Crank up your oven to about 180 degrees Celsius (about 355 degrees Fahrenheit). Separate the drums and flats of the wings and throw them into a plastic bag or a large bowl. Season generously with salt and pepper and feel free to throw in a few splashes of hot sauce (Tabasco is fine). Coat with a few dollops of Grape seed oil (Neutral oil is key) and mix it all together with a utensil or your gloved hands (remember, there is hot sauce there). Throw in about 1/4 cup flower per 1/2 kilo of wings. Toss until the wings are nicely coated. I prefer doing this in a plastic bag since the flour is less likely to clump together.

Cover a cookie sheet with tin foil and give it a light coating of oil. Lay out your dredged wings on the sheet and give it a spray of canola oil. I’ve brushed on oil in the past but nothing works as well as good old spray oil. You get a nice even, light and universal coat. Put them in the oven for about 30 minutes. They should look something like this:

Crispy. Flip them over and cook them for another 20 minutes or so. You may or may not have to spray them with more oil. Usually, the oil that I sprayed on the tin foil is adequate.

While they are cooking you can start on the sauce, which is really more of a glaze. Lightly brown about 2 pieces of garlic and a 1/2 knob of ginger. Throw in about 1/4 cup of silan (date syrup), 2 tablespoons of rice or cider vinegar, two splashes of soy and a some sambal oelek, (Indonesian chili paste). Good stuff. I say “some” because the heat level is up to you. If I’m making these for myself I put in about 2 tablespoons. If the family is partaking I use just a teaspoon. Boil the sauce until it looks quite syrupy or until you think it looks like it would scar you for life if it spashled on your face. Remove it from the heat.

Remove the wings from the oven and place them in a large bowl. Slowly pour the sauce on the wings, taking a break every few seconds to toss them around so they are evenly coated. Don’t go overboard on the glaze. First, it’s strong stuff with really intense flavor so you don’t need that much. And second, too much sauce will damage the delicious crispiness and make your wings soggy. No one likes soggy wings. Once you feel that your wings are evenly coated, grab your tongs and put them back on the sheet.

Something glorious will happen, but you must be patient. The uber-hot wings will further cook with the syrupy deliciousness. They will become one. Wait about seven minutes or so. Fear not, they will cool down into edible territory. Enjoy and eat them with some of those carrot and kohlrabi pickles you made last week, ok?

I’ve had a life long love affair with carrots, but my relationship with kohlrabi only goes back 13 years. My first taste of kohlrabi was either at Mordoch, a small Kurdish lunch joint near Machane Yehuda, Jerusalem’s open air market or possibly at the now defunct Korea House in Jerusalem’s city center. What was this small white incredibly crunchy vegetable before me? Is it a radish? Can’t be, it tastes sort of like cabbage. I asked what it was and was told kohlrabi. I assumed that kohlrabi was a Hebrew word since it sounded silly and had never heard of it. I was further confused when I couldn’t find it in my English-Hebrew dictionary. I don’t recall how I finally figured everything out but soon after kohlrabi became a household winter staple.

Both restaurants served their kohlrabi pickled. The Kurdish joint had sliced it thin and dressed it with lemon juice, a little olive oil, a liberal dose of cilantro and a smidgen of salt and a whole lot of crushed black pepper. It was just lightly pickled. The Korea House pickles were sweet. Very sweet. They were cubed it (along with carrot) and were clearly pickled for several days. The difference between the two were extraordinary but both were a revelation. My love affair with pickling had begun. Years later when traveling in Vietnam I had my first banh mi sandwich (before they were trendy). Banh mi is all about the toppings, one of the essentials being pickled carrots and daikon radish. Since that visit, I always try to have a jar of shredded pickled carrots in the fridge to use as a condiment for sandwiches. I’ve been using the same recipe for making shredded carrots as I do for the finger sized carrots below. It works well for both, though the shredded carrots only need a few hours before they can be eaten.

These ratios work well for my taste. I don’t like my pickles overly sweet. You should feel free to adjust to your liking. I usually make mine in bulk so I scaled down the recipe for a small jar. We have a very short lime season here in Israel, so if I manage to hunt them down in September or October (which shouldn’t be a problem for me anymore now that I have my own tree – yay! ) I’ll add a generous squeeze of lime juice.

Vietnamese inspired pickled carrots and kolrabi

Ingredients:

2 medium Carrots
1 medium sized kohlrabi
1/4 cup vinegar (I use regular vinegar, but rice vinegar works well and its not as sharp)
2 TB salt
2 TB sugar
2 kaffir lime leaves
1 fresh lime
one small lime

1) Peel your carrots and kohlrabi and cut them into any shape you wish. Grate, julienne, cube or do what I do, cut them into strips – like french fries or carrot sticks. However, a word of warning. I have a habit of noshing while making these, so you might want to do what I do and prepare an extra carrot to enjoy during the prep.

