We picked out an actual *recipe* – yes, Noah & Jonathan, it was from the Hip Kosher cookbook – to use. It was chicken with dates, honey, and almonds. Your mouth should already be watering. I gravitated toward this recipe because I happen to adore dates. The fact that it had an entire onion and two cloves of garlic made Lori appreciate it, so we decided to give it a try.

You see, it became very evident, within our first week or so of living together, that we have incredibly different tastes when it comes to food. My cuisine often tends toward the sweeter things in life, like fruit, honey, oatmeal, and dried items. Lori, on the other hand, needs and enjoys heartier fare, like beans, lentils, whole grains, vegetables, and meat. I’m a meat-lover, too, but on a smaller scale. That’s another thing: Lori eats more than four times the amount I usually do. WHOA. So, whereas I can have an apple for lunch and be perfectly satisfied and not hungry for another six or seven hours, Lori needs a lot more than that, and it usually includes hummus, pita, eggs, vegetables, and the occasional helping of meat.

A lot of people warned me about the culture shock of living Israel. A *foreign country*. Different social interaction, different ways of life, etc. Perhaps because I heard this so much, I was totally prepared for the culture shock. So much so, that it didn’t really shock me. I was ready for it, and I embraced it – how different from America, and how cool is that?! However, my culture shock came through living with Lori. And I’m not saying that in a negative way. Lori is just not a Squicciarini, and I’ve only ever lived with Squicciarinis! Obviously, I knew it would be different; I just didn’t know what to expect. I feel as though, over this past week or so, we’ve finally bonded. We have always gotten along just fine, but there were the awkward moments, or the times when you could tell the other person wanted to say something and wasn’t, or when we stepped on each other’s toes. Now, I feel a degree of comfortability and freedom, which – baruch HaShem – is a beautiful blessing. I love the depth of our everyday conversation, I love the way Lori has many strengths, especially in areas where I am weak. I hope to enhance my own character through her.

Anyway, back to the delicious dinner of last night. I mention it because we commented on how the sauce – composed of dates, honey, onion, garlic, and just about every spice in our cabinet – was the perfect blend of both of our personalities and tastes. The sweet and the savory, coming together in magnificent harmony. It not only looked and smelled good, it was one of the tastiest meals we’ve cooked yet. I’d love to think of it as a picture of our life here, together.

First at 6pm, Ronnie Fein introduces us to Hip Kosher–the burgeoning movement that liberates kosher cuisine from the moribund stereotype of gray meat cooked to the consistency of shoe leather and replaces it with easy-to-prepare recipes that would fit in nicely on any FoodNetwork show. Want an example? How about Lamb Chops with Charmoula Pesto? Or Pepper Crusted Bluefish with Horseradish Yogurt Sauce? Crisped Gilboa Cheese Panini with Fig Jam? You don’t have to be kosher or even Jewish to get your taste buds jumping at the mere description.

Also tonight at 7:30 pm, is Ariel Sabar’s widely heralded My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq. In this amazing family history, Sabar traces his father’s journey from his small village in Iraqi Kurdistan, where he was the last boy bar-mitzvahed to his new home in Israel, to his unlikely role as the premier scholar on Aramaic in the world, first at Yale and later at UCLA. Woven into this amazing life, is the story of one thoroughly American son’s quest to understand his roots and by proxy, his enigmatic father. His journey takes us from the skate parks of Southern California to post-Saddam Iraq and back again. This is a book people will be talking about for a long time.