Candies from Heaven

By Gil Hovav

The culinary journalist and TV personality shares colorful stories and delicious recipes from his childhood growing up in Jerusalem.

“Uncle Aron’s compliments, which hadn’t changed since the days of the Bible, didn’t sound so great. One time, he told my mother that she was ‘awesome like an army with flags.’ Another time, he informed her that ‘your nose is like the tower of Lebanon.’”

Meet the village it took to raise Gil Hovav—colourful aunts and uncles hailing from one of the most respected lineages in the Jewish world (Hovav is the great-grandson of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the reviver of the Hebrew language). This book includes twenty-two funny and heart-warming stories awash with love and longing for the people who raised one skinny and cross-eyed Jerusalemite boy to love poor-man’s food, to love proper Hebrew and, most importantly, to love people.

The nostalgic writing is dished up with more than twenty delicious family recipes with the seal of approval from Gil Hovav, the man who has played a major role in the remaking of Israeli cuisine and the transformation of Israel from a country of basic traditional foods into a “gourmet nation.” Readers get to chuckle at Hovav’s amusing recollections and salivate over his family recipes for sweet sour chorba tomato soup and his Aunt Levana’s eggplant and feta bourekas. If you’ve ever wondered how to make hilbeh or slow-cooked eggs (or if you’re simply itching to expand your culinary repertoire), this book is for you.

As wholesome and warming as a homecooked meal, Candies from Heaven will appeal to anyone who treasures good food and relationships built on love. Dig in, dear readers, pleasure is served.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781784388843

Book preview

Concerts in Zion Square

You don’t throw away bread. Or shoes either, because there’s always someone who needs them. I learned this rule from Mooma, my grandmother, and she gave me enough time to practice this: Every week, usually on Thursday, just before 1 o’clock in the afternoon, when Aisha our housekeeper was already dressing in the bathroom and preparing to head home, Mooma would inform me, Maybe we’ll go into the city today to buy something. Go to your mother’s closet and look for shoes for the poor.

I would conduct a thorough inspection of the shoes in my parents’ closet: At any given time, my mother would have more than 24 pairs of shoes, so Mooma felt completely free to thin out the collection a bit and assumed (correctly) that if we chose old shoes – that is, those at least six months old – my mother wouldn’t even notice. I had to shine the shoes I selected (What, we’ll give the beggars shoes that aren’t shined? Mooma asked. What would they think of us?!) And then I had to tie them together carefully, and not wrap them in a bag or put them in a box, just bring them to Mooma in the kitchen. I would find her there, dressed for the trip into the city, in her finest clothing: a purple suit, a simple pearl necklace, a silk kerchief on her head with pictures of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and the Mona Lisa, and of course a leather handbag, with the fragrance of 4711 cologne, where Mooma kept some small change and bundles of tissues.

Put your mother’s shoes by the door, Mooma instructed me. Go and wash those dirty hands of yours in the sink and then go and pack the bread. Mooma was busy organizing food for Aisha: a tomato, two cucumbers, one egg, a yogurt and a quarter of the freshly baked cake. This was a daily routine, and Aisha would take this food home with her.

While organizing the food, Mooma would glance toward the kitchen sink to make sure I was washing my hands properly. In the cabinet below, there’s steel wool and sand for cleaning, she roared from the cupboard. "Don’t think I don’t know that you only washed with water. Go back to the sink and wash your hands well! How your mother allows you to go around like Nawaris,¹ I can’t understand." Mooma said and groaned from the depths of her heart, and I knew that if it were up to her, she would have long ago boiled my brother Bonnie and me in a broth of soap and laundry detergent.

When my hands were clean enough, I had to present them to Mooma for inspection: She smelled them, checked for dirt under the fingernails, asked me to turn over my hands and examined them again. Finally, when she was satisfied, Mooma concluded that I was clean enough to handle the bread for the beggars. (The fact that Señor del Mundo did not give them money does not mean that He intended for them to eat bread from the dirty hands of a wagon driver like you!) Then I was assigned the task of packing.

