Some crucial culinary news on the wires this morning that we must share. Hey, even if it doesn’t work out and goes the way of Starbucks, it is certainly worth a try, right? As Ahiraz mentions, this is a concept Israeli’s have been looking for, in fact, just the other day I was walking through Dizengoff and thought to myself, “where can I find some good breasts and a couple of wings?”

From Reuters:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. restaurant chain Hooters, known for waitresses in low-cut blouses and short skirts, will open its first branch in Israel this summer, in the Mediterranean seaside city of Tel Aviv.

“I strongly believe that the Hooters concept is something that Israelis are looking for,” Ofer Ahiraz, who bought the Hooters franchise for Israel, told Reuters Monday. “Hooters can suit the Israeli entertainment culture.”

At Hooters, waitresses the company calls Hooters Girls serve spicy chicken wings, sandwiches, seafood and drinks.

Wow, I guess it is true; there is a blog for everyone about everything. Sure, we love hummus just as much as the next Israeli, but never did we think that it would be bloggable? Well, we were wrong, oh so very, very wrong…

Humus101 - Humus Secrets

Is it Humus, Hummus or Houmous? we have it all.

Everbody in the middle east eat Hummus. Although considered an Arab dish, Israelis too consider it to be their national delicacy. In recent years, hummus has gone global, and you can find it anywhere in the world - sometimes reffered to as ”Houmous“ or ”Humus“.

This blog is about Hummus, regardless of sex, race, religion or color. It is about the love for Hummus and the things you can do with it - including making it yourself. We‘ll share with you our recipes, amaze you with some uncommon Hummus trivia facts, and suggest recommended restaurants where you can eat Hummus throughout the world.

According to HAARETZ, Michelin is thinking of finally doing a guide on Israel. Well it’s definitely about time. Last year Star Chefs, the largest culinary website, did a huge feature on where to go and what to eat in the Jewish State, and as they put it:

“Despite being a predominantly Jewish nation, Israel is diverse and multicultural. Jews both Ashkenazi and Sephardic, Arabs both Christian and Muslim, the Druze, North Africans, Russian and Ethiopian immigrants, Bedouins and Palestinians – all provide for a varying landscape of ethnicities, cultural traditions, and not surprisingly, cuisines.

The chefs of Israel reflect this diversity, establishing Israel as one of the world’s most interesting destinations for the food-savvy individual or the curious culinary professional. Even France’s highly influential Gault-Millau restaurant guide, which features very few countries outside of France, published its first Israeli edition in the late ‘90s.”

So Ya’lla already Michelin!!

To read the rest of the Star Chefs review click here. After the jump is a clip from the HAARETZ article.

Well Yaniv has done it again. He’s right on the money with this one. Manhattan’s growing ‘Little Israel’ stretching across the West and East Village has continued to produce quintessential Israeli food, fare, and fashion with authentic style. Hummus Place is another must for Israeli’s in NY and NYers searching for Israeli flavor.

Enjoy!

NY hummus addiction

The Bellyful Awards competition is still on, and we’re checking out the Israeli restaurants that have made the greatest contribution

Yaniv Halily

Hello. My name is Halil and I’m an addict. I got involved with a dangerous substance almost by chance eight months ago, and since then it’s been hard for me to stop. Today I’m celebrating four weeks without it, and I hope to be here with you in another month and not to surrender to this dangerous drug.

I, too, fell into this trap, and it happened completely by accident. It was another busy weekend and I ended up in St. Mark’s Place. I just wanted to eat brunch. But the wait for a table was half an hour at my beloved A7, and with all due respect, I don’t wait in line for thirty minutes for a diner, even if it’s A7. Then G. suggested we go somewhere else, “Here, right around the block.” And that’s how it all began.

Have you ever tried to milk a camel? Have you ever had an urge for an ice-camel cone, or to dip your cookie in a glass of lukewarm… you get the point.

But did you know that, “Camel milk is three times richer in vitamin C than milk from cows and contains vitamin B, iron and unsaturated fatty acids.”

I know, I know. This all sounds absolutely delicious. So much so, you just had to wipe the drool from the keyboard before your co-workers noticed. Well, according to the JPOST, an Israeli company has helped build an elaborate camel milking machine which was sold to the UAE.

Bon Appetit!

From the JPOST:

A camel-milking system largely manufactured by Israel’s S.A.E. Afikim that can simultaneously milk 48 camels, was sold by Afikim’s British distributor, to a buyer in Dubai, the Jordan Valley-based company said Sunday. The statement didn’t identify the buyer.

Here at isrealli.org we appreciate good wine, especially when this comes from Israel. For those who have not read our previous entries on the subject, you should be aware that Israeli wines have been gaining traction over the last few years and are now included on the wine menus of fancy restaurants all over the world. As such, we never miss an opportunity to update you on the latest news on the wine market.

Thanks to Sagi Cooper of Ynetnews, we not only found out about the new wines but also about their distinct qualities. The Dalton Winery has issued three new red wines: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. Cooper evaluates them as enjoyable to drink, light and very accessible (in other words, good value for money). For the wine connoisseurs who need more details on the color, taste, sense of the wines, read the full article.

