Butter Crisis!!!

I'm not kidding. There is a butter shortage in Israel.  A CRISIS!  This is serious. You don't believe me? Click here. How do I know this? We are hosting a 16-person Thankgiving Dinner complete with a 22lb bird on the grill (with butter patties between the skin and meat), mushroom rice (with mushrooms sauteed in butter), mashed potatoes (obviously, with butter), buscuits (luckily I already made these with butter, but we still need to do the herb-butter to put on them!), and a sweet potato pie (1/3 cup butter in the crust).  Ahh!!!

On Thursday Paul ran to the store for milk, butter and flour.  He said the store was out of the butter we usually buy.  The second store was also out. Only margarine. Julie Child would not approve! And after reading this New York Times article last year, I just cannot bring my self to use anything but real unsalted butter. (PS. the oragne cookies in that aricle are delicious!) The third store: no butter. Fourth: no butter. Fifth, sixth...Ahhh!

At dinner the waiter brought us bread and butter to start with the largest blob of butter ever served! It was at least 1/2 cup.  I have to tell you that honestly I wanted to take that butter home with me. But I didn't. The butter sparked a conversation about butter shortages and how this really felt like a serious problem of unstocked shelves and wartime shortages. I explained to the wiater that this couldn't happen at a worse time (for us) given the amount of butter needed for Thanksgiving...not to mention the Christmas cookies!

This morning at work my worry continued (as did my stomach ache from all of the rich food and the blob of butter). "I heard something on the news. The government as ordered a stop on all butter production, prioritizing cheese as a need." Seriously?!?! Yes, they are serious. "Hopefully imports will increase soon...."

A Culinary Anniversary

I love surprises - but I admit, I am difficult to surprise.  Because as much as I love being surprised - I love figuring out what the surprise is! So when Paul left "for an early morning run" on our anniversary, I knew something was going on.  As he was leaving I curled up under the covers and closed my eyes...once the door shut, I sprung out of bed and began rapid work to finish the scrapbook I'd been working on for quite some time. 

An hour or so later, when I "woke up," I found flowers and coffee waiting for me in the kitchen! After a relaxing breakfast (and some cleaning and prep for our huge Thanksgiving dinner), we headed to the park for a picnic lunch like frequently did during DC summers (although, it is impossible to find prosciutto here, so beef jerky was substituted - haha).  The most enjoyable part of the picnic was reading on 1st Anniversary bottle of wine.  At the wedding, in lieu of a guest book, we asked our friends and family to write on wine bottles to be opened on our 1st, 5th and 10th anniversaries.  Surprisingly, there were many wishes in Spanish, Portuguese and Gaelic.  The picnic and well-wishes really took us back!

For dinner we went to this great wine bar in Jaffa which specializes in meat and truffles! Hmmm :) Now, I don't want to say "I love Israel," for this could be misinterpreted, but...lets just say the waiter served his country well.  The cave-like restaurant was mostly empty (being a Sunday night), save for the owner, the manager and a few waiters.  After a delicious meal and a glass of the house wine, we were chatting with the guy about our anniversary and the great bottle of truffle oil we got for Christmas last year. "Ah, yes, Christmas," he said with a smile, as if realizing we were in some way different. 

Just before we left he brought over a little to-go box and said "I forgot to bring you your side dish." I thought I he meant the massive mound of butter (read the next post) until he winked at us and said quietly "It's not the butter." Though we wanted to know what it was, we clearly couldn't open the box in front of the owner or the manager. "Don't open until Christmas!" was the last thing he said as we paid the bill.  Israel is still below Argentina on my list of favorite foreign countries, and I'm not saying I can be bought off with a bottle of truffle oil...but it does go a long way!