Spontaneous Shabbat Lunch
Shiny the Jewish Giraffe
Collecting the Moments One by One
A recap from the last week or two:
Just to chime in with other Israeli parent-teacher conference goers, I too, received a sparkling first report for my first first grader. What a nice feeling, especially since I feel that I put in just as much work as my daughter! First grade is really tough these days. Much tougher than mine. (I seem to only remember painting the windows, reading groups with Mrs. McGivern and being forced into Second Grade Hebrew because I learned the aleph-bet in Chabad kindergarten). A. seems to have an infinite number of notebooks, workbooks and folders to keep track of. Not to mention schools supplies that never stay in her kalmar. (I now seem to make a weekly trip to Office Depot to resupply her bottomless pencil case). But, despite all of these obstacles, she sailed through like the princess she is, smiling, courteous, davening with kavana and learning to read, write, add and subtract all in 3 months!
My 18 month old son, E, took his first steps this week. I knew he would because he managed to walk with a baby doll stroller on Shabbat, exactly the way A did 5 years ago. (The Shabbat she did that, she walked that week). Now, the night he took a few steps, I was very excited and of course told my husband. When he took him to gan the next morning, though, he forgot to tell the gannenet. When she saw him walk, she called me so excited and said "הוא הולך לבד! " When I heard that, my first thought was that he walked out of her yard alone!! But then I quickly realized that she was just excited that he's walking unaided. Whew!
Poor T is stuck in the middle. Our relationship is going through a rough patch. She announced this morning that she doesn't like me, because I made her wear a sweatshirt she didn't like. She has a very particular taste in clothes, that I try to accommodate, but most mornings I'm just not in the mood for a reenactment of What Not to Wear. I know I should pick my battles, but I'm not always good at that. Of course, 15 minutes after she proclaimed her dislike for me, she begged me not to leave her gan immediately after drop off. I can't win...
Hubby is in Germany for 48 hours, as per usual. Just me, my computer and Elite 92 calorie chocolate bars, which are surprisingly satisfying, even though I only ate one!
Here is a really darling music video I found:
The song is from the soundtrack to the movie (500) Days of Summer. We saw the movie a few weeks ago and I thought it was ok, but I loved the music. Straight from my high school days, the Smiths, the Pixies, etc. I just love how creative and whimsical this video is. I'm not really into music or videos anymore (especially since I lost my entire cd collection on one of my flights back to Israel in 2000) but this one reminds me of why I used to be into it.
[Post title is a paraphrase from the song]
Cauliflower and Mushroom Bisque
This is a sturdy soup that you can make as thin or as thick as you like, depending on how much stock you add. It passes for potato soup but no potatoes were harmed in the making! For serving with dairy, feel free to add some cream or thinned yogurt. This also makes a good sauce for rice, couscous, pasta, chicken, pargiot or even mini hamburgers, which I made tonight.
Hattip to my mother. She gave me the original idea for the recipe.
1 onion, chopped
Note: Feel free to leave out the greens if you think it will freak your kids out or if you want a mellower, more potato/leek soup type flavor.
Did You Know About the North Korean Famine?
Ok, not really related to the usual themes of this blog, but I've been a little obsessed with this topic since I read an article about it in the New Yorker last week. They don't have the article online for free but here's a link to a slide show about the article. Apparently, there was a famine in North Korean in the mid-90's that killed 2.5 million people, conservatively. No one has definitive numbers because it was a crime to report "starvation" as a cause of death. I never knew about it until reading this article and when I ask other people who are usually up on current events, no one else had heard about it either. I think it's amazing that an entire country can keep a secret like that. Here is a link to an article in the New York Times in 1996 about the "upcoming famine".
The New Yorker article was mind blowing, especially for someone who loves to eat, like me. She focuses on this one woman, Mrs. Song, who lost her mother, husband and 25 year old son to starvation. She describes the horrible things they were forced to eat, including porridges made out of ground corn cobs/husks and bean stalks. Flavoring soup with grass. And mostly all of her doomed attempts at making money and procuring food for her family.
