First mandel bread

After finally getting our oven working, rounding up all the ingredients, (thank you, hubby!) and getting my baking sheet in the mail, (also, thank you, hubby, for ordering the correct size to fit our oven) I made my first batch of mandel bread.

It may seem like not so big of a deal to bakers, or people who have everything they need to bake, but when you move to a new place and don't have anything that you are use to baking with, it's more difficult. Ingredients are different in other counties, ovens are different (fahrenheit to celsius),  measuring cups are different, (I only had measuring cups with ml, so I had to calculate everything from cups - 1 cup is 236 ml, if you were wondering.)

Also, I can't eat gluten. So I can't taste them. My husband said they were good, maybe a little soft. Mandel bread is suppose to be a little crunchy to drip in coffee or something warm. So I'll bake them for one more minute next time.

I'm very happy with how they turned out, I make them a lot. And happy my husband is getting back into his routine of eating one or two in the morning after davening. =) 

The little things

In the morning in the US my husband would drink tea or coffee and have a cookie that I had made. In moving, this didn't happen yet, we are waiting for a cookie sheet that we ordered and I haven't started baking yet. But in Israel you can find parve things that aren't expensive. So my husband bought some parve muffins to have with coffee before he has his real breakfast. My husband is a personal trainer and fitness guru, so he'll only eat a little sugar, something sweet in the morning. Here's his parve muffin and ice-coffee with almond milk (we don't eat dairy at all.)

It's the little things that make relocating feel normal. 

Two years since...

It has been two years since I posted here, but I figured, why create a new blog? I love this one and it's still my life. A very short update: The summer I last posted, I met my husband, Tzuri, married him in October. Bh, we had a beautiful baby girl, Avigayle, the following July. I taught for two more years in the US at Jewish Day Schools. Now, we recently moved back to Israel. We have been here just over three weeks now and I am finally starting to feel more settled.

Although, there have been times in the past two years that I have felt like writing, I always have more of an urge when I'm in Israel. Maybe I feel more at home, maybe things are more interesting here, maybe I'm happier (so it's easier to write.) I'm not sure the reason, but these past few weeks I have had a lot of observations.

This time in Israel (bh, forever) is very different. One, we moved to Israel for good. (Not that we wouldn't ever consider living somewhere else for a year if there was some amazing opportunity, but we really have going to live in Israel and bez'h, our child and future children will grow up here. Two, I'm not in a major city. We moved to Kfar Saba, which is about 20 minutes (without traffic) northwest of Tel Aviv. Also, we moved to a neighborhood that is a majority Yemenite. Needless to say, people have already noticed that I'm not Yemenite and many people have already asked me when I moved from the US, even though I never told them that I wasn't born in Israel. (Clearly, it's fairly obvious to most.)

In summary, I want to write to tell about my trials and successes as a new resident to this community. Although, I already feel like we overcame the initial hurdles, (we have a working stove, bank account, washing machine, APARTMENT) there are still many things to be done. We are also in Kfar Saba so we can be close to my in-laws. They are amazing, but very different than my family and how I grew up. I know it'll take me sometime to adjust and understand the dynamics of this type of family life.

So to you and to me, welcome back!