Chocolate Ganache & Ceramics.

So yesterday, we woke up and headed to my grandparent's house. After having breakfast, a nap, and lunch, Adi and I took Noga and Saar to the mall. Within 10 minutes of leaving the house we had 2 crying/screaming girls and had to pull over to solve all the issues. After being pulled over for about 10 minutes, we began to journey again. We got lost for a bit then eventually found the Shivat Hakokhavim Canyon (translation: Seven Stars Mall). Unfortunately we got off at the wrong floor from the elevator because the toy shop was right there, so of course the girls ran straight for it. After being in there for about 20 minutes or so, we finally got them out and were able to walk around a few shops before they started closing (it was Friday, so they close around 3:30/4 pm for Shabbot.) So after we went back to my grandparent's house and had a huge Shabbot dinner and were there for the rest of the night with family. At night I went home with Cohavit and Avi and spent the night at their house.

In the morning, Avi and I went to the market to buy some ingredients for cheesecake and some things for breakfast. Let me tell you about the markets here: 1. It costs 5 ₪ (shekels) to use a grocery cart and 2. You have to bag your own groceries. So to put it in other words, we're spoiled in America with our free carts and grocery baggers. So after we went back and had breakfast, Cohavit and I started to make a cheesecake. So I'm sure everyone knows that the USA has it's own system of measurement (the Imperial system according to Wikipedia) and everyone else uses the Metric System (or SI "system international"), so converting Paula Deen's NY Cheesecake recipe to SI was a bit time consuming but we finally got it. But then we started messing up the recipe...7 teaspoons instead of 7 tablespoons and then just eyeing it based on the texture, dark chocolate instead of milk, 1/4 cup melted butter instead of solid, etc. So, when we took out the cheesecake from the oven, let it cool a bit and pour the ganache on it and put it in the fridge, we weren't sure about how it would taste but we figured "eh, why not see how it goes?" So after making the cheesecake, I got to work in Coco's (our family nickname for Cohavit) ceramic studio which is in the upstairs flat of their condo. First she made a bowl just to show me the technique, then she let me go at it. It was a lot of fun and ultimately I made a small bowl. After it dried for a bit, I got to paint a small design and left it there. She has to put it in the kiln, glaze it, and put it back in the kiln. My dad is going back to Israel in a few weeks for the 30 day anniversary of my grandmother's passing, so he'll take it back home for me. So after lunch and a quick nap, we headed over to my grandparent's house. At my grandparent's house, we hung out for a bit before dinner, the kids playing, me and Noga (Cohavit and Avi's youngest daughter) played on the ipad for a bit and the adults talked. In Israel, a lot of parents put their kids in English classes since it's an important language to learn, so I got a video of Noga repeating the numbers from 1-20 after me. It was cute. Definitely will post it later. So after dinner, I was a bit bored/tired so I went and laid down and before I knew it my dad was waking me up to tell me that I was leaving. So Dana and Eli drove Giti and I home (Adi had work from 2am-10am during the day, so she was at home sleeping) and then they came up and we hung out and had a late night snack of sushi. It was good, definitely different than what we have back at home.

Tomorrow we're going to the cemetery to observe the end of the 1 week of mourning. After, some of us are heading to Jerusalem, so I'm pretty excited to go (even though I've been there before.)

I'm surprised I've been updating so much, but I really like remembering every detail of my trip, so this is the best way to do it plus share it with everyone. Anyway, have a good night!