2) Place a colander over a large bowl, add the vegetables to the colander and liberally sprinkle course salt on them. Get your hands in there and make sure the salt is integrated nicely. For an extra crunchy pickle this step is key as the salt with draw out a lot of the moisture. Wait approximately twenty minutes (go to step 3 and be productive while you wait). You’ll now notice a large amount of water now at the bottom of the bowl. What did I tell you about all that moisture? Rinse the salt off the vegetables and squeeze the crap out of them over the colander to remove excess moisture.

3) Make the brine. Mix the vinegar, salt and sugar in a small pot on the stove on a very low flame, just to get it warm enough so the the sugar and salt crystals disintegrate. This should take less than a minute. There is no need to boil. I like to add one or two kaffir lime leaves at this point. Put on the side and wait for it to cool.

4) I hope you’ve rinsed off the carrots and kohlrabi by this point. Slice up half of the lime and place the slices on the bottom of your mason jar. Take the carrot and kohlrabi sticks start patiently placing them in the jar, one by one. Patience is a virtue.

5) Pour your brine over the carrots and kohlrabi and make sure they are all equally covered. Don’t forget to make sure the kaffir lime leaves end up in the jar. You should have half a lime left. Don’t let it go to waste. Give it a little squeeze and let the pickles enjoy the juice.

6) Close the mason jar and be patient. The smaller you cut the vegetables, the shorter the pickling time. If I grate or julienne I’ll wait just a few hours before enjoying, but when I cut them as seen in the above photographs, I usually wait 4-5 days. The longer you wait, the more pickle goodness ye shall receive. That’s all there is to it.

Join me, won’t you?

Step 13: Clearly, for aesthetic reasons, we needed to cover up the area below the sink, so the bottom of the bowl wouldn’t be exposed. We couldn’t tolerate criticism from other toddlers about the unseemly site. Ziva envisioned a curtain, a suggestion which I adamantly supported because that meant I didn’t have to build a door – which I certainly couldn’t do even if I wanted to. That’s not where Ziva’s ingenuity ends. For some odd reason, Ziva held onto a plastic toilet paper holder that came with a bunch of toilet paper (duh). When she realized we needed something with a spring to easily remove the curtain rod so we can remove the curtain when need be (either to replace it or clean it) she remembered that she had saved the holder. We put a nickel in there to hold the rod in place, I glued it to the bottom of the sink, drilled a perfectly sized hole in the other end, inserted the rod and we had a functioning curtain rod. Yay!

Step 14: It’s stovetop time. We initially planned on just painting circles on top of the stove but once we took stock of our supplies I realized we had more than enough MDF to elevate the stove top to make it more pronounced. I measured a nice rectangle and cut the piece of MDF with my table saw.

Instead of painting on the burners or cutting out circles I recycled a bunch of old cds and spray painted them black. I think we are going to double up on these for a bit more elevation.

We then painted the MDF board silver and using wood glue attached the stove top to the kitchen. I couldn’t find my clamps anywhere so I used our uber-heavy Kitchen Aid mixer instead to weigh it down. Worked like a charm.

Step 16: You may have noticed in the image above a few pegs on the side of the counter. If I had a shekel for everything I’ve purchased for our apartment over the years that ended up in a drawer or storage I’d have about 22 shekels. While going through our crap I found an old peg rack that I never installed. It was a bit too big to attach to the kitchen as is but luckily the pegs were screwed on so we were able to easy remove them. Using a spade bit I drilled four holes, squirted in a generous helping of wood glue and rotating with Ziva, held the pegs in place until they dried.

Now little Tzofi has a nice place to hang her utensils and pots and pans.

Step 17: When we painted the stove top we also painted the inside of the oven.

And that’s where the kitchen stands today. I’m pretty sure I’m done with the construction. We are trying to figure out the best way to have oven knobs that actually turn. We experimented with plastic bottle caps from our milk cartons but the screw is warping the plastic way too much.

8 plastic wheels: $6:00
MDF Board: $15.00
Metal Bowl for sink: $5.00
Shelving brackets: $5.00
Faucet and taps: $10.00
Black spray paint: $4.00
Silver paint: $6.00
Curtain rod: $2.00

Total: $53.00

Recycled materials used:
Night tables: Purchased nine years ago
Old compact discs
Peg board found in storage
Wood planks found on the street

Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part I

Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part 2
Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part 3
Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part 4

You should follow me on twitter here.