Here is an excerpt from the online abstract (you need a sub to read the whole thing online):
Even after three members of her family died of starvation, Mrs. Song believed that North Korea was the greatest nation on earth. Mrs. Song used to go twice a week to a food-distribution center near her apartment, in the coastal city of Chongjin. Mrs. Song would hand over her ration book, a small sum of money, tickets from the garment factory, and the clerk would calculate her entitlements: seven hundred grams each per day for her and her husband, three hundred grams for her mother-in-law, and four hundred for each school-aged child living at home. For all its rhetoric about self-sufficiency, North Korea was dependent on the generosity of its neighbors. By the early nineteen-nineties, the Russians, impatient with North Korea’s failure to repay loans, raised their prices for food, fuel, and raw materials. Enduring hunger became part of one’s patriotic duty.
As I prepared my Shabbat food on Friday, I really appreciated the meat I was able to buy and prepare with such ease, the olive oil I was able to drizzle on my fresh vegetables (oil became completely unavailable at any price in the North Korea in the late 90's), the oven I was able to just turn on with the flick of a wrist.
Here is a link to the author's upcoming book.
הילדה הכי יפה בגן
I think my middle daughter might win the title for her gan this year. I'm not trying to brag, (of course it feels great that my daughter is so loved) but I'm more amazed than anything else. I know that she's made a lot of friends as we've had quite a few playdates this year, but the reaction of the boys when I bring her in the morning is unbelievable. They literally start whooping and shouting and going into a frenzy when I bring her in. Today, they started when I came in (she was putting up her name on the board by the door), because they know I'm her Ima. They shout "T is here! T is here!". I don't think she really knows what to do with the attention, because she can actually be quite shy. She doesn't even really acknowledge them, because she likes to settle into gan at her own pace in the mornings.
I just think it's quite amazing. She's only four now. What's going to be when she's actually a teenager...?
Baby Survival Kugel
On to the recipe:
So, I've recently been complaining about how E, my little one, doesn't eat a blessed thing ( I really did offer him most things in Hannah's post here but even from a young age he turned up his nose at the simplest foods). Well, he almost doesn't eat anything. He did take a shine to my carrot kugel (rather, the Kosher Palette's carrot kugel recipe. Remember that oldie but goodie cookbook?). I decided to play with the kugel recipe to turn it into a well rounded meal, since he refuses so many other foods. Here's what I ended up with and it's still a huge hit with him.
Baby Survival Kugel
5 carrots, peeled and cut into coins
1-2 zuchinni, washed well and sliced
1 cup whole wheat/white flour (depending on preference)
2 Tbs wheat germ
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 small container white yogurt, higher fat the better (3-4%)
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar (you can try 1/2 as well, if you would prefer less sweet)
1 tsp vanilla
Steam or boil vegetables until soft (steaming will retain more vitamins). Drain and mash in a large mixing bowl with a potato masher. Add the rest of the ingredients, in any order you prefer. Mix lightly with a spoon and then blend with a hand blender (alternatively, you can put all the ingredients into a traditional blender and whiz there.) Pour into a lightly greased rectangular pan and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 40-45 minutes, until golden on top and firm.
Let cool completely and refrigerate. Cut into squares or "fingers" and serve warm, room temp or cold. Goes anywhere you child does. Can be served even as a breakfast treat! Feel free to sub in different vegetables- works especially well with pumpkin and sweet potato.
Is Gender Socialization Genetic?
This got me thinking about my own boy's toy preferences. My husband and I have been fascinated by how, even as early as 12 months, he had a clear preference for decidedly male-oriented toys- especially trucks, cars and tractors.When Mr. Startup (hubby) returned from a trip to the states with gifts, he bought the girls Barbies (those Polly Pockets were driving me crazy. They lasted about 5 minutes no matter how hard I tried to corral them all into various storage boxes.) and an adorable furry kitty stuffed animal for E. No go. Totally not interested and this was at 14 months. A month later, he brought back a green racing car that zoomed off by itself. A huge hit! We were both simply amazed at how he was gender socialized at such a young age. And where did it come from? It's not like we had a house full of boy toys. In fact the opposite- almost everything is pink, sparkly and dolls. Dolls totally don't interest him. When I try to give him one to distract him, he just throws it to the side.
He loves other kinds of toys too- especially stacking cups and a toy where you can stack large beads. But we are just fascinated about how he fell so easily into his gender role so early. It's genetic? I have no idea.
Check out Kosher Cooking Carnival #46
I'm gaining weight just looking at the recipes!
