The Jerusalem artichoke has nothing to do with the artichoke family or with the holy city of Jerusalem. How then did it earn its name?

The Jerusalem artichoke has no relatives in the artichoke family but is actually a member of the sunflower family. “Girasole”, the Italian word for sunflower, sounds like Jerusalem, and that’s what first created the mix-up.

In Israel it is a very popular vegetable and is the star of the fabulous markets during its short limited season. In the winter you will find it starring also on the menus of the high-end restaurants of Tel Aviv, usually as a soup or a puree side dish. Many times, I make roasted antipasti from it or use it with other root vegetables for slow-cooking meaty stews.

Still, I believe that its unique flavors and texture are most sensed in the form of golden smooth soup. When it comes out particularly good, you can sense the sharp aromatic flavor of a fresh earthy soil. This one below is a simple and flavorful soup. It’s easy to prepare and adds a beautiful golden color to your day.

In NYC, there is one charming Italian-style wine bar in the West Village that serves an amazing version of this desired soup. When it’s rainy outside, it’s your sign to go to “INO” and forget about the rest…

Aromatic Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2  Jerusalem Artichoke, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
• 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 leek (white part only), chopped
• 3 fresh thyme sprigs
• Nutmeg
• 1-2 spoons heavy cream
• salt and white pepper

Method:

1. Heat better in large pot and sauté the leeks until translucent.
2. Add the garlic, Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes cubes and sauté for a few minute.
3. Add the stock and the thyme sprigs and bring to boil.
4. Season with salt, white pepper and nutmeg and cover the pot.
5. Cook over a low heat until the artichokes are very tender (approximately 45 minutes).
6. Take out the thyme sprigs and let it set for a few minutes.
7. Using a hand food processor, puree the soup.
8. Bring to boil, add the cream, taste and adjust seasoning.
9. Bake in a preheated 400° oven for 15-20 min till the florets get nicely golden.

Serve with:

Parmesan croutons and a chilled glass of dry white wine.

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In today’s world of unsafe investments, should you just hold on to your money? If you wait about 1,900 years, that shekel in your pocket could accrue quite the interest. A bronze coin minted during the Bar Kokhba Rebellion netted an astonishing $83,375 at a recent ancient and world coins auction.

Struck in 133/134 C.E., this Judea coin holds tremendous historical value. Featuring an inscription reading “Shimon” on one side, and “Year two of the freedom of Israel” on the reverse, it celebrates the battle against the Roman Empire, and the creation of an independent state of Judea. Lasting only two and a half years, Judea, led by Simon Bar Kokhba would be the last sovereign Jewish state until the modern era.

Coins of the time were usually struck over Roman coins, with a file used to remove any designs. While the original Roman markings may be visible on lesser coins, on this specific artifact the superior shape and quality helped its owner to receive the astounding price.

If you try doing the math for dummies on this investment, this coin has an average interest of more than 4000% per year. Assuming you wish to find such a coin in today’s Israel, you better think twice. Israeli law has declared all antiquities found after 1979 the property of the State of Israel.

We thank world coin news for this story.

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Photo: Getty Images

While army life is usually synonymous with grease and dust, in Israel, the army is also known as the test lab for some of the world’s most high tech innovations. Paraphrasing on the prophet Isaiah: ” they shall beat their swords into stock options”.

In the past years,  the technologies used for transferring classified information, transmitting coded conversations and tracking movements of soldiers; has been stripped of its uniform and implemented in our day-to-day lives. From locating a stolen car to sending a secure online payment.

A perfect example of a company that started off in an Israeli army base is Given Imaging, whose founders used a miniature sensor designed for IDF fighter jets, to create a camera smaller than an advil. Doctors now use the PillCam to relay images in real time from a patient’s intestines, revolutionizing gastrointestinal diagnosis, not to mention eliminating complex procedures.

One of the people trying to crack the code of the Israeli start ups are, Dan Senor and Saul Singer, authors of “Start up Nation- the Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle”. In an article published in Newsweek, they explore the Israeli army as a boot camp for Israel’s future entrepreneurs.

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Yes, we’re aware that “I’ll be back to curb carbon emissions” and “Terminating climate change” are a bit of a cliché, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has landed in Israel to do just that.

In a meeting with the Israeli Minister of trade, Benjamin Ben- Eliezer, the two signed a cooperation agreement intended to promote Israeli-U.S clean tech R&D. According to the agreement, both parties will work to foster recent scientific breakthroughs, and assist entrepreneurs working in the environmental sector. Prior to this meeting Gov. Schwarzenegger joined congressman, Henry Waxman and electric car prophet, Shai Agassi, for a conversation on the politics of climate change.

