Today's Photo

I've decanted the vanilla extract I started 2 months ago into something more decorative... and tasty!

Today's Photo

The expected snow missed us. We had thick fog, wind and rain all day instead.

This was a part of the backyard - the grape vines in the fog. NO photo editing was done.

Today's Photo

Today's Photo

Today's Photo

The little known oil drum fields of Israel where farmers plant and grow oil drums for sale to the world market.

This one was sadly neglected and left to become over-ripe, you can tell by the coating of rust.

Ok, in all seriousness, farmers use the drums to prevent the wildlife from getting to the new olive tree saplings.

Today's Photo

Today's Photo

Despite being kicked upside the head with a raging sinus infection and fever, I give you:



Top to bottom: Jupiter, Venus and the moon at dawn.

Today's Photos

I ended up taking so many photos this morning of the snow, I decided to put those and the ones from yesterday into a photo slide show.

Enjoy!

Today's Photos

It's a snow day here in Israel. What else would I post?

Today's Photo

Today's Photo

Today's Photo

Water beaded on a box on my front lawn with shadows from the bay leaf bush.

Today's Photos

I caved.


This is Little Dipper.

This is why he's called little dipper:


And this is Tigger's initial reaction:

Yes, he really is that small... about the size of a medium sized bunny. He's 10 weeks old and.. yeah, I caved.

Today's Photo

Today's sunset, reflected in my daughter's window.

Today's Photo

At first I was going to crop it so the birds were the main focus and much clearer to see.

But after looking it over for a few minutes, I decided I liked things as they were - the cellphone tower in the background, the directionality of the trees and tattered flag from the wind, the pergola lattice and the rooftops.

Today's Photo

Pure vanilla extract is ridiculously expensive here (when you can find it) and the imitation stuff is just nasty.

So a liter of vodka, a few vanilla beans (split and scraped) and a few weeks in the cupboard (shaken once a week) and we'll have some home-made of the good stuff.

This is 2 1/2 weeks after I made it. The longer it sits the darker it gets. I'm thinking another 2 1/2 weeks until I can bake with it.

Today's Photo

Today's Photo

Halvah is a confection made mainly from Tehini (a very thin sesame paste) and honey with other ingredients and flavorings added for taste.

In this photo, left to right bottom row: dried fruit, cashews, almonds, walnuts and I'm not sure what's in the very right-hand corner, but it looks like more of the Turkish pistachios which are on the second row, right side. To the left of the Halvah with pistachios is coffee-flavored Halvah and in the background is fresh apricot 'fruit leather'.

Yesterday's Photo

Today's Photos

Before and after in honor of Shabbat