Goat cheeses for Shavuot

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Happy Shavuot!
Today is the Jewish holiday during which we feast on dairy food.
For all kinds of reasons why, please look at Chabad and/or About religion.

Just recently I discovered this dairy that creates all kinds of goat cheese, yogurt, and labaneh.
It is a 20-minute drive from my town and is really in the middle of nowhere.
This is a rare independent farmer (i.e. not a kibbutz or moshav) and his family raises goats and cattle and does lots of good things.
More about them later, after I can go back for a longer visit.
Meanwhile, chag sameach, happy holiday!
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Hard and dry labaneh

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In Israel we love to eat the soft yogurt cheese called labaneh, scooping it off the plate with pita.
But Nissim, our excellent guide through the Bedouin part of the Beer Sheva market, explained that labaneh can also be made into these dried lumps.

  
Strained labaneh is pressed in its cheese cloth between two heavy stones and later sun dried.
The balls can be easily stored and for a long time. 
Arabs have been doing this for hundreds of years.
I guess when Bedouin were still largely nomadic, it was easy to transport the labaneh in such form; add water and it is easily reconstituted to soft yogurt cheese.

The labaneh made by Arabs in the southern Hebron Hills is slightly different in shape from that made by the Bedouin here in the Negev.
One version is round and the other is oval.

To see how women in the nearby village of Dirijat produce labaneh, please see my pictures from 2008, when I spent five days living there, learning Arabic.
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Matza for Natl. Grilled Cheese Day

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Now that the big important Jewish and Christian holidays are wrapping up, we can blog instead about those silly unofficial national days like the one America is observing today -- National Grilled Cheese Day.

Today bread would have been in the stores again, after the week of Pesach/Passover when it was prohibited, but I didn't want to walk to the supermarket in the rain to buy it.
So for Grilled Cheese Day I had to (again, still!) microwave-melt cheese on MATZA!
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Green cheese

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Green cheese?!
It is labeled Gouda with pesto, 30% fat, 15.99 shekels per kilogram.

We shopped at the big and beautiful  Eden Teva Market in Beer Sheva  for the first time.
The daughter happily  stocked up on sheep and goat cheeses. 
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Cheese with soul

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Chag sameach--happy Shavuot holiday!

I already told you the story of how I discovered the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in a Swiss lake.
I've posted about Ruth and Naomi and Boaz, and about the customs of Shavuot, about reinventing ritual with art, and about hearing the thunder of Mt. Sinai.

So what else is there to tell about Shavuot?
About the custom of eating dairy foods on that holiday, of course!
Cheesecake, blintzes, soft cheese, hard cheese . . .

So recently I made a "pilgrimage" up to Har Eitan, to the goat farm hidden in a wild and wildly beautiful landscape in the Jerusalem Hills.

Goat cheese at its very best!
Many different varieties of prize-winning artisan cheeses.
And yogurt, too, to drink cold from the bottle.

The cheese tasting and selling is done in this cave next to one of the goat pens.
Resistance is futile.

Sit under a tree and soak up the mountain air as you enjoy some wine and cheese.

These terraced hills where the herd grazes are ancient.
See the pretty goats at my previous post about the farm, as well as how to get there.

Ta-da! Here is the master cheesemaker himself, my old friend Shai Seltzer.

Learn more about Shai, his goats, cheesemaking, and the farm at his nice website.
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UPDATE: There is a nice new article, "Israeli Cheese Goes Artisanal," that tells about Shai and other "boutique cheesemakers."
UPDATE 2018: Here is a 2017 article about Shai:
https://www.israel21c.org/working-magic-with-cheese-on-har-eitan-farm/
and also
this about fancy cheeses in Israel:  https://www.israel21c.org/for-the-love-of-the-cheese/
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Cutting through a big wheel

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The steel of the two-handled knife is shiny enough to reflect -- MORE cheese!
--for James' "Weekend Reflections."
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At Basher's, Machane Yehuda market, Jerusalem, a must-see delicacy store.
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Fun in the fromagerie

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When stood on edge, cheese wheels really do look like wheels!

One of my favorite memories from Switzerland--Gruyere!

Welcome to the Shuk Mahane Yehuda store of "BASHER, The King of Cheese."
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The hole-y Swiss Emmental was tagged "special price" but I didn't see how much it cost because I was having too much fun just taking pictures.
And I'm sure all these imported luxury cheeses are beyond my budget anyway.

Cheesemaking is such an art and such hard and satisfying work. (This I know from working a year and a half in the cheese dairy of an Israeli sheep farm.)
That's why I was so excited to see the nearly one thousand kinds of cheese in this fromagerie today!

Their website says that Eli Basher travels every month to Rungis, the famous wholesale food market at the outskirts of Paris, to select the cheeses.
Of course, he has plenty of great Israeli cheese and dairy products too.

The store has just been renovated and now it is very open and even more inviting.
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Yogurt cheese -- labaneh

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For Y Day at ABC Wednesday I'll serve you up some yummy yogurt cheese.
In Israel we call it by its Arabic name, labaneh.

It all begins by milking the ewes early in the morning.
(I got to help milk during my 5-day Arabic course / home hospitality at the Bedouin village of Dirijat in the Negev desert!)
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Labaneh is made in quantity only a few months during the year.
I suppose it depends on when the lambing season is.
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I just happened to wander into a backyard and sighted all the production things.
Unfortunately it was just a few minutes before my ride was leaving back to Jerusalem, so I didn't have time to find out the exact process.
The older women do not speak much Hebrew or English, and my Arabic is still very small.
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Notice even the bags are made from sheep.

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But you can read about strained yogurt / labaneh in Wikipedia.

The women in Dirijat roll some of their labaneh into balls and pack it in glass jars with olive oil and sell it in their visitors center.