Onwards!

Step 11: You might recall that I found a think piece of wood on the street, cut it, and used it to stabilize and attach the two old Ikea night table’s together. I still had the second piece and decided it would make a great back splash for the kitchen. Using some sort of bracket I had in my trusty toolbox I attached it to the back of one of the night tables and the back of the sink.

And here is what the back splash looks like from the front.

We recently had proper closets installed in our bedroom and removed the piece of crap that was there for years. Despite my efforts, the only way the old closet was coming apart was through the wanton destruction of the thing. So I went all HULK on it. I believe I might have said “HARRY SMASH!” at one point. Good times. It was mostly MDF boards and I thought I might be able to use some of them, but they were far too damaged. Luckily the molding of the top of the closet and shelving was in decent enough shape that I saved it. I hadn’t thought about what I would use it for exactly but I figured it would come into good use at some point. And come into good use it did. Here’s what the molding looks like:

Step 12: I measured the molding and using my trusty saw cut three pieces to sit on the inseam where the back splash meets the counter and to fill in the space between the faucet and and the counter tops (formerly night tables).

While the two pieces between the faucet and the countertops were snug, I had to use a little wood filler to fill in the tiny space between the two.

So here is where we are at now. I’m not quite happy with how the molding on the countertop just ends abruptly. I didn’t permanently attach it yet because I need to figure out a solution to make it a bit more visually appealing. Perhaps with some fancy jigsaw action I’ll make a nice curve on it. Open to any and all ideas.

Total costs:

8 plastic wheels: $6:00
MDF Board: $15.00
Metal Bowl for sink: $5.00
Shelving brackets: $5.00
Faucet and taps: $10.00

Total: $41.00

Recycled materials used:
Night tables: Purchased nine years ago
Wood planks found on the street
Molding from an old closet

Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part I

Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part 2

Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part 3

You should follow me on twitter here.

We have what you call a “high maintenance” garden. Combine that with “time management issues,” one member of the household who deals with “chronic pain” (that would be me) and “not enough money to spend on a gardener to come every two weeks to weed” and you are headed for a garden disaster.

Sure, I can mow the lawn every week, it’s not a big deal, takes a relatively small amount of effort and about twenty minutes. However, we have a two different areas where we have various trees, bushes and plants surrounded by dirt. Without weeding these areas frequently, they quickly become overrun. It got to a point where we simply could not enjoy being outside and frankly, I was somewhat embarrassed for guests to see its condition.

We needed a solution. And that solution was volcanic tuff. I envisioned the two problematic areas covered with a layer of plastic to keep the weeds out and layered with copious amounts of ubiquitous reddish tuff. It’s aesthetically pleasing and I would only have to pull out the rare weed that was strong enough to break through the plastic. Luckily, the gardener I brought in for an estimate agreed with me.

I also wanted a small garden (very small) where my daughter and I could grow herbs and perhaps some vegetables.

Two weeks – and not a small sum of shekels- later , I’m happy to say my vision is now a reality. The following photos were taken over a month ago and I’m happy to say the lawn is looking greener, my lemongrass has come back to life, my orange and lemon trees have fruit and my new lime tree seems very happy in its new home.

Step 7: I measured and marked the center of the piece of wood and using several different sizes of spade bits, drilled, starting small and worked my way up until the hole was big enough to fit the faucet nice and snug.

I purchased very basic (and very cheap) faucet and taps at a local hardware store. Here’s my little munchkin modeling it for you. I told her to put it on her head.

Step 8: I then took another scrap piece of the night table leg and using the spade bit drilled holes for the taps. Both the faucet and the taps fit quite well.

Step 9: Using a strong adhesive I attached the wood holding the faucet to the piece with the taps and added another spare piece to use as the base.

Step 10: And finally, I attached the completed faucet and taps to the kitchen using the adhesive.

And there you have it. A completed sink.

8 plastic wheels: $6:00
MDF Board: $15.00
Metal Bowl for sink: $5.00
Shelving brackets: $5.00
Faucet and taps: $10.00

Total: $41.00

Recycled materials used:
Night tables: Purchased nine years ago
Wood planks found on the street

Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part I

Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part 2

You should follow me on twitter here.

Step 4: We found some nice thick treated wood planks that once belonged to a closet or something lying on the curb outside our apartment. The first piece I cut to size (using a lot of patience and my trusty jigsaw) and attached it with four brackets to the two night tables for both support and to work as a bottom shelf.

