Red Peppers

I woke this morning quite peckish after a reasonable night's sleep in our firm Israeli bed (a story for another time). Sadly, the food situation in the house is a little desert-like. So I went to Tiv Taam. The Raanana store is open 24/7, which is quite something for this conservatively religious leaning town. I bought some fresh pitah bread, some nice black, heavy Russian rye, some humus with harif and some red cabbage salad. On the way to check-out (the store was as empty as I have ever seen it at 7am on a Saturday morning), I spotted the shiny red peppers in the vegetable section. If there is one thing I miss in the UK (besides the kids), it's the fresh vegetables and salads here in Israel. While you can find any kind of salad vegetable at your local Sainsbury's, they are expensive, and worse yet do not have any taste. The peppers are small and lack that excellent crunch we so take for granted here. So I picked some red peppers, paid the typical grumpy Russian checkout lady and headed out.

I was thinking of going for a walk on the beach, but my stomach took charge), so I came straight home. I cut the peppers into quarters, cleaned out the seeds. Scooped in some humus (with harif) and topped each slice with some red cabbage salad. I ate this in my usual way, standing over the sink in the kitchen looking out onto Rehov Hanevel. Completed by a double Lavazza espresso (after cleaning out the used capsule tray as the machine has not been used in my absence and there was actual mould growing on the spent coffee capsules) it was sheer heaven. Sometimes Israel hits the 80% without even trying.