The Bedouin also like to press the strained labaneh in its cheese cloth between two heavy stones and later sun dry it.

It becomes hard and dry, like the ball in the photo, and can be stored for long periods.

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I hope you all have the chance to dip hot pita or flat bread into cool labaneh, drizzled with olive oil and zaatar!

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Revelation and response

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Happy Shavuot! The holiday begins tonight.
And so does ABC Wednesday R Day.

One name of the Shavuot holiday is The Time of the Giving of Our Torah.
Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our Teacher, received the revelation from God on Mt. Sinai.
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"Boaz and Ruth" by William Hole, 1607-1624, British

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In the synagogue the Book of Ruth is read.

Converts like Ruth the Moabite, who followed Naomi, are appreciated especially on this day.

Ruth was gleaning in the field when she met Boaz. They married and became ancestors of King David.

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Shavuot is indeed The Festival of the Harvest.

Last week, from the bus window, going up north to the Galilee, I could see that the grain had just been cut.
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Pilgrimage section at the Tower of David Museum

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It is also the Festival of the First Fruits.
Specific agricultural offerings were brought to the Temple on Shavuot, which is one of the Slosh Regalim, the three pilgrimage festivals when Jews went up to Jerusalem.


Not part of the ritual, but really important as a custom, is to eat cheese and dairy food on Shavuot.
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Then there is Tikkun Lel Shavuot, the all-night study session of Torah.
And wearing white.
And decorating the house with greenery.
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Every year on this holiday we renew our acceptance of God's gift and God "re-gives" the Torah!
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The Fat Tuesday before Ash Wednesday

. Last chance before Lent to enjoy a fondue. Last night my Christian friends cooked the cheese mixture in the Swiss Canton of Neuchatel style. . We all dipped and twirled our bread cubes in the hot cheese.

Being Jewish, I myself will not have to observe the long Lenten "fast," i.e. restriction on certain foods, that lasts until Easter.

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But I wish all who are entering Lent today, on this Ash Wednesday, a meaningful and blessed time of contemplation and repentance and spiritual preparation.

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Dairy goats and a cheesemaker, for Shavuot!

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Yesterday we celebrated the Jewish holiday of Shavuot on which it is traditional to eat dairy food, and LOTS of it.
In the past week Israelis purchased THREE times the normal amount of cheeses and dairy products.

Nothing can beat goat and sheep cheese--in taste, texture, and appearance.

These are the young bucks which will sire the does which will produce the milk which will be transformed into cheese.

But this is the master cheesemaker and only he knows how to create the delicious prize-winning artisan cheeses of many varieties!
Shai Seltzer learned to make cheese thirty years ago and ever since, to quote the farm's lovely website, "Shai has won acclaim worldwide as an instructor and mentor of dairy goat farming and cheese making."
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Learn about the cheese in the cave and the specially-bred herd, about the hills that have known agriculture for 6,000 years, and about Shai--all at the website (linked above).

Or, take a hike or a drive up the mountain and meet this fascinating man in person.
Follow the sign with the doe that says goat cheese.
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You might want to click and enlarge this photo.
Even zoomed in, it looks far away. It is the view across the valley, from my hill in the Jerusalem Hills, looking toward Har Eitan mountain.

You see the little white dots in the center, in the middle of nowhere?
That is where Shai lives and works.
He built it all from scratch years ago. A real pioneer.

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Besides being Shavuot, today is also the day for our bloggers' weekly animal meme, Camera-Critters Sunday.
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First kosher cheese in Portugal since the Inquisition

Shabbat shalom! I'm just back home after Kabbalat Shabbat, welcoming the Sabbath, at friends' house. The dark bread, olives, olive oil, and goat cheese on our table are the real taste of Israel.
It made me think of this recent article in Haaretz with a funny title:

For first time since Inquisition, Portuguese cheese gets kosher seal
By Cnaan Liphshiz
For the first time since the Spanish Inquisition in Portugal, a dairy product has been given an official kosher certificate. The ground-breaking product is a hard, goat's milk cheese, manufactured by the descendant of Anusim (Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity).

Last year, Jose Braz, owner of the Queijos Braz factory, contacted Daniel Litwak, the chief rabbi of Portugal's second-largest city, Porto, and asked him to arrange a kashrut certificate for Serra da Estrela cheese, which Braz manufactures. Braz believes that his own family were members of Portugal's Jewish community in the 14th and 15th centuries, but like many others were forced to convert to escape persecution by the Inquisition.
"When I spoke to Jose, he told me he wanted to reconnect to his Jewish roots - this was the reason for contacting me," says Litwak, who was born in Argentina. "I was surprised because his brand was doing rather nicely all over Europe. He did not need the certificate to increase his turnover." New York-born Michael Freund, the chairman of Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based organization that helps people with Jewish roots become more involved in their Jewish community, who immigrated to Israel some 10 years ago, told Haaretz that Portugal "is seeing a Jewish revival over the past few years."
"Recently, the first kosher wine in Portugal since the Inquisition has become available, then the first olive oil and now the cheese," Freund says. "I see a definite connection between how many of the Anusim are rediscovering their roots and the increased interest."

Cheese wheels on wheels

Thousands of shekels are riding on these little blue wheels. Click on the photo and read the writing on the rind. Parmigiano-Reggiano 2006 !
The stack of huge cheese wheels caught my eye and I entered the fancy cheese and wine store in the shuk Mahaneh Yehuda market. Photos were all I got, the rest was way too expensive.
They offer cheeses from around the world in a mind-boggling variety. It is exciting just to see them.

Cheesemaking is such an art and such hard and satisfying work. This I know from working a year and a half in the cheese dairy of a sheep farm. Cheese, yogurt, and just plain rich milk from sheep are the best!