From Brooklyn to Jerusalem

It was success at the Jerusalem Beer Festival last night and, at 9:00 a.m. the following morning, I'm still on my high from our evening. Keep reading to find out why!

Yesterday was a busy day that started fairly early and ended pretty late. By the time we both got out of the apartment after doing our household errands, it was 3:00 p.m., and boy was our list long. We went to Talpiot to the baby gear store Mozezim. It's in the same complex as our Supermarket, so we figured we would kill two birds with one stone. I had one mission in mind - to show Pidgeon what we needed to get for the baby - and to get him on board with the expenditure.

So, I think we're going to go with the Bugaboo Cameleon baby carriage. Pidgeon absolutely LOVED it when he saw it. He called it the Space Age pram, which made me feel great since it's not cheap and I need him to also be okay with the price. He loved the adjustable handle bars, that you could clip a cup holder to the side of the handle bars, and how easy it seemed to be able to adjust and close it to store in the car. I'm still obsessed with the wheels and I absolutely love how huge the two front wheels are. With the cobble stone streets of Jerusalem, I think these will P"G do us well. We walked around the store a bit more and I pointed out some other items that I thought we'd need, and then it was off to do our food shopping. 

When we got to SuperSol, it was fairly empty. But, by the time we were ready to leave, it was ridiculously full and we ended up waiting on line for almost 30 minutes! That's torture for this pregnant lady, who was at this point on my feet for more than an hour. So, our neighbors had a baby girl in the beginning of August, and I offered to cook them a meal. They finally got in touch with me at the beginning of the week to accept the offer and so I needed to do some shopping. I'm not really used to cooking for vegetarians - especially ones with two little kids and a husband who is closer to vegan that vegetarian. I decided on a menu of edemame (for the protein), thai quinoa, fettucini with creamy peanut sauce (last time we were there, the kids were eating straight out of a jar of Skippy so I think peanut allergies isn't a problem in the family. Either way, I'm leaving the sauce separate) fresh corn and vegan brownies for dessert. I hope they like it!! We ended up spending over 800 shekel yesterday and we really loaded up our cart with foods for our new diet.

Now, this is why I absolutely love Israel. We were on line behind an elderly Israeli couple and in front of a Nun in full habit. I mean, she was dressed to the gills right down to her wooden rosary beeded belt. I was enthralled with her, and kept looking in her cart. I mean, how often do you get to see what a Nun eats? I think she was vegetarian too, she had a lot of fish but I didn't see any meat. Anyway, the elderly woman in front of us is towards the end of checking out, when she decides to check out what we've got on the conveyer belt. She then picks up our giant sized box of Bran Flakes and asks me something in Hebrew. I look at Pidgeon because I didn't understand the words she was using. Pidgeon smiled and translated to me. 

She asked if Telma Bran Flakes were good for "regular bowel movements." I had to cough to keep from laughing and then I told her that it was GREAT for regular bowel movements. Then she asked about the price, and I told her it was almost 20 shekel. She made a face, put down the box, and went back to her items on the belt. I guess 20 shekels for her isn't worth the investment in "regular bowel movements." 

We disagree.

By the time we got back to the apartment, my feet looked like bread rising out of too small loaf tins and I needed to sit down. But, we had lots to put away in the freezer, so with Pidgeon's help we got to work. Somehow, the evening started to fly by, and I still had to cook us dinner and then get ready to meet Pidgeon's brother at the Jerusalem Beer Festival.

We managed to get out of the house around 9:30 p.m. and it literally took every ounce of strength for me to rally to leave the apartment again. I was so tired from our shopping excursion that I really just wanted to pass out.

I'm glad we went though!

Somehow, we managed to find a spot right in front of the Begin Center, which is down the block from the old Tachanah Harekevet (Jerusalem Train Station) where the festival was being held. We made our way amongst the beer drinking set and I saw the line for the ticket sales and was shocked. It was really, really long and it looked like it would take us 30 minutes to just pay the 30 shekel combined entrance fee. I saw though, that there was a short line on the other side of the booth, so I made a beeline for it and forgot to take Pidgeon with me. He got a little scared for a minute when he couldn't find me, but then he saw me waving and came over. We were standing behind these two women with their 3 kids - all under the age of 8 - who were trying to get into the festival. It's not clear if they didn't want to pay the fee or if the ticket sales guy just wouldn't let them in because they were kids - but there was a lot of arguing. Finally, the women and kids left and we paid our fee and go in.

