It’s 1:30 pm on Tuesday. I think it’s Tuesday. Anyway, it’s definitely 1:30 pm because the computer tells me so.
We finally moved in to our new apartment. Sort of. We had slowly been hauling suitcases here (in our little Hyundai rental car) and got the keys on Sunday. The kids’ beds were delivered yesterday. They came with mattresses, and since they are trundle beds: 2 beds + 2 trundles = 4 mattresses = good enough for Kate.
So, in sum, we have about 10 suitcases worth of clothes, shoes, cosmetic-y things and other crap; two beds and random linens; and a computer and stolen internet. No chairs, tables, bookcases, lamps, or desks to be found. Also no appliances but we hope to resolve that by 6pm. We also have what we’ve bought over the past 24 hours, in between the kids beating each other senseless in the car: new Pyrex dishes, drying racks for dishes and clothes, broom and things for shtifa, non-perishable pantry supplies.
Life without a fridge is rough. Those people profiled in the NY Times for “going green/roughing it/getting their 15 minutes”? Are crazy. And must not have small children. This morning I went for a run and then bought a liter of milk. Which we then had to finish within an hour or so. Everyone had Cheerios with milk for breakfast. Only one bowl a piece, which disappointed me–today of all days!
(Conversation I just had with Miss M: “Can I have applesauce?” “Sorry, no, not until we get our fridge. If we open the jar and don’t put it away it will spoil.” “What else can I have?” “You can have a pear or a banana.” “What else is there? What’s in that cabinet?” “Rice. Pasta. Lentils. Tomato paste. Coffee and tea.” “But what else can I have?” “A PEAR OR A BANANA.” “Oh. I guess I want a banana. NO WAIT! I want a pear.”)
Speaking of Cheerios, they are expensive. I mean, probably about what you’d pay in the US for Cheerios if you bought them at a regular grocery store. But I didn’t. My children eat them every single day. If I knock myself out one morning and make French toast for breakfast, then they eat Cheerios for snack. So I bought them at Costco or, in a pinch, I bought Joe’s Os for half the price of Cheerios. But Israel is not terribly into cereal, or at least healthful cereal that’s not bran flakes. (I have standards!) There are a lot of sweetened things in that grocery aisle. I am confounded; what do Israelis give their babies to snack on? Heh. Bamba. Yet another reason I will never totally integrate.
So! The best price I’ve found so far for Cheerios is NIS [New Israeli Shekel] 17.80, which is nearly 4 1/2 dollars, for 395 grams. But whoa unto me if I run out and have to get them at the closest grocery store: NIS 23! $6! Gah!
More grocery fun is to be had in the dairy aisle. Israelis are into their dairy. There is very little in the way of low fat or fat free offerings. I think you might be able to get 0.5% fat cottage cheese, but everyone will snicker at you a little; 3% is the lowest any normal human would buy, and my sister-in-law buys 9%, which, let’s face it, tastes better. There are approximately 400 different types of yogurt in all sorts of interesting flavors: plum, cherry, pineapple, passionfruit, tropical fruit (this is above and beyond the flavors I consider in line with the typical American diet: strawberry, peach, coffee, plain, mixed berry, raspberry).
What I cannot seem to find is just a plain old cup of vanilla yogurt. (Yesterday I mistakenly bought vanilla pudding.)
Miss M, the finicky pickle, has short term love affairs with yogurt flavors that burn white and hot for approximately two days. Then she reverts to only liking vanilla. So naturally, I would like to find some. I have, but it comes with chocolate bits! In their own section of the yogurt package! And then you MIX them together! And it’s awesome! And Miss M would eat this until it comes out of her ears! But here’s the thing. Yogurt (unless it’s “white,” i.e., plain) is sweetened as it is, and I have no intention of letting her add candy to it. Candy is a sometimes food, that you earn by behaving during boring shopping trips and not pinching your brother in the car and being a good listener and following directions. I am so not giving in to yogurt + candy for lunch or snack, because then I couldn’t give ice pops for after-dinner treats and THEN what would I threaten the children with all day long?
So you see my dilemma.
Although I know Gila buys this, because Miss M ate it at her house. Perhaps Gila is in need of a 5 year old and would like to experience gan chova (kindergarten) for a second year in a row? No? (Under normal circumstances I would offer to trade for Ariella, but she sounds like she asks even more questions than Miss M, and my sleeping is not currently up to snuff. Foam mattress + tile floor = crank city.)
By nightfall tomorrow we should have appliances and our 640 cubic feet of stuff from the boat. And I will no longer be able to say, “No, sorry, I can’t cut an apple for you. All the knives are on the boat.” Let the unpacking saga begin!
this is why a friend of mine started making her own yogurt when they made aliyah. all her israeli friends kind of laugh at her until she reminds them she is an american and if she eats all that sugary hight fat food they eat she will no longer fit on the bus.
I’ve given up on prepared cereal long ago. We go through it too fast. There’s lots of lowfat and 0% yogurt here, though.
cereal = problematic. i have severely lowered my standards when it comes to what constitutes “healthy cereal.” i have also paskened that the low-fat yogurt aspect of candy yogurt cancels out the candy factor. here, too, i have severely lowered my standards.
tell miss m she’s invited any time.