Greens, Mushrooms and Noodles
I made cabbage and noodles a few weeks ago. I hadn't made it in ages (possibly years) and I had forgotten how much my husband loved it. I bought some Swiss chard and mushrooms this week, thinking I'd make some kind of soup with them. Last week I bought a pack of endives after reading this recipe in the NYT. Cooked endive sounded intriguing.
In any case, I was still stuck with all these ingredients Friday afternoon, so instead of all my previous ideas, I sauteed onion and garlic, added the mushrooms, thinly sliced endive and the chopped chard, with lots of salt and pepper. I cooked a pot of good wide egg noodles (not the crappy Israeli kind). My husband and I finished the whole thing at dinner, thanks to some generous "tasting" helpings before Shabbat.
A few notes on serving: I served this Friday night, and to be honest, it doesn't take too kindly to reheating on the plata. So there are two options: you can add a few eggs or one egg and some egg whites and more salt and pepper, making this a kugel. Or, you can keep the vegetables and noodles separate until the last minute and stir them together before serving, that way the noodles don't get all tired and limp looking.
In any case, we thoroughly enjoyed the dish (of course, the kids wouldn't look at it).
Greens, Mushrooms and Noodles
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 basket of button mushrooms, sliced (any mushroom will do, feel free to substitute)
2 endives, thinly sliced from the end
1 bunch of Swiss chard, washed well, checked and chopped
salt and pepper
1 package of wide egg noodles, cooked just to al dente
Saute onion and garlic in olive oil in a large wok or frying pan for about 10 minutes on low heat, until thoroughly browned and soft. Add mushrooms and cook until the juices have evaporated. Add endive, cook until soft. Add chard, cook down as well. Season with salt and pepper.
Cook noodles in boiling water until just al dente. Mix veggies and noodles just before serving. Or mix together and add 2-3 eggs and bake in an oblong pan at 180 degrees Celsius until firm, 30-40 minutes.
When Mom Can't Make It All Better
All of the classic Israeli aspects of childraising are in the movie- the independence (the main character, Tami, spends lots of time on her own, and the climactic moment of the movie actually happens because she's at an unsupervised Lag B'Omer campfire); the mother who tries to be authoritative but sensitive but is too self absorbed by her own traumas to follow through on either well; the insularity of the religious neighborhood that tries to fend off the "bad kids" from the poorer neighborhood next door. It's really a fantastic movie and worth renting if you haven't seen it yet.
One element that really struck me after this viewing was Tami's reaction to her trauma. In most Hollywood movies and TV shows, when something bad happens to a child (Tami is 15), the normal reaction is for the child to report what happened directly to her parents or siblings or another trusted adult. Tami doesn't say a word to anyone. When her sister asks what happened and tries to get her to talk, she refuses and says she's ok. When her mother tries the same, after saying she's not angry, same thing happens. The movie ends, loose ends are tied up, but Tami never discusses what happened with her mom or sister. I thought that was curious and somewhat unsatisfying for the viewer. I wanted her to have that catharsis of spilling everything to her mom and getting comfort, but for some reason Cedar chose to deny us and her that moment.
I think there is something true to life in Tami's reaction. We always assume that kids need to talk, especially when they are in trouble. Maybe sometimes kids need to be alone with their trauma, to work through it themselves. There's a lot in the movie about drawing boundaries within the family- the mother gets angry in the beginning when the older daughter locks her bedroom door and fools around with her boyfriend. She breaks the window on the door as punishment. When Tami locks her door to be alone, the mother reminds her "We don't lock doors in this house!". I think Tami's silence is part of that process of creating boundaries and defining herself.
Best and Worst Parenting Feelings
There is no worse feeling that having your son wake up screaming or spit food out that he really wants to eat because a nasty sore on his tonsil makes it too unbearable to swallow. And there is nothing you can do to soothe him aside from hold him and try to shove more Nurofen down his throat if it's time. Hand, foot and mouth disease sucks! Though this homeopathic spray my sister in law recommended seemed to work just now. I sprayed some after he woke up from his early bedtime and he managed to get back to sleep after a few minutes.