Given California’s track record as one of the world’s clean tech hubs. Israeli entrepreneurs hope, that this agreement will do to Israeli clean tech what California’s Silicon Valley did ten years ago to the computer information sector. One of the early birds of this cooperation can be seen in a California clean tech mission, that visited Israel a couple of months ago. The mission organized by the California- Israel Chamber of Commerce, was comprised of venture capital and investors, seeking to turn green dollars to green profits, by investing in Israeli start ups.

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Israeli Consul General, Asaf Shariv congratulates Foreman on his win

After 12 rounds in Las Vegas, Yuri Foreman, the 29 year old Israeli boxer, can now finally add the following title to his business card- World Champion.

Yuri Foreman was born in Belarus and lives in Brooklyn, but after he was declared champ the first thing he did was wrap an Israeli flag around himself: ” I’m Israeli, my best years were there, my family is there and my heart is there”, he said in an interview to Isrealli, ” This is why I’m dedicating this title to my family and my people in Israel”.

In order to understand the anomaly that is Yuri Foreman, one must see him out of the ring. As soon as he leaves the ropes, he dons on his yarmulke and goes back to the Yeshiva where he studies to become a Rabbi: ” People think that if you’re a boxer you can’t be anything else, that is just a mistaken stereotype we have to smash. When I’m in the ring 70% of my effort goes to my brain not my hands, this is why studies and an education are so important”.

Watch the full interview with Yuri Foreman.

By the way, the sunglasses are a reminder that fists can bruise, so don’t try this at home.

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Fresh peppers and eggplants

“Memulaim” is the Hebrew word for stuffed vegetables. As a group the Memulaim have a place of honor in the melting pot of the Israeli cuisine. There are many versions of this beautiful dish, which immigrated to Israel from different origins: Balkans, Turkish,  Greek, Eastern European, Bulgarian and others.  The other reason they are so favored, comes from the endless different variety of vegetables you can stuff, and the many delicious options of mixture you can fill them with. You can use peppers of all colors, eggplants, onions, tomatoes, zucchinis, beets, grape leaves and so on.

I personally recommend to start your stuffing career with peppers, since their hollow shape is very easy to empty and stuff.
In the recipe below I used both peppers and eggplants.

Here are some basic rules that you should keep in mind:

First of all, make sure to pick the freshest vegetables available. They should also be relatively small and firm to ensure the right proportions  between the meat and the vegetable.

Secondly, when you fill the vegetable with the meaty mixture, try not to squeeze it in, so that the stuffing remains light. Also, since the rice and ground that in the mixture will expand during the cooking process, one must make sure to leave some extra room in their “vegetable house”.

In the following recipe I use lamb meat, since it perfectly matches the rich flavor of the eggplant. As always, you can be creative and change the ingredients according to your to your own taste

Memulaim

Ingredients

6 peppers
3 small and long eggplants – very light and firm with shiny smooth skin.
coarse salt

The Stuffing
1 pound freshly lamb or veal- ground finely
3 spoons round rice
Half a cup fresh parsley – finely chopped
2 tomatoes, grated
2 spoons bread crumbs
3 spoons corn oil
A little chili powder
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

The Sauce
2.2 pound cherry tomatoes – or – whole peeled tomatoes from a can (organic)
2 spoons tomato paste
Half a cup olive oil
1 red pepper, chopped
1 green hot pepper, chopped
1 spoon sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Preparing the vegetables for stuffing:

The peppers:
1. Using a sharp knife, cut the wide base of the peppers (where the stem is) till it almost completely cut off ( like a lid)
2. Remove from the inside membrane and seeds.
The eggplants:
1. Use a vegetable peeler to make inch wide stripes along the eggplants.
2. Cut the eggplants in half and take out the content of each half so you remain with two “cup” shaped eggplants.
3. Salt the eggplants and put them aside for 15 minutes.
4. Wash the eggplants and dry them.

The Stuffing

Place the ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir them with your hands into a consistent mixture.

Stuffing the Vegetables

Fill the peppers and the eggplants with the mixture until you’re about  1/4  inch from the edge. Make sure you don’t compress the stuffing.

The Sauce & rest of preparation

1. Heat a very large pot with olive oil.
2. Add all the sauce ingredients, bring to boil and cook for about 15 minutes.
3. Carefully place the stuffed vegetables in the pot in one layer.
4. Let it simmer for 40 minutes, till they are soft.
5. Heat the oven to 355 Fahrenheit.
6. Transfer the vegetables to a baking dish in one layer.
7. Pour the sauce over the vegetables and place in the oven for 40 minutes till the vegetables are nicely browned.