But what grabbed my attention was the Syrah organic wine produced Tishby Winery from a private vineyard in Sde Eliyahu. Organic products are becoming a niche market, and with an increasing number of countries producing organic wines, it is becoming a very competitive market. Unfortunately, this series will be discontinued as the specific grapes will be used to make organic grape juice. But because of the grapes’ origin and the rest of the production process, the wine is certified as ‘organic’ by Agrior.

So, next time you drop into the liquor store, remember to check out these new wines and let us know what you think of them.

Junk food is bad for you. Junk food causes heart problems. Junk food’s full of trans fats. So what’s news? Lovers of juicy burgers, crunchy fries, thin-crust pizza and all other sorts of fatty, highly-processed food don’t need any further reminders.

As if these constant warnings weren’t enough to make us cut down on America’s favorite dishes (or at least feel pangs of guilt), a new report, detailed in an article in the Jerusalem Post, makes me wonder, why all tasty foods must be harmful to our health, in one way or another!

Here’s the scoop. Dr. Aviv Goldbart of Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba, together with researchers from the University of Louisville in the US, found that junk food has as much negative effect on memory as sleep apnea.

Lab rats helped the researchers reach that conclusion. The experiment was simple and the results striking. Half of the participating rats were fed a normal diet, and the other half was given junk food. The rats had to recognize colorful signs over a clear plastic platform that would serve as “dry land” in a water-filled aquarium. The ones that were fed a high-fat, highly-refined diet took twice as long to find the platform than those fed a conventional rodent diet. They took a long time to learn where the platform signs were, and the learning process was very slow.

In the article, Dr. Aviv explains: “We learned that the high fat diet alone causes learning disorders. Rats that were fed funk food and were intermittently deprived of oxygen showed the worst results. In rats that were fed a high fat diet, the amount of certain brain protein connected to memory declines. This supports the theory that eating fatty, processed food hurts memory.”

So, junk food affects learning processes as well as physical health. No wonder junk food companies are so desperately marketing healthier versions of our favorite dishes.

Traveling internationally has its side-effects. There’s of course jetlag, which has its own set of side-effects: headaches, nausea, exhaustion, dehydration, etc. – depending on who you are. Then there’s the travel itself, with all that that entails: packing and unpacking, and my favorite: exchanging currency back and forth, knowing that each time you do it you’re losing money and there ain’t nothing you can do to prevent it.

Having just come back from a short visit in Israel, I am reminded of a third side-effect which strikes me every time I travel: culture shock. And I’m talking about American culture.

Obviously, whenever you go to a foreign country, you encounter an entirely new set of customs, social mores, whatever. But what surprises me every time is that after spending some time in a foreign country and getting used to its quirks, I am struck when I return to the U.S. about how different we are here. And sure enough, as I stepped out of the airport the other day and rode back to my apartment in the city, I found myself surprised at how different cabs are in the United States from those in Israel.

There are taxis in every country, and in every country they are different – that’s a given. I’m not going to pontificate on the differences between rickshaws, London cabs, Yellow cabs, and whatever else – the differences are kind of obvious. What hit me was the difference among the cab drivers. Whether your cab driver is an immigrant from southeast Asia, Latin America, Europe, or a native-born American, one thing is pretty much uniform among them. They keep quiet. Unless you are prone to engaging your cab drivers in conversation, they’re going to keep their mouths shut. They might even keep the glass partition shut. If there’s any talking, the driver will talk to someone on his hands-free cellphone.

Not so in Israel.

It’s the day after Christmas, and Chanukah ended last week. For most of the population this weekend just passed was the culmination of a month of holiday parties, oily treats and hearty meals consumed around an overflowing table, together with family and good friends.

So I can only imagine how many people, cracked open an eyelid this morning, and headed straight for the scales, with great trepidation.

Israelis, like most of us in the western world, are fairly pre-occupied with their looks (fashion, weight, hairstyle, etc.). And just like the US’s multi-billion dollar diet industry, my own anecdotal research would suggest that Israel boasts the most diverse range of diet foods, to rival any country on the planet.

For seasoned dieters, a first glimpse into an Israeli supermarket is like a dream come true. Creamy cheeses in a choice of nine, five, two or zero percent fat! Cookies, yoghurt and ice-creams, sure, but even bread, pasta sauce and other basics come in “dietetic” versions.

A recent article in Ha’aretz, however, calls this practice of diet-obsession into question.

We all love comics, even if we all can’t admit it. Whether its X-Men, Silver Surfer, Peanuts, or Far Side, few are impervious to the humor and drama found in the drawings both crude and sophisticated of our modern day minstrels of ink.

Now there is a new edition to the pantheon of heroes and villains who excite and mystify the minds of pre-teens and middle age closet comic lovers alike: Falafel Man. I know, I know, bare with me here.

Falafel Man is the creation of Dorit Maya-Gur, an Israeli student at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in New Jersey. She was inspired to create this unlikely culinary hero when she was rescued by the NJ police and fire department while unsuccessfully cooking falafel in her college dorm.

In the book, Falafel Man, like some of his comic counterparts, became a hero during a freakish laboratory accident in an experiment with Falafel. He is a beer bellied, falafel eating, crime fighter who has an affinity for California’s governor…

Don’t ask, just read the original article here .

BTW- the new comic book was presented at the Ka-Boom 3 annual comic’s convention in Tel Aviv.