My job was to cut two slices from yesterday’s bread, which we’d save for the birds, and then wrap the rest of the loaf in parchment paper and two rubber bands. ("But be careful with the knife kudilo.² You know that if you get hurt, heaven forbid, I’ll drop dead on the spot.) Mooma looked with satisfaction at the food for Aisha, placed in perfect order on the cupboard, and at the package for the poor, ready by the door. Then her eyes met mine and the look of satisfaction instantly vanished. Why are you standing there idle like a gravedigger at a wedding?! she scowled. You didn’t comb your hair yet? Run to the bathroom and comb your hair. If your mother were sensible, they would have cut your hair long ago and filled mattresses with it!"

Mooma was right. Of all people in the world, I received as a gift from Señor del Mundo the world’s most hideous hair, a sort of Yemenite curl, whose texture was something between steel wool and fiberglass. Combs would break and get lost in it. This wouldn’t have been so awful if I hadn’t insisted on growing it because of my pitiful belief that I’d look just like Cliff Richard if I let it grow another centimeter or two. This kept Mooma awake at nights. (What will they think of us in the city when they see that hair of yours?! You look like an aboriginal!) When I started to lose my hair at age 18, my family breathed a collective sigh of relief, and so did I. My brother also lost all of his hair when he was very young, Mooma consoled me, and then continued in an optimistic tone: You’ll become bald, and I’ll finally be able to start living, like Europe after Waterloo.

Washed, combed and a bit excited, Mooma and I went down the stairs, toward the garbage bins. Mooma sent me to bring her a jasmine flower from the climbing plant on the railing. ("There’s no home without jasmine on the stairs, oomri.³ Remember that when you build your home.) Meanwhile, she carefully placed the shoes and the bread on the stone fence, near the garbage bins, in a prominent place so that the poor could see there was something to collect. I always wanted to hide behind the bushes to see the poor come and take the offering, but Mooma would never consider allowing such a thing: Never look at a poor person when he takes something, kudilo, she instructed. Only if you give money, then look in his eyes and say thank you."

But why thank you? I asked in astonishment. I’m the one who’s giving it.

Don’t argue! Mooma scolded. How did your parents educate you that you ask questions every day?! Have you learned any answers? No? So shut up a bit and listen. When we cross Zion Square, I’ll give you a half a lira to give to the beggar who sits by the tree there. You’ll give it and say thank you, understand? That’s what we do.

Mooma continued to instruct me on the fine points of giving charity while we stood waiting for the No. 15 bus at the corner of HaGdud Ha’Ivri and HaPalmach streets. I pretended to listen and even nodded my head from time to time, but I was actually concentrating the whole time on a heartfelt prayer, begging Señor del Mundo to send a luxurious tourist bus with blue plastic seats instead of the usual clunker with the wooden seats. Sometimes Señor del Mundo even listened. (There were a few such luxury buses in Egged’s fleet, and once in a blue moon they were kind enough to stop for us.)

Usually, however, the clunker pulled up to the bus stop. It always seemed as if it was about to croak at the bus stop with a last desperate cough of the engine. The door of the long windows would fling open with a forceful blow and the driver, upon seeing Mooma, would become ecstatic. Oh, what a great honor! he would exclaim. Mrs. Ben-Avi! And who is that with you, your granddaughter?

Grandson, Mooma would reply bitterly and add: For some reason, he got it into his head that if he lets his hair grow wild, they’ll think he’s Chris Richards.

Cliff Richard! I tried to correct her, but no one was listening to me anyway. The driver was already busy berating the person who sat on the prestigious seat by the back door, which offered the most legroom. Fella! You there, by the door. Get up and move to the last seat! I told you to get up, punk! Make room for Mrs. Ben-Avi and her granddaughter!

And so we sat down on the polished and prestigious seat, and sailed along our way downtown to the Maayan Stub department store, where Mooma would look for a corset for herself and perhaps also a slip, and where I would curry favor with the old saleswomen, hoping to receive some candy from them. The trip was long and the seat, as prestigious as it might be, was uncomfortable. It had a sort of rounded and hard back, and my short legs didn’t reach the floor, which made it hard to sit still.

All that time Mooma continued to mercilessly educate me. Adio!⁴ she cried. Why don’t you sit straight? Sit up or the driver will toss you outside! Straight, I told you, straight! Raise your back! What do you think this is here, a bedroom? Don’t you have a backbone? Why are you squirming like a reptile?!

In the end, Mooma had no alternative but to embrace me with one arm and hold me tight to keep