Since we were planning to go to the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem on Shabbat anyway, we detoured through the old city to buy some spices in the Arab quarter.
There are many spice sellers with huge colourful displays of their wares. We chose one of the ones that has a huge pyramid of spices on display out front. The choice was a little intimidating as you can see.
James had put his short Arabic course to work that morning and wisely translated and wrote down the names of what he needed in what I call doodly-doop-doodly-doop.
This crusty old man took his list and just started filling bags, despite the fact that we only needed one tea spoon of each. But, it was the old city, and the spices that perfume the air are cheap. Poor James' fifty words of Arabic caved under the pressure and he and the crusty old spice seller had to regress to James' better second language: Hebrew.
Anyone need any tumeric?
1 comment:
What were you guys cooking up in the kitchen? Talking about food, I've been trying out a few shawarma and falafel joints in Ottawa but nothing compare to the ones I had in the Holy Land. I'm not sure if it's because of the ingredients, the surrounding atmosphere including the -20C outside temperature or because of the fact that their recipes are from a different middle east region... I'm so craving for the holy falafel from Ramallah...
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