Another good feeling I've been having is watching my two daughters play and interact with each other. A is 6.4 in kita aleph and T is 4. They are truly best friends. When my parents were here, my mother was absolutely amazed at how they could sit on the couch for an hour, my older lying in my younger's lap and listening to younger tell embellished versions of her dreams, complete dramatic cameos from Barbie and some other dolls. They truly love each other's company, most of the time. They do fight and bicker sometimes (there was a drama about sharing a balloon in the car today) but they absolutely care deeply for each other. When A spent a Shabbat away at Savta and Zayde's alone for "quality time" they both only wanted to talk to each other on the pre and post shabbat check-in phone call. A just had to share this very important joke with T, she had no time to talk to Ima or Abba!
I don't have a sister and neither does my mother (in a way, we are each other's sister- we talk on the phone everyday and talk about everything). So it gives me even more pleasure to see how close they are, and how much they truly enjoy each other's company. It's also very convenient to have a live-in playdate.
They both love their little brother, so it will be interesting to see how they incorporate him into their play as he gets old enough. He's still in the destructive phase of play.
Blogger Blab Fest and Odds and Ends
I really enjoyed hearing about Baroness Tapuzina's background and how she got her food blog going, and how Robin from Around the Island got into photography. It was also good to hear about topics and issues that people struggle with in their blogging. I really hope you will write that haircovering post, One Tired Ema.
I look forward to future meetups.
Loose Ends:
*My 17 month old, E, is insanely picky with food. I'm trying to be nonchalant about it, but it gets difficult at times, (I think more for me than him). He will happily eat sweets morning, noon and night, but has yet to agree to eat a straight piece of chicken. So far, he will deign to dine on fish sticks, chummous or jelly sandwiches, yogurt pancakes, fruit yogurts or Daniella (air whipped yogurt/white cheese thing) carrot kugel and any cake, cookie or chocolate.
Even though this is kid number 3, when you'd think I'd already by experienced enough to handle this, but I'm open to any words of encouragement or advice.
* Hubby M is going away next week, the third week away in the last 5 weeks. The near constant travelling that seems to be part of the "startup mentality" is getting old for me. I know it's part of the deal, as it were, and we should be used to it, but it's still hard for all of us, even after 3 years.
* My daughter has way too much homework for a first grader. It's a constant stress for me. I thought I finished school already! Not fairy! (A is constantly using this "fairy" word (instead of fair). In Hebrew it turns into "זה לא הוגני".)
Navigating the Mass-Market Milk World
I am experiencing this right now. I LOVE my neighbor who watches my daughter twice a week, but I do notice that she comes home singing little jingles that I’d rather her not know. Yesterday it was “shake your booty…” ha! We don’t own a tv and we eat very healthily, but like other commentors, I’ve wanted my daughter to be aware that other families do things differently and to find love and joy with others even though they are different. We’ve compromised with the nieghbor on lots of little things …no sugary juice for my daughter when the other kids have their juice but rather organic raw milk (provided by me) instead. Now it’s a non-issue. But with the corny pop culture jingles? I don’t know how to handle this one. Should I risk coming off as a total judgemental b**** and asking her not to show movies to my child (she’s already agreed to no TV when my daughter is over) or should I get over it and just “shake my booty!”? :)
Anonymous #32:I vote for getting over it, having some sugary juice and letting go a bit. Your daughter has got to learn how to navigate the pasteurized mass-market milk world sometime. Now would be good.
I found the attitudes about TV and food in the comments to be remarkably similar to haredi attitudes towards those topics (TV is bad, can't trust the standards of the next-door neighbor).
How do you deal with different rules and alternative attitudes toward the values and ideals that are important to you?
[Insert Recipe Here]
Kiddie Cocktail Party at Neila
7 Minute Apple Plum Compote
The Tefilla Shuffle
Yom Kef Was Ke-ef
A Dilemma
Petach Tikva School Scandal: Abject Racism or Media Lynch?
Over the last few weeks, efforts to find a compromise were made by various representatives of the municipality. One suggestion, proposed by Moti Zaft, head of the religious schools department, was to form special classes for the Ethiopian children to help them close the pedagogic gaps between them and the rest of the students, the main reason cited by the private schools for their unwillingness to accept the immigrant pupils.
Another suggestion, which was accepted by the city's non-official recognized religious schools, was to split up all the children equally among all the schools.
So far the Ministry of Education has been adamantly against the idea of forming special classes for the Ethiopian students.Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar said he unequivocally demanded that the students be put in regular classes and that segregated classes where like "small ghettoes."