Step 5: It was now time to get the sink on. So that is exactly what I did. I got the sink on. Aw yeah. I thought this was going to be the most challenging action to get right but it proved to be much easier than I anticipated. I purchased a piece of MDF from a local store (this was one of my only purchases for the unit up until now), cut it to the proper length so it would fit nice and snug between the two night tables and had my trusty collaborator Ziva guesstimate the circumference of the sink and then drilled a hole smack in the middle of the circle. Several holes actually. I then meticulously cut out a circle in the mdf board. I purposefully cut less than I needed to for several reasons. First, I’m very inexperienced with the jigsaw and second – I only had one shot to get this right. Luckily, Ziva’s measuring skills were spot on (at least in this case) and I am apparently naturally talented when it comes to the jigsaw. After some trial and error and a lot of tweaking, I managed to get the bowl to fit in the hole nicely. The lips rest perfectly on the counter – which is now a sink.

Step 6: I firmly attached the sink (!) to the unit with brackets which brought even more stability.

I then stood back, smiled and called it a day.

Costs so far:

8 plastic wheels: $6:00
MDF Board: $15.00
Metal Bowl for sink: $5.00
Shelving brackets: $5.00

Total: $31.00

Recycled materials used:
Night tables: Purchased nine years ago
Wood planks found on the street

Next step: Figuring out how to properly attach the sink to the wood so Tzofi can’t just lift it out.

Building a DIY children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Part I

You should follow me on twitter here.

We decided the time was ripe for an upgrade and purchasing a new bedroom set and getting rid of our old Ikea night stands afforded us an opportunity to get the brain wheels churning and to design Tzofi a kick ass solid kitchen she can play with for the next few years. And one that won’t put us in debt. We also recently renovated our walk in closet space and have a few old bookshelves which are in pretty bad condition so we have even more raw materials to work with.

This is a pretty big project with many steps involved and we still aren’t 100 percent sure how it’s going to turn out. I plan on documenting this DIY project here as we move forward. Today we made major progress and I got to use my new jigsaw for the first time. I like tools. Power.

These are the night tables we are dealing with:

Step 1

The first step was to measure the legs and decide just how much we wanted to cut off. Ziva meticulously measured the height, marked it off and I sawed off the legs with much pleasure. I even wore safety goggles which was also enjoyable.

Step 2

We then attached wheels to the bottom of all of the perfectly cut legs. I figured that after all the work it’s going to be a pretty heavy unit so we wanted to be able to move it around fairly easily. Plus it added a little extra height.

Step 3

The “drawers” of the night stands open vertically. The idea is that one will be the oven and the other the refrigerator so I removed one and reattached the hinges on the side so it opens horizontally. Here’s what everything looks like right now.

The next step is to figure out how to get the sink in. I’m probably going to cut out a circle in a piece of wood and slide in a stainless steel metal bowl so the lips rest comfortable in the hole and then place this piece of wood somehow between the two night stands. We also plan on putting a shelf underneath which will be covered by a curtain (sewed by Ziva of course). We are still trying to figure it all out. There are many design elements that still need to be decided – extra shelving, knobs, burners, etc. We welcome all suggestions and advice. We are trying to use as much recycled material as possible and to keep the cost down.

What do you think about it so far?

Building a children’s play kitchen in 30 easy steps. Maybe. Part II

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Hallelujah. Now that’s a song I’ve heard hundreds and hundreds of times. Whether it be the original Cohen version or one of the numerous covers by Jeff Buckley, John Cale, Rufus Wainwright and even American Idol participant Jason Castro (horrid IMHO). Let’s just say that the emotional resonance of the song has long warn off. While it is arguably once of the greatest song of the past 30 years, for a long time now, it’s just been another song to me. However last night during Cohen’s performance as 50,000 Israelis sang along with him and he took his hat to chest and closed his eyes to take in the moment I couldn’t help but get enveloped by the strong emotions that clearly everyone in the stadium was feeling. I’ve seen hundreds of concerts in my day and it’s hard to say that I have experienced such a powerful moment during a musical performance. Cohen’s performance of Hallelujah completely transcended what I anticipated to be the pinnacle of cheese. He managed to achieve an intimacy in his performance that I didn’t think was possible in a stadium of 50,000 people.

I’m not sure what Mr. Cohen is like when he is not performing, but on stage he was full of class. During his 3 hour plus performance, Cohen often removed his signature fedora during solos by his band and granted them his full attention as a signature of both respect and awe. Clearly enamored by the incredible backing band he introduced them more than once and even brought his crew on the stage at the end to thank them and all involved with the tour.

As he was just about to step off the stage after his third encore Cohen recited Birkat Cohanim (the priestly blessing) which clearly moved the audience.

“They shall place My name upon the children of Israel, and I Myself shall bless them.”

Is anyone even still subscribing to my RSS feed? Anyone?