Where the wild fruits are sold

Before watching the World Cup last night, Ari and I decided to explore Mahane Yehuda (the shuk down the street). Since we both live a stone's throw (rather, a drive and chip shot) away from there, we have an understanding of the physical geography of the shuk. I wouldn't say that I know the area like the back of my hand, but I still know it very well.

So what is there to explore?

As well as we know the shuk with our sense of direction, our taste buds are often lost. Whenever we walk through the shuk there is a type of fruit or vegetable that I pass that I think to myself "I have never seen that before" or "I walk by that everyday, I wonder how it tastes." Last night, Ari and I took a walk on the wild side.

The one rule: If you have never eaten it before, you need to buy it.

It was getting late, so the selection was not as impressive as it would have been earlier in the day but there is nothing we could do. We scoured the area and found four types of fruit that neither of us were very familiar with (frutis only, vegetables maybe for a different day).

The four species included: Liche, green plum, sabra (or cactus), and kiwi on steroids.


We walked back to Ari's yeshiva, washed them, said the shehechiyanu (the prayer you say when you eat a fruit for the first time), and gave our taste buds a chance to experience something new.

After extensive tasting, Ian and Ari came to the same conclsuions.

1. Kiwi on steroids

Per Ari's recommendation, I now believe that kiwi is not meant to be peeled. The fruit was so big and so delicious. There was an explosion of flavor with every bite (almost like the Shmooze cholent in the Iron Blech competion, except this one fnished first). It took me forty minutes to finish half of it, just because I wanted to savor the flavor.


2. Liches

On the outside, it looks like a spiky, painful fruit. On the inside, it is a soft, juicy, lovable fruit with a hard pit in the center. Just proving that you can judge a fruit by its shell or a book by its cover. Overall a positive experience, and I can see myself buying a crate of them in the future.


3. Green plums

Because of my experience with plums in the past, this fruit was handicapped from the start. But because I had never eaten a green plum before, it qualified for the competition. If I had never eaten a plum before in my life (what a shanda that would be), the plum would be near the top of this list.


4. Sabra

This prickly pear cactus tastes like a combination of honeydew and cucumber. But it is the effort that it requires to get to the inside that led to this fruit's demise in the competition. Ari complained all night long about pricks getting in his hand. The proper way to handle this in the future would be to peel the fruit with a knife and hold it with either gloves or a plastic bag. Or you can be a soldier and tough it out.


The game!! The Game!! Ian, I think he said "that's game."

For the first time since the 1994 World Cup (Brazil won at the Rose Bowl), the champion was decided by penalty kicks. I watched, along with more than a billion other people at the Italians, who are in the midst of a massive match fixing scandal that could ruin the credibility of the domestic league, defeated a the French, who nobody seriously wanted to win.

I went to Safra Square (City Hall in Jerusalem) where they set up a massive projection screen, and hundreds of people turned out to watch. There are four flag poles at the entrance to the massive square. Last night, an Israeli, Italian, French, and Jerusalem flag waved in the air (bad light = no picture of it).



(Look, I found another Ari)

If someone insults you in the 115th minute of the last game of your international career, which also happens to the be the World Cup final, what do you do? (I can really only think of two ways to react in that scenario)

a) Play on as if nothing happened because the result is more important than your pride for those few seconds.
b) Run a few steps in front of the player that insulted you so that you can get a running start to headbutt him in the chest.

If you are Zinidine Zidane, you would choose the latter. If you are the rest of humanity, the former.

I don't know if H. Jose, my co-worker at the Daily wrote his column before the game about how there is no limit to the stupidity of professional atheltes, but this would be another perfect example.