The inspiration behind CookinIsrael
We love food! The heady scent of mint and basil, the fulfilling comfort of just-baked bread, the salt-kissed tang of fish straight from the sea, the sweet pleasure of crispy-cold watermelon on a summer's day...
Food nourishes and intertwines body, heart and soul. It's the ultimate source of health and well-being. It's a marvelous meeting-point between culture and geography, tradition and innovation. In a nutshell, food is the energy of life.
We believe that one of the best ways to get to know a place and the people who live there is through its food. The kitchen opens the door to the home, the family, to lifestyle and customs, to traditions and memories, to history and politics.
We want to reveal to you the heart and soul of Israel, to showcase the wondrous bounty of dew-fresh produce with biblical roots, to explore the myriad cultural influences in this marvelous melting-pot, to experience the authentic Israel by getting to know Israelis and what they eat. To give you knowledge, recipes and great memories to take home with you.
So we put together this hands-on culinary tour, a delicious journey of discovery that brings you the very essence of what Israel is all about.
We urge you to come and taste the real Israel with our cooking vacations!
Orly and Ayelet
Orly Ziv is a clinical nutritionist. Born in Tel Aviv, she discovered as a child that she loved being in the kitchen and has been cooking (and especially baking) joyfully ever since. She holds a B.Sc. in clinical nutrition from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Before turning her talents to cooking holidays in Israel, she developed a successful career as a “nutritionists' nutritionist” working with Israeli dietitians – organizing conferences, editing an online nutrition magazine and more. Orly's work combines her great love of food with her strong emphasis on healthy eating, Mediterranean-style (she herself has been a vegetarian for more than two decades).
Orly lives just north of Tel Aviv with her husband and three children, two of whom also love to cook. As she likes to put it: “On our culinary tour of Israel, you'll meet warm people who love food and the earth. Good, honest food creates a bond between people that enriches our soul and our spirit.”
Ayelet Barak, our culinary advisor, is a chef and social worker who is developing ways to use cooking as a therapy method. She is nearing completion of her master's degree in Social Work at Tel Aviv University, where she earned her BSW. Always a keen cook and avid food lover, she received her chef's diploma from Tadmor, Israel's premier culinary institute, and then apprenticed and worked at the acclaimed Artichoke restaurant in Tel Aviv. Ayelet's unique and very popular cooking workshops attract everyone from high-tech executives to cancer patients and children with special needs.
Her experiences on her travels throughout the world fueled her interest in running Cooking vacations in Israel; as she says, “One of the best ways to meet people, genuine and unmediated, is through food … I invite you to meet Israelis from all over, to get to know them from the inside, to get into their pots and pans and their souls, and simply to fall in love!”
|
 (200 x 300).jpg)
(237)[1].jpg)