! 

MM x

The magical food of Tel Aviv

Well, where to begin...

I love Tel Aviv and one of the top reasons why is the food! Tel Aviv is Israel's New York so they have everything.  They have a big diaspora community (for lack of a better phrase) which means you can basically get any cuisine you want and it taste fairly legit.  There's also a billion cute cafes, bars and places to grab a cupcake.

With Mum visiting though I picked my favs and we settled in for some delicious food.

Wings - I am addicted to Wings.  Not even joking.  The place has been open for 3 months and I have been there 4 times.  Do the math, that's more than once a month for one of those months which is ridiculous because I have reached a whole new level of poor.  But, alas, Wings is owned by a bunch of Americans and all they do is flavoured chicken wings! #GENIUS.  My fav flavour is the Texas which is smokey honey BBQ but they also have an array of Asian flavours including curry and coconut cream, American flavours like your traditional buffalo and their Tel Aviv flavour which is sweet orange.  Your wings come with a side including their sweet potato fries which are beyond amazing or onion rings, and a drink.  They have just started doing home delivery in Tel Aviv so fingers crossed they deliver to Rishon soon! (lol, jks. my jeans would never fit if they did).

Check out the owner's dog!

Always photo'ing my food

Benedict - I've already spoken about Benedict - the place that does breakfast 24 hours a day - but here's a photo of the pancakes I had the other day because they were bomb.

Food at the shuk - there are two places worth a mention at the shuk.  The first is a place in the middle of the shuk that serves the most incredible kebab (like rissoles) and Jerusalem Mix.  I don't know the name of the place, mostly because my Hebrew skills are atrocious, but you can't walk past it without stopping because they grill all their vegetables and meat on this big open grill that wafts throughout the whole shuk... mmmmm.  

The other one is the new Venezuelan place that serves arepas! I don't think I've ever had an arepa before but they are gluten free (wooo) as they are made from corn flour and filled with basically whatever you want.  I had the chicken and guacamole which is topped with cheese and then placed on the grill again so the cheese gets extra melty and delicious!  Defs worth a visit if you find yourself in the shuk.

MM x

Mum's last days in Israel

Mum and I spent our second last day together in Jaffa.  Jaffa has a flea market that is rated highly on Tripadvisor and after visiting it, I totally understand why.  It has lots of cute vintage stores and small boutiques show-casing Israeli designers and stores with all types of Israeli artefacts and souvenirs.  Not to mention the billions of cafes and restaurants.  Mum bought me two tie-dye jumpers and a dreidel so I'm feeling really Jewish and hippie at the moment!

We also walked through the Old City in Jaffa with it's stoned small walkways and millions of stairs.  They have a lot of cute little antique and jewellery shops and boutiques in the old city too.



We ended the day with dinner at Thai House - Tel Aviv's best Thai restaurant but the food was so good, I didn't snap a photo of it (weird, I know).  On our walk home we then got to see the sickest menorah ever in Rabin Square.  It was projected from a building and the lights flickered so the candles actually looked like they were alight!  A bit of Hanukkah magic I guess.

Our last day was spent moseying around the shuk in Tel Aviv.  Every Tuesday and Friday there is an artist's market which sells jewellery, arts and craft and it's great.  Mum bought me my Hanukkah gift; a matching necklace and bracelet with three pomegranates on it.  I absolutely love it.

 

It's sad that Mum's gone home but it's back to the daily grind as it's back to school tomorrow.  It was so nice to (see photo below) and holiday with my Mum!

MM x

The magical food of Eilat

Mum and I only ate at one restaurant while we are in Eilat (apart from Aroma but that doesn't count) and it was so good, it gets a little blog post all to its awesome self.

It's called Hamasger 5 located conveniently at 5 Hamasger St in the old industrial area in Eilat.  The restaurant is fairly small and my understanding is that it's owned by a husband and wife duo who love to cook.  Amazing, right!?  It's rated #1 on Tripadvisor and after visiting, I totally understand why.

The menu changes daily based on seasonal produce + what the duo feel like cooking and it's written in Hebrew on a blackboard.  However, don't be phased if you can't put more than three Hebrew letters together (like me), the waitress, and or husband or wife, will take the time to translate the entire menu for you.

Now, I'll be honest, after living in Israel for 3.5 months, every time I see pork on a menu, I get really really excited and have to order it, photo it and then talk about how delicious it was for at least a week post fact, and this meal was no different.  Mum and I shared proscuitto, potatoes, broccoli (another fairly rare vegetable in these parts) and blue cheese sauce for entree, some sort of German pork, potato and cabbage dish for main and the most divine lemon trifle for dessert.  I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking but it really was 15/10.

MM x

From Eilat to Tel Aviv

Mum and I have arrived in Tel Aviv - the last stop on our great Israeli adventure.  We started the epic drive at 9am this morning and made it here around 1pm.  The drive, like the drive to Eilat, was incredible!  Lots of rocks, sand, and gorgeous desert valleys.

We also saw a few signs that made us giggle / #onlyinisrael.  My fav one is the 'caution ahead, dangerous curves' (which makes me think of Kim Kardash) but the curves were so dangerous I didn't have time to snap a photo:

After we made it to Tel Aviv and dropped the car off - which was legit a 1.5 hour experience because we couldn't find a petrol station and then we couldn't find the actual place to drop the car off and driving in Tel Aviv is the most stressful thing in the whole entire world - we went to my favourite cafe in the whole of Israel - XOHO cafe.

Lolz - who rides a segway to brunch? 

XOHO reminds me so much of Melbourne aka why I love it so much.  They have an excellent brunch menu featuring a lot of vegan options and the most amazing baked goodies which are all baked on site.  Even the bathrooms are cool; plastered with post-it notes that guests can write on.

 

I had one of their winter specials, the matcha latte with soy, Mum ordered a juice and we shared the most divine cheesecake - espresso and nutella flavoured.  The latte was incredible and it reminded me so much of Asia.  Oh, and the cheesecake. O-M-G. And I shouldn't forget to mention XOHO has a cat that sits around the cafe playing with guests and napping wherever it sees fit.

Following this, Mum and I walked around Dizengoff and ended our adventure by buying a few more sufganiyot - this time from Roladin.

MM x