Forest to Plate in Kfar Sallama, Galilee

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The most delicious vegetarian lunch I've ever tasted!

This young Bedouin brought huge trays to our tour group directly from the kitchen window of the family preparing all these fresh dishes.

Here the basket of hot pita came.
All the ingredients were local, in season, organic, and -- did I say? -- delicious!
Some were grown right there in the yard where we ate, while some were gathered in the wild.
In fact, the business card of  the family enterprise reads  FOREST to PLATE.

Right there in the yard, between the modern houses of this village in the Galilee, is a diwan, a Bedouin tent of hospitality.
If our tour group from Meitar had been a few decades younger, we could have eaten inside, sitting on the ground.
You can see video of guests dancing there to live Arab flute music at The Bedouin Experience in the Galilee page on Facebook.
Their website is in Hebrew but has photos and music.

The old traditional Bedouin embroidered dresses are always nice to see.

The Galilee is covered with olive trees and still the oil production does not meet the local demand.
So many foods are made with olive oil.
In the garden an old olive crushing stone was on display.

Right under an olive tree!

One of the village's mosques.

Kfar Sallama has more than 3,100 inhabitants.

A photo of the village from 2008, from Wikipedia.  I'm sure Kfar Sallama has expanded since then.
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Very interesting is this list and map of Arab localities in Israel.
Check out the Northern District (ya'ani, the Galilee) especially.
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(Linking to ABC Wednesday K-day.)
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Knights Palace

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K-Day today at ABC Wednesday.

At the end of Freres Street, next to the Latin Patriarchate, near the New Gate, in the Christian Quarter, inside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, is a small hotel.

It's the Knights Palace!

Before the middle of the 19th century, Jerusalem had no hotels. Only after mid-century, when tourism per se began to the Holy Land, were hotels built.

Pilgrims who came on pilgrimage had hostels for their meagre needs, but wealthier tourists from abroad wanted more comfortable accommodation.

Knights Palace dates mostly to the 1880s.

Even the restrooms in the lobby go with the knightly motif.

Some of the 50 hotel rooms (on the right, not the left!).

The Knights Palace website is here.

For a time, the building served as a theological seminary.

As you might guess from the KHS Knight's photo on the wall, the building is also the base in Jerusalem of the Knights of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

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AND . . . today is Michaelmas, the Feast Day of the Archangel St. Michael and All Angels!

As Nestor writes in his blog Every Day's A Holiday!, "Perhaps because of his position as the leader of the army of angels in Revelation, Michael became the patron saint of knights, whom fighters called upon in times of battle."

Happy Michaelmas to all Christians who are celebrating the feast day.

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Ahalan wasahalan--welcome!

The several generations of women who graciously welcomed me into their house in Darajat.
Dahab, Amina, Zohara, Aisha, and Nahed fed and watered me, took care of my every need and then some, and patiently helped me try to understand and speak Arabic.
In the top picture are the two wives of the father of the present-day village leader and school principal, Ishak Abu Chamad. They proudly show the photo of the original founding father. The whole village and family started with him some 150 years ago when he left the South Hebron Hills and came further south to the Negev.