Eeek, My Tanach Professor's Son!
Summer Activity Alert
Israel's 'Scary' Religious Army
Salon has an article about Israel's "activist" military rabbis. All of the stories that really inspired me from Gaza incursion, of rabbis inspiring the troops with tefilot and divrei Torah before going in I guess don't play as well to the rabid liberal Left.
Apparently they don't appreciate Chief Rabbi Rontzki's habit of expressing his views:
Rontzki has been accused of speaking out against military service for women -- he denies it -- and after Bamahane, the army magazine, profiled a homosexual major, Rontzki wrote to several senior officers to protest.
But what really gets the goat of Yesh Gvul, the defender of Israeli human rights (who knew we had our own group?) is this:
"Under Rontzki's command, the rabbinate is giving the conflict a religious overtone, and they are also using their free access to soldiers to work toward political goals," said Michael Sfard, an attorney for Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group. Those goals, critics like Sfard say, include making sure the West Bank, claimed by the Palestinians as part of their future state, remains in Jewish hands for good.
What I think is most interesting about this article is the sincere attempt on the part of the author to try and convey valid reasons for why the rabbinate might be more activist (there are more religious soliders in the army now) but how it utterly fails to convey how most traditional Sfardi soldiers probably appreciate the strengthened rabbinate. Yes, I'm sure it might make some secular soldiers uncomfortable. But I would imagine that on the night of the incursion, they were probably in the very small minority (don't have any proof for that, which is why I imagine it).
So Far Away
The House That Was Not a Hole
A nice pic of the pool:
Well, It Was a Nice Vacation...
'No Leftovers' Shabbat
Why You Should Have Ratatouille in Your Fridge
It just makes your life so much nicer. I made a big batch for Shabbat, and we had it warm Friday night with some turkey stew and cold as a salat for an appetizer. I've been eating it with lunch yesterday and today and then tonight I sauteed fresh bass fillets in a pan with some olive oil, salt and pepper and then dumped some of the ratatouille after they browned a little, added some white wine and cooked them covered for about 12 minutes. YUM!
When Famous People Die
Say 'Bye Bye'
My 14 month old son, E, is soon finishing his time with his wonderful metapelet (caregiver), whom he's been with since he was 5 and 1/2 months old. She has truly been an extraordinary caretaker, constantly showering him with love and attention and generally "mothering" him, rather than just "babysitting" him. He smiles and gets excited when we approach her door and now he even smiles when we park the car near her house. M and I have remarked to each other numerous times about how happy we were to have found her.
In the course of writing "Mother Nature," [previous book] I realized there was no way that mothers in the Pleistocene could have reared their young without alloparental assistance. At that point, I had been working on the demographic implications of shared care, and how it meant that mothers could breed after shorter intervals and produce more young that were likely to survive. So I concluded that humans must have evolved as cooperative breeders. Although people had been thinking about various permutations of this hypothesis for a while -- it started out as "mothers must have had help from their mates," and then in the '90s people started to say that it was help from siblings or grandmothers -- "Mother Nature" was really the first book to come out and say it: We could not have evolved except as cooperative breeders.
... What I'm saying is that human mothers are unusual in how much support they need. I'm also trying to expand the concept of what children need to include other people as well as mothers. Mothers need a lot of social support, and having more than one caretaker is very, very useful. When parents are getting divorced and the father and the mother are fighting over custody, that's so selfish. There's no way a child can really have too many allomothers. Even if the mother is mad at the father, she should want him involved. Children develop best in secure social environments, and security includes turning to lots of different people and knowing they are there for you. And since daycare is here to stay, we need to think a lot harder about how to make it better by incorporating attachment theory, making it small-scale and having consistent and responsive caretakers. But these aren't brilliant points. These are just obvious.
An "allomother" is basically a child's caretaker other than a mother.
My three children have all been in some type of childcare since very young ages and I think they have all thrived and benefitted from from their relationships with their allomothers. I agree with Hrdy that the key to excellent childcare is "consistent and responsive caretakers" and I've been lucky so far in finding these kinds of caregivers.