So, the festival wasn't anything exciting. There were a number of beer brands there and, of course, the typical larger ones you'd come to expect right up in prominent spots. I wasn't interested in Goldstar or Heiniken or even the Guiness. I was a pregnant lady on a mission - to find Brooklyn Lager.

I grabbed Pidgeon with one hand and using the other to take my pocketbook and try to shield my belly. It was a good thing I did because people were rowdy and drunk last night, and no one cared who they banged into! I got pretty jostled as I pulled Pidgeon around and through people looking for a Brooklyn Lager booth. We made our way past the terrible band playing on the stage and managed to find a Belgian beer booth. I checked out what they had on tap and noticed that they had a brand called St. Louis Premium in flavors of Strawberry, Peach and Cherry. Well, every single October in New York City, I head down to Heartland Brewery for their famous Pumpkin beer and it's heaven. So, I asked for a little, teeny tiny taste of the St. Louis Premium Peach for Pidgeon and I to sample. 

It was yum! I miss beer man. I'm hoping after the baby, P"G, I'll be able to find the St. Louis Premium Peach again. It was really delicious.

After we took a couple of cards with information about the beer, we decided to keep walking towards the end to see if there were any other beers I was interested in. As we headed out, I noticed a guy who looked familiar. I immediately knew who he was and was just praying he wouldn't recognize me.

No luck.

Of course, he stopped us and said that I looked very familiar to him. I debated whether or not to blow him off but I just played along. I told him how I knew him, introduced Pidgeon, played a little "catch up" and then I spied what I'd been looking for all night long!

A Brooklyn Lager booth!

Well, I couldn't contain my excitement. So, we said our goodbyes to the guy who made my summer experience at Camp Moshava a living hell, and we went over to the Brooklyn Lager booth. I could hardly wait patiently online for the people to get their beer and get away! Finally, it was our turn, and I told the guy how much I love Brooklyn Lager, how I've been looking for it in Israel for 2 years now, and how I wanted to buy a case.

Umm, he wasn't selling bottles. In fact, he wouldn't even give me one bottle to take home.

I was crushed! I asked him how come. I pointed to my bulging belly and told him it would be irresponsible of me to drink the beer now and how I wanted to have it as soon as the baby was born. He was sympathetic but the festival organizers said they couldn't give out bottles.

Makes sense. With that type of crowd, it's pretty dangerous to just hand out glass bottles. That could be a serious weapon!

I promised him I would just slip it into my purse and then leave right away. He felt bad and told me that he couldn't make the decision but his boss, a bald guy named Schachar as he put it, could. But, Schachar was no where to be found.

Meanwhile, Pidgeon's brother, his best friend, his girl friend and another chick showed up and I told them all about the Brooklyn Lager drama. Pidgeon's brother tried the Lager and wasn't too impressed with it, but he didn't hate it, which I guess was pretty good. We told them we were going to wait for Schachar to get back so they decided to go look around the festival.

We literally stood in front of the booth for 35 minutes. I kept looking at every bald man I could find, but no Schachar. Then Pidgeon told me that we had to leave since I had to go home for my shot, and I was just having none of that. I did not come this far - to have bottles of Brooklyn Lager at my fingertips - to leave without at least talking to Schachar. We went back to the guy at the booth and asked if Schachar had a cell phone number. Sure enough, he did! So, I called from Pidgeon's phone and asked him to come to the Brooklyn Lager booth ASAP.

Ten minutes later, no Schachar, and Pidgeon wanted to go home to do the shot. I thought this was defeat.

Until Schachar the bald man showed up and I literally pounced. Between Pidgeon talking in Hebrew, and me in English, we overwhelmed the poor man. He was so kind though and, for 20 shekel, gave me one bottle of beer that I had to slip into my purse. It was beautiful. I thanked him profusely, took his card so I could hound him to find out when they're planning on starting distribution in this Country, and we headed out. We ran into Pidgeon's brother at the ice cream stand and told him we were leaving, and about our success.

