The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OUT OF ISRAEL
Chefs have a way with fresh vegetables
When Kameel Srouji remembers his mother’s cooking, his mind travels back in time, to the garden she kept outside their home in Nazareth, Israel. As he tells me this, he stirs eggplant and tomatoes, all the while keeping an eye on customers queuing up for the fresh, vibrant, Mediterranean-style cooking that has made his Aviva by Kameel restaurants so popular with Atlantans.
“This is the recipe from my mama,” he says. “When I was a little boy, believe it or not, my mom grew her eggplant — and jalapenos and mint and parsley and lemons and apples. She would make jam with the apples.”
Faik Usman, the chef-owner of Cafe Raik in Duluth, remembers his family raising tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, okra, peppers and herbs at their home in Galilee. His grandmother was a wedding caterer, famous for her stuffed cabbage and zucchini, her fried eggplant and fried cauliflower. Usman soaked up his love of delicious veggies from her.
From Tel Aviv to Atlanta, I’ve yet to encounter an Israeli chef who didn’t have an affinity for farm-fresh produce: tomatoes and cucumbers, cauliflower and cabbage, pomegranates and figs.
During a 2019 trip to Israel, the bounty of agriculture was on view nearly everywhere I ventured, from the sprawling markets of Old Jerusalem to the elegant restaurants of modern Tel Aviv. In salads and meze, in pickles and preserves, in stews and kebabs, in this complicated melting-pot cuisine with Asian, African and European influences, you can taste the terroir of ancient soil.
Hummus and falafel are everything to me, and I can never turn down a kebab of ground lamb or beef, seasoned with herbs and spices, nor a fresh-caught Mediterranean fish grilled on a fire and seasoned with little more than salt and lemon. But the most astonishing discovery I made in Israel may have been the veggies.
As it turned out, my journey coincided with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, when most businesses, including restaurants, close shop for two days. Thank goodness for the complimentary holiday apple cake at my Tel Aviv hotel, and the neighborhood convenience store, where I stocked up on chips and snacks.
And, then, on the night I was to fly home, I wandered into Santa Katarina, a stylish restaurant situated in the Great Synagogue’s courtyard, just as the sun was going down to end the holiday.
What caught my eye on the menu? A platter of grilled vegetables: green beans, okra, cauliflower, onions, tomatoes and sweet potatoes, well charred, sweet-tasting, simple yet otherworldly. Once back home, I couldn’t stop thinking about the remarkable food and agriculture of Israel.
After Shay Lavi took over
Nur Kitchen on Buford Highway this year, I began to notice his seductive Instagram posts of vegetables coming from the restaurant’s scorching-hot brick oven.
“I want to be able to sustain my restaurant upon farmers entirely,” the Israel native told me in June, “and actually make a relationship that will be so good that they can grow stuff for us, and collaborate with us.” Since then, Lavi has been making good on his vision, working with Atlanta Harvest and Local Lands farms to supply him with justpicked pattypans and zucchinis, cucumbers and tomatoes, “all sorts of herbs,” plus berries, peaches, figs and watermelons.
When I stopped by Nur on a recent Sunday so Lavi could share some recipes for this story, he cooked okra in a sauce made with cherry tomatoes and made a bulgur pilaf with local purple hulls.
It was then that I had an a-ha moment. Though Lavi’s creations were made with Mediterranean flair, they reminded me of the vegetables I grew up eating all summer on my family’s South Georgia farm. We had more tomatoes, okra and field peas than we knew what to do with.
No wonder I feel such a powerful connection with the small-farm culture of Israel, and with vegetable dishes prepared by Israeli-born chefs in the city I call home.