Since it’s finally achrei hachagim, I am settling down to do a series on my favorite foodies. Some are bloggers, some not. Some I know personally, some not. But all have something about their cooking that I admire and have learned from.
Today’s featured foodie is Mimi of the Israeli Kitchen food blog. I love how Mimi combines her love of wholesome food, food history, and Israeli food and culture into her posts. Here is what she had to say:
Please introduce yourself in a few sentences.
I’m Mimi of the Israeli Kitchen food blog. I’m American/Israeli, married, religiously observant, mother of four, and blissful grandmother of three. What I like to do is make food from the most basic scratch, then write about it. For this, I sometimes get paid.
From whom did you learn to cook? (If not from a person, how?)
I learned cooking from my mother, who is an light-handed home cook with a fine palate.
In what style do you cook predominantly (e.g. Mediterranean, Jewish, Asian)?
Hard to answer that one, because I’ve lived in many countries and absorbed something of each cuisine. Foods like American apple pie with a flaky crust – or Brazilian fish baked in coconut milk- or Middle Eastern majadra, take turns on my table regularly. I guess you could say that I predominantly cook garlic. On a recent visit to the States, my siblings thought the amounts of garlic I used up were hilarious.
What dietary guidelines do you observe (kashrut, vegetarian, vegan, Paleolithic diet)?
I keep kosher and avoid sugar.
What are your favorite foods? What food aversions do you have?
I love peasant foods like black beans, a crisp-skinned, juicy roasted chicken seasoned with herbs (and garlic). And bread, all kinds of breads, although nowadays I limit the amount I eat for the sake of my health. Good, green olive oil – fresh local vegetables – and fresh fish. Lamb, in season, is a treat.
Aversions? For some reason, I lost the taste for beef years ago. I dislike nutmeg and anything in the liquorice/anise tribe, although a friend converted me to fennel roasted in a little olive oil. I have political issues with foods made from genetically-modified sources: soy, canola, corn. Highly processed foods or chemical-laden edibles like “pareve dairy” are abhorrent.
What is your relationship to your kitchen, to food, to cooking?
Nourishing family and guests fulfills me deeply. It’s that ancient equation, food and love. There is also a mystical aspect: I believe that food is an expression of G-d’s relationship to His creation. But from a purely selfish point of view, cooking is an absorbing creative process for me. I might eat my lunch alone, but I’ll cook it with care because the food is worth it.
As far as my kitchen, it’s small, but I manage to fill it up with equipment, cookbooks, jars full of fruit macerating in vodka, bins overflowing with spices, honeys, vinegars, oils… I spend a lot of time in my kitchen and want to have the exact wooden spoon or spice at hand when I need it.
It makes me happy to work on projects that start from the ground up, like home-curing olives. If I could grow my own olives and press the oil myself, I believe I’d be even happier.
What do you think cooking and food say about identity?
In spite of my preference for local cuisine wherever I’m living, I understand the real need people have to continue eating foods from their home countries, their own cultures. It goes deeper than enjoying particular flavors; it’s Mom and Dad and the grandparents and friends. It’s group memories and how you see yourself in that context.
On another note, I find it interesting that folks get judgmental about others who eat differently than they do. I think that it has something to do with identity. Like: if you eat (or don’t eat) foods other than what I consider normal, I can’t identify with you. You’re possibly not worth getting to know. A narrow-minded point of view, but many people have it and aren’t conscious of it.
Please share one of your favorite recipes, either from a blog post or from your own repertoire.
Sure. Here’s my recipe for haricot beans with Mediterranean seasonings.
Thank you!
You’re welcome. I enjoyed answering these questions. Thank you.
Mimi’s is one of my favorite food blogs and I also like what she writes for Green Prophet. Some of her recipes have become classics here at Ilana-Davita’s.
I share her distate for genetically-modified foods which I avoid like the plague.
“Brazilian fish baked in coconut milk”, Mimi this sounds great, is it on your blog?
Thank you for interviewing me, Shimshonit. I enjoyed answering the questions. When are we going to hear a little more about you?
Ilana-Davita, thanks for the kind words. Yes, the recipe for fish in coconut milk is on Israeli Kitchen. I cook it when I get a fit of nostalgia for that Afro-Brazilian taste.
Ilana-Davita: I agree—that Brazilian fish in coconut milk does sound amazing.
Mimi: Thank you for your thoughtful, beautifully written answers. I plan to answer my own questions and post them at the end of the series.
Yum, I’m looking up Mimi’s haricot beans. Personally, I love her fish soup. Oh, and then there’s the inspirational oatmeal bread…
“juicy roasted chicken seasoned with herbs” – uh, oh, another one that sounds SO tasty!
[…] post is the second is a series about my favorite home cooks. (Click here to read the first.) Today’s favorite foodie is Leora, whose beautiful photos and paintings […]
Thanks, Mimi and Shimshonit, for giving us a glimpse of Mimi’s kitchen. I never thought about how people are judgmental about food–but we–present company excluded– are about everything else so why not food?
[…] the third in a series. If you haven’t had a chance yet, go back and read my interviews with Mimi and […]
[…] in a series of interviews with some of my favorite home cooks. (Read my previous interviews with Mimi, Leora, and Batya.) Ilana-Davita has been one of my favorite bloggers for some time. She and I […]
[…] This is the fifth in a series of posts on my favorite home cooks. (Read previous interviews with Mimi, Leora, Batya, and […]