I was so happy, I think I skipped all the way to the car. The smile on my face was huge and I was so jubilant to have this bottle of beer. Even the shot last night wasn't as bad - although it did hurt and I did curse a lot - just knowing the beer was in my fridge was comfort enough.

Meanwhile, as we were icing up, my cell phone rang and it was a customer service representative from City Direct. Remember the folks I was telling you about the other week - how they're like Urban Fetch meets Fresh Direct? Well, they've just got fetchier!

Today, to celebrate the launch of The Breakfast Club they left me a "basket" of some of their offerings with a menu. The way this works is that you place an order with what you want in the morning, and they deliver it absolutely FRESH by 6:00 a.m. The menu was pretty impressive, with loads of different types of breads, milk, shokos, juices, pastries and Tal bagels! I think this is a great idea and, who knows, maybe in the next phase they'll add spreads/salads and maybe eggs. I'm keeping the menu as I think this will definitely come in handy once the baby comes and Pidgeon and I are just too tired to go out and get food/breakfast. Besides, it's cheaper than ordering a bagel from Tal bagels and I can always have shmears/salads in the house to put on the fresh bagels!

Well, my vegan brownies are done and need to be taken out of the oven. One thing down, three more things to cook to go!

Yom Tov from Baka!

It's Complicated

Just call me Puff Fatty. I have no idea what happened but, seemingly overnight on Monday, I went from pregnant to puffy. I put on 3 pounds in less than 12 hours, my legs resemble tree trunks (pine, not oak) and my face was absolutely huge. It was a bit terrifying, so I went online to find out what the heck was going on.

It looks like I'm suffering from a typical pregnancy symptom called edema. Which, basically, is the swelling of the extremities. The blood pools around the legs and ankles and, depending on diet, your feet and hands can swell too. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't able to take off my rings. That made washing for bread a bit difficult, but I remembered learning a long time ago that people who wear rings every single day on the same fingers don't necessarily have to take them off to wash because it's not considered a Chatzizah as it has become almost a part of the body. Wish I could remember where I learned that - or if it's even true - but I figured why bother asking a Rabbi when I can just paskin myself.

And, depending on the reason why you're puffy, the "solution" varies. I think it had to do with the fact that we spent majority of Monday in a car. So, I made every effort to get the blood circulating by doing lots of errands in the house, getting up from my seated position, elevating my feet when I was on the couch or on the chair, etc. I also drank a TON of water, which I actually do normally every day (I have always been a big water drinker) and decided to not add any extra salt to my food. Then, around 8:00 p.m., I laced on my walking sandals and Pidgeon and I decided to go for a walk.

It felt so great to just be outdoors, in the cool Jerusalem night air, moving. It felt good to just really move, at a normal pace for my belly bump. We, of course, had no destination when we left the house so Pidgeon offered to take me to Emek Refaim and "buy me a treat". Well, I'm like a 4 year old when I hear the word "treat" and started imagining all the yummy goodness he could buy me. Which, sadly, defeats the purpose of a healthy walk if I end up eating some high caloric ice cream (which was what I was craving).

Well, fortunately for me, we ended up at this impromptu flea market down the block from Burgers Bar. Now, it's the 9 days, so I felt bad about buying but figured that it was okay if I really found something nice. There were a lot of jewelry tables set up, but I didn't really see anything in particular that I like. I'm actually obsessed with earrings that Britney Gastineau wears on The Gastineau Girls so I was looking for similar earrings and didn't find anything. But then, we came upon this really cool table with beaded wired animals. The artist made all these animals out of wires and then "colored them in" using different beads. There was this really cool cobra that stretched clear across the table, two beautiful red crabs and lobsters, some scorpions, a black and white lamb, etc. Well, I have had a turtle fetish ever since I inherited my first and only pet Turtle, Angus

There was a small, purple turtle that was really pretty already out on the table, but I kinda like my turtles green. So, Pidgeon asked the woman running the booth about a green turtle, and sure enough there was a beautiful green turtle with red eyes, just waiting for me. That was just the treat I was looking for! So, Pidgeon bought it for me and they wrapped it up in a really nice paper and we headed home. I figured, one good treat deserves another, so we stopped off at this new frozen yogurt store sandwiched between Tal Bagels and Aldo Ice Cream. We samples the yogurt (it tasted like frozen yogurt with a bit of an after taste kick) and Pidgeon got himself a fruit juice smoothie and I just abstained. We walked home with our treats and realized, when we got through the door, that the excursion took us more than an hour! Perfect amount of time for me to be on my feet.

