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Tal putting the finishing touches on the table groaning with all the different brunch dishes
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It's a wintery cold morning when I cycle to Tal and Yon's place for this brunch. As I enter their apartment it immediately feels warm, cosy, full of plants and colours. The
burekas, savoury pastries in the oven, smell great, and it is clear Tal has outdone herself when I inspect the cornucopia of dishes laid out on the table. Yon says he has mainly been "supportive" but did prepare the "Israeli salad" or "Arabic salad" (tomato, cucumber, onion, lemon juice and parsley). He also mixed up the tahini dip. It turns out they are both hardcore
tahini lovers. The last time they visited Israel, they brought over ten whole kilos of their favourite brand to Berlin. This morning, Yon mixed some of this stash with water, lemon juice, garlic and salt and pepper. It is great on the vegan bread I brought from a local baker, but also on top of the fresh salad and even on the chickpea omelettes, which Tal made with chickpea flower, coconut milk, baking powder, apple vinegar, seasoning and fried onions. They feel a bit like pancakes to me. Tal has also used her experience adapting vegan recipes to make a delicious labneh (normally strained yoghurt) and
feta, with almonds as a base. The bureka (puff pastry bites from the oven) also contain a vegan cheese she made with almonds and tofu. We laugh at the commercially produced vegan cheese I tried a few days ago, which was mostly water, starch and fat. The ones Tal has prepared are both tasty and nutritious, but also a bit more labour intensive. I appreciate the effort! A lot of the dishes served today are broadly 'Middle Eastern', as are some other very popular street foods in Israel, like falafel and hummus. For non-vegans, the Iraqi-Israeli
sabich sandwich is popular too; pita stuffed with fried aubergine, boiled eggs, salad and tasty sauces. Tal and Yon say that the brunch we are having today would be fairly typical for a meal you could get at any café in Israel. The vegan version would be especially easy to find in Tel Aviv, where they lived before coming to Berlin, and which is very vegan friendly.
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Foreground: cheese burekas, pizza burekas. Background: dates filled with walnuts
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I mention that all I know about Tel Aviv is that it is famous for its nightlife. Yon gives a bit more context, explaining that certain parts of the city are indeed very 'buzzy' with lots of venues, shops, and extremely expensive to live. It has not been cheap to live in Tel Aviv for quite some time, and Yon mentions that in 2021 it even won the dubious honour of being 'the world's most expensive city' to live in. Some parts of the city are still quite poor, with a large population of refugees (mainly from Eritrea and Sudan). I feel a bit embarassed that I never realised that Jaffa (or Yafo in Hebrew) is now actually part of Tel Aviv, which has officially been called Tel Aviv-Yafo since 1950. Especially as my last name is Jaffe, and I have some family in Tel Aviv (though obviously I have never visited!).
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Vegan labneh made with almonds, decorated with olive oil, spices and pine nuts.
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After sampling a bit of all of the dishes, I am struggling to fit in any more. Yon prepares a fresh pot of his favourite tea, called Almond Charm. It smells of almond, and tastes great too once some agave syrup is added. Like their favourite tahini, they bring this tea back with them to Berlin whenever they visit Israel. I can manage about one more huge date, stuffed with chopped walnuts, as Tal tells me about her surprising career change. She enjoyed working as a florist for events back home, and even insisted on doing all the flowers for her wedding party in Israel herself. However, in Germany, she decided to retrain as a tattoo artist! She has a few tattoos herself, including a beautiful fern motif on her arm. She had always loved drawing, but still needed to start her training from scratch here. Impressively, within just a few years she has established herself as a tattoo artist in Berlin with a specialisation in delicate animal designs and yes, floral and leaf themed tattoos. It somehow makes the switch seem quite logical!
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Israeli brunch, clockwise: salad, cheese bureka, chickpea omelette with tahini, omelette with labneh, pizza bureka, and in the middle the vegan feta.
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