Leavin' on a Jet Plane
Swiss Chard Pie
Swiss Chard Pie
Filling:
1 bunch Swiss Chard (alei mangold in Hebrew)
1 basket of mushrooms, dark, light, whatever you like, sliced
1 leek, sliced thinly
1 red onion, diced
1.5 containers of 5% cottage cheese
1 handful shredded cheese
2 tablespoons bread crumbs/matzo meal
2 eggs
For crust:
2 medium eggplants or
1 eggplant/1 zuchinni
To prepare crust: Slice vegetables longitudanally quite thin, but not paper thin. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Broil or roast them in a very hot oven until browned. Let cool in the pan and remove carefully. Line the pie/tart pan with the vegetables. I like to let a little hang over the sides and fold over the pie after it's filled.
Filling:
Wash the chard in a few changes of water. It's quite sandy. Remove hard ribs and chop finely. Chop the rest roughly, set aside. In a hot pot or large wok, cook chopped chard ribs, onion, and leek until transluscent. Add mushrooms, season with salt and pepper. After mushrooms have cooked down, add the chard and cover until the chard has wilted.
Remove from the heat and let cool a few minutes. In a large bowl mix together vegetables and the rest of the ingredients. Feel free to add herbs you might like- thyme, basil or marjoram would be great. Pour on top of your veggie "crust". Sprinkle with a bit more cheese.
Bake at 180 C/ 350 F for about 40 minutes, until brown.
Delicious hot, warm, room temprature or cold.
The Scary Private Years
“But I often long to talk to Ellen, with whom, after all, I have done a million things in these scary, private years. We drove the kids up every damn rock in Central Park. On Easter Sunday, we pasted white doves on blue posters and prayed on Eighth Street for peace. Then we were tired and screamed at the kids. The boys were babies. For a joke we stapled their snowsuits to our skirts and in a rage of slavery every Saturday for weeks we marched across the bridges that connect Manhattan to the world. We shared apartments, jobs, and stuck-up studs. And then, two weeks before last Christmas, we were dying.”
This is a quote from the short story "Living" by one of my favorite authors, Grace Paley, z"l. It's not my absolute favorite quote of hers, but it's one of the few I found on the web, saving me the trouble of typing another one in. But I do happen to love this one for the way it encapsulates the experience of mothering young children and being a younger mother, particularly the way she describes these years as "scary, private years". So much of child-rearing and being a young (and youngish mother) is indeed "scary" and "private", which is probably why mommy blogs and Mommy and me groups are so popular.
I also love her mention of snowsuits, which reminds of a great red one that I had when I was four. Now that we live in Israel, no need for kiddie snowsuits. :(
(The image is from another favorite piece of literature of mine, The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats).
I also love her honesty. I think it's rare to find a mother who's never screamed at her kids because she's tired. But it's also hard to find a mom who doesn't who doesn't pray for a more peaceful world for her children. I think it's important to acknowledge that the contradictory emotions of motherhood (and childhood, for that matter) don't negate each other.
No More Mooching
No more mooching off of other people's blogs!
I'm not sure how confessional this blog will really be, despite the provocative name, since my husband actually abhors confessionals of any nature and is naturally very secretive (and since our lives are inextricably entwined, that would affect my writing). So I will try to be as respectful of that as possible.
3 years ago, my husband, M, and his army buddies decided to open a startup, similar to the Little Rascals gang saying "Hey Gang, let's put on a show!". It was a bit more serious than that, but not much. After much brainstorming, vc fundrasing, allnighters and collecting of frequent flier miles they are finally on their way to what looks to be a functioning business.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I've been kid wrangling our three children and working part time at another startup at home (not sure I'm ready to disclose that yet, maybe later). It's been a roller coaster ride of tremendous satisfaction in raising our family and watching this business grow from a tiny germ of an idea to a full fledged global production. It's also been a tremendous source of exhaustion and emotional meltdowns. So I think this blog might be useful in sorting some of the latter out.
And, I'm dying to share recipes as well!
Like this one I came up with yesterday:
Chicken Fingers
4 skinless chicken breasts, sliced lenthwise in 3-4 pieces
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 solet (semolina flour) (purchased thanks to this post)
3-4 shakes granulated garlic (garlic powder, shum migubash in hebrew)
3-4 shakes sweet paprika (can add some hot paprika if you like a kick)
Salt and pepper
1 egg
1 Tbs olive oil
Olive oil/canola spray