I rested a bit and then decided to get started on dinner. I had found Alaskian frozen pollack the other day, and in my mind thought it would be a good fish to bread and fry like shnitzel. So, I got to work on breading and frying and imagined a great dinner of pollack shnitzel with some leftover quinoa and roasted curried cauliflower. Well, I don't know if it was the fish or my crappy non-stick frying pan, but what I ended up with was basically little fried fish bits and fried breading. It looked absolutely nasty, like a bomb exploded all my fillets. But, Pidgeon insisted that it would taste great, so I just spooned out some quinoa and topped it with the fish bits.

It actually tasted okay, it just wasn't as aesthetically pleasing as I had hoped. We finished dinner in time for a rerun of How I Met Your Mother in Hot Stars and decided to relax for the rest of the night.

Meanwhile, we've been trying to join the online shopping group of CityDirect. Any New Yorkers reading this will think immediately of Fresh Direct except CityDirect is more like a hybrid between Fresh Direct and Urban Fetch.

Ah, Urban Fetch. I freaking LOVED Urban Fetch when I lived on the Lower East Side. I would order movies, pints of Ben and Jerry's, cold medicine when I was sick, cigarettes and once I bought a big box of glow in the dark condoms. I don't know why I did it, I never used them, didn't even have a remote reason to think I would need them, but I wanted to see what would happen if I bought them. Nothing happened, the delivery man brought them with all the other stuff I ordered, and I kept them in the back of my underwear drawer. Fortunately, my 90 year old Grandfather (at the time when we lived together and I was all about the Urban Fetch) never found them, and I tossed them out when I moved to the Upper West Side a couple of years later.

But, I digress.

So, we've been trying to become members of City Direct so we could order our groceries online. Now, fortunately, we're at a position right now when we can actually find time to go to the grocery store, but figured this would come in handy P"G when the baby comes and we both just can't get out. Plus, I already order my fruits and vegetables from our local green grocer, so figured why not get everything else online.

We had some problems setting things up, but then Reut the most amazing Customer Service representative in ALL the land, called and walked us through the process.

Now, I love online shopping and I love food shopping, and this just combines my two passions. I literally spent an entire hour just putting together our food shopping list for delivery this afternoon. I didn't order any of the fruits or vegetables from the shuk, but was VERY happy to see that you could order baked goods from Marzipan. The great thing about this was that I was able to find items I didn't even know existed, like whole wheat puffed pastry, and a cheaper brand of edemame. I kept the list pretty small, just what we need for the next few days, just to try it out. The best part was that I knew, before even placing the order, how much money I had already spent. For people like us, who are on very strict budgets, that was just brilliant. This way, I knew what I could and couldn't afford, and even decided to get rid of certain items this month because I didn't really need them.

I was a bit perplexed when the site didn't ask me for payment information, but I was so caught up on the site that I forgot about my shot and was late getting the icing process started. We went to bed and I figured I would call Reut in the morning to check it out.

We slept in a bit, which was nice for me since I was so tired last night, and I called Reut to ask about payment information. Turns out, after the delivery and once they know we're satisfied, a customer service representative calls and asks for credit card information. That's fabulous! Now I know that I don't have my credit card information on their servers, which makes me very happy. She called me again a few minutes later to tell me that some items weren't available, or the brand I wanted was available but they had a different brand instead, and I was very happy with that. And, within minutes of hanging up, my delivery was here.

The delivery guy was very nice, he unpacked the groceries for me out on my kitchen counter, and I gave him a little tip and he was on his way. It was just a pleasure, and I'm looking forward to P"G using this service again.

Meanwhile, I've spent my morning watching four back to back episodes of Denise Richards: It's Complicated. I gotta say, it's pretty addicting, and I'm all about the E! programming these days. I have about 6 more episodes to catch up on, but I'm thinking there's more drama to come and it's very entertaining!

Well, Pidgeon just got back from his morning out, so I'm going to go and try to figure out what's for lunch.

Yom Tov from Baka!