Happy New Year and Israeli Egg Production!

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope 2011 is a great year and start to the decade for everyone. I'm expecting 2011 to be a fun, interesting, and successful year for Savor Israel.

To get the year started off I have a short blog post about egg production in Israel. Most people, including myself, take it for granted that there will be eggs in the grocery store and I don't put in much thought about the process that goes in to their production. That's not the case for the Poultry Farmer's Association which institutes yearly quotas on the number of eggs that can be produced. Egg production, apparently, is not a profitable industry, so strict quotes are imposed. Interestingly, 2011 will the be the first year that Arab egg producers will receive part of the quota. Their portion will amount to be around 6 million eggs per year, determined by a complex system that gives quota priorities to communities in outlying areas. Check out the whole article here.

Happy New Year from Savor Israel!

Update: It turns out that Liz, who writes the Cafe Liz blog, and guides for Savor Israel, did some research and translated for this article.

Happy New Year and Israeli Egg Production!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating. Clearly, Christmas is not a big deal in Israel, and even more so in Tel Aviv. I thought about going to Bethlehem or Nazareth this year, and I hope to one year. There would be some great Christmas food too, middle eastern style.

I wanted to share two food articles I've come across recently. The first article is on a petition to ban the govt. policy that all official foreign guests of the govt. can only be taken to kosher restaurants. I was not even aware of the policy before reading this, and whole heartedly agree that there's no need for such a law. Thanks to Elaine for sending the article.

The second article was on a reporter's quest to witness the butchering of a sheep in Yafo on the recent Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha, the Festival of the Sacrifice. The holiday and the ritual slaughtering of the sheep commemorates Abraham/Ibrahim's decision not to sacrifice his son Isaac/Ishmail, but rather kill a lamb/ram after being directed to do so by God at the last moment. The article was very well written and goes into fairly graphic detail about the killing of the sheep by one family in Yafo.

Have a great Christmas and Happy New Year too!

Savor Israel
www.savorisrael.com

Merry Christmas!