I bet the people in Israel with their minimal low fat options are healthier than here in the U.S. I think it was Michael Pollan who said that the process or chemicals used to remove the fat from dairy products are more harmul than just leaving the fat in, and I believe it. Still hard for me to buy the full fat milk and yogurt though…
Strauss “Cremy” yogurt (in a purplish container) has a vanilla flavor.
Even with “higher” fat percentages, Israeli cottage cheese is way way better than the American low fat junk, because it doesn’t have all the extra thickeners and additives. And really, even 3 percent is 97% fat free, if you want to think of it that way.
Don’t get me started on the cereal. For some reason, when we first arrived, there were no Cheerios to be found. I can’t have sugar cereals, so I resorted to little bits of cardboard passing as bran flakes. Morey’s all over the sugar stuff, though. Finally, finally! sof sof, Rami Levi brought in Cheerios for 17-something, and I’m golden. $4-something is what we paid at the “cheap” store in Canada, so I’m good with that.
Listen, do you need chairs? We have folding chairs that I’m happy to lend you until your lift arrives. Although, it sounds like your lift is arriving tomorow?
You could do what my parents did when they made aliya and didn’t have a fridge for months–buy an insulated cooler and those blue ice things (or use frozen water bottles), and make friends with neighbors who have a freezer. If you keep it mostly shut, you can get away with switching the frozen blue ice or water bottles twice a day–once in the morning and once at night. It’s definitely good enough for keeping hard cheese okay, and it would probably be fine for applesauce and yogurt, too, since I don’t think those need to be quite as refrigerated as milk or cottage cheese.
The thing that I miss the most from Israel is all of the delicious goat and sheep cheeses. (Better for lactose intolerant people like me than anything made out of cow’s milk.)
I am following your saga the way I imagine the old East Coast pioneers followed the travels of Lewis & Clark out West. You are blazing trails I can’t even imagine. And plus? Your life sounds kind of pioneer-y right now. I’d have already run away from home. You are a brave woman.
I’m just immensely impressed at your family moving to another country. I think back to when I studied abroad in Italy, but it’s not the same at all. We had a furnished apartment we rented, and we were college kids with few responsibilities. To move your whole family and need to buy everything, along with figuring out the money, language, bureaucracy, etc? I think you are my hero!
I always say I would love to move to Italy to live, but it will never happen. So I can romantize. You have to figure out how to live it. With children! Please blog it all! I want to hear how everything goes! And I hope you get through it with minimal breakdowns.
I’m with Shana and caramama – I get so psyched when a new entry pops up in my reader. Sending hugs.
Congratulations on making aliyah! As you spend more time in the grocery stores and become more familiar with the products, you will see that you *can* buy 0% fat plain yogurt. And there are many, many more types and varieties of dairy products than you ever had available in the US, even in the NY area. It’s just a matter of time and familiarity and yes, checking out other supermarket chains because the price variations can be several NIS for the same exact item. I live outside Yerushalayim, and our Rami Levi store carries plain Cheerios for NIS 15. Still probably more than you used to pay, but cheaper than the prices you quoted above.
Again, mazal tov on your arrival and good luck.
-Rocky, a long-time lurker and an 11 year veteran of living in Israel
just to update you on the vanilla yogurt situation:
It seems Strauss isn’t selling that vanilla yogurt anymore, but I saw that Yoplait and Muller (the brand that has the “Froop” version, with the fruit on top, that’s very god) has a Bianco line that also has a vanilla flavor.
They also sell a coconut flavor, if you’re into that.
Yeah – we never had cereal for breakfast, usually bread and cheese, or boiled eggs – cereals are a treat for when you’re sick…. now that I’m paying the grocery bill, I see why.
On the yogurt, and again reverting to my parents’ solutions: if a kid got picky, they could have plain yogurt with their choice of jam stirred in.
And the answer to a standard, easy, cheap Israeli snack – petit buerre biscuits. not exactly health food, but highly portable. and even the crumbs are received and eaten.
Try the 1.5% yogurt in the red and white package that has “matok” as part of the name. It’s not quite vanilla, but it’s sweeter than the “natural” and my kids seem to be pretty happy w/ it. As a treat, I let them mix a couple chocolate chips into it.
That yogurt in the red and white container is Danona bio, I think. I think the thing that tells you that it’s sweet is in blue letters. I once accidentally bought it instead of the plain (unsweetened) kind, and it was great! (I buy the plain, unsweetened because it’s healthier.) Very similar to vanilla, I think. 3.05 NIS per slightly-larger-than-the-smallest container at SuperSol Deal in Jerusalem.
If you ever buy goat yogurt, let me warn you that it is VERY sour. Much more sour than unsweetned cow’s milk yogurt. Inedible without some honey (for me).
[…] getting through the week has been trying. Every morning there is cereal and milk for breakfast, as usual. Most of the “serving suggestions” on her chart, however, are for Israeli tastes. […]