Stuffed Peppers and Eggplants

BE-TE-A-VON!

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To most of us, deafness is a disability. But to the Bedouin people of El- Sayed in the south of Israel, it’s a culture.

For over 200 years, the people of the village of El-Sayed have lived their lives as a closed community. Today, this form of life has turned El-Sayed to the village with the largest population of deaf people in the world.

Today, medical advancements can help these people regain their hearing. But is it truly a better life for them?

Director Oded Adomi-Leshem followed the people of El-Sayed, as the first child of the village crossed over from the world of silence to the world of the hearing. The result is a touching documentary called The Voices of El-Sayed.

If you wish to see more than just this trailer, the film will be screened this Sunday, November 15, 2009, at the Museum of Natural History in New York, as a part of the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival.

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Photo: Getty Images

Why is it that mom’s laundry always smells better? What is it in perfume that reminds us of a pleasant, distant memory? These are just some of the questions scientists at the Weizmann Institute’s “smell lab” in Israel are trying to figure out.

Throughout the years, everyone from artists to psychologists have tried to figure out the associations certain smells create in our minds. And until now, the most common answer to this phenomenon relates to the introductory event we have with that smell.

If, for instance, my girlfriend wore ginger-scented perfume when we met, I would likely associate the smell to that romantic evening three years ago. Meanwhile, another person may relate the smell of ginger to a horrible dish her mother used to make.

While this answer would suffice for most of us, researchers Yaara Yeshuroun and Prof. Noam Sobel believe there is more to be uncovered. In order to see if our common sense actually fits a scientific explanation, Ms. Yeshouroun hooked up a group of test subjects to an fMRI machine and started recording their brain waves, as they were presented with a variety of smells both pleasant and unpleasant. To make it even more complicated, each smell was matched with either a pleasant or unpleasant picture.

After doing this a number of times, the test group was sent home, only to be called back again for a questioning on the memories they had from the previous session. In that session, the scientists found that after one week, even if the subject recalled both odors equally, the first association revealed a distinctive pattern of brain activity. The effect was seen whether the smell was pleasant or unpleasant.

The pattern was so profound, it enabled the scientists to predict which associations would be remembered just by looking at the brain activity within these regions following the initial exposure. The scientists could look at the fMRI data on the first day of the experiment and predict which associations would come up a week later.

To see if other sensory experiences might share this tendency, the scientists repeated the entire experiment using sounds rather than smells. They found that sounds did not arouse a similar distinctive first-time pattern of activity. In other words, these results were specific to the sense of smell.

“For some reason, the first association with smell gets etched into memory,” says Prof. Sobel, “and this phenomenon allowed us to predict what would be remembered one week later based on brain activity alone.”

Although this prediction gives a somewhat cold and objective account to a phenomena we usually prefer more obscure, Yarra Yeshuroun argues that it doesn’t take away from the magic: “Childhood olfactory memories may be special not because childhood is special, but simply because those years may be the first time we associate something with an odor,” she says. “But since it is our first exposure to those smells, for us it will always remain unique.”

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What is it the factor that has made Israel one of the world’s largest incubators of technology? How did Israeli companies make it to the 2nd place on the NASDAQ traded companies? and what can the U.S economy learn from it all?

The answers to these questions and more will be discussed tonight at the 92nd St. Y by Dan Senor, Co-author of the new book “Start Up Nation”- Israel’s Dynamic Economic Model. Mr. Senor will be joined by two prominent Israeli entrepreneurs:

Tal Keinan- Former Lieutenant Colonel, Israeli Air Force; Founder & CEO, KCPS & Company, an Israeli asset management firm.

Jon Medved - Serial Israeli entrepreneur; Founder & CEO of Vringo, a leader in mobile video ringtone sharing; Co-Founder, Israel Seed Partners, an Israeli venture capital fund.

The people of the 92nd Y have been kind enough to offer Isrealli readers a 50% discount on tickets. To claim your discount type in the code SUNA into the promotion box.

Stay tuned for more offers and events,

Isrealli team

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Photo: Wikimedia

We’re pleased to announce the winners of the Idan Raichel Quiz! We’d like to thank all the respondents who took part in the questionnaire, as well as the hundreds who have taken an interest in the upcoming show. And the winners are:

• Tom Ballingall
• Donna Divon
• Issac Nuell

Congratulations, and thank you all for participating! See you at the show. Sincerely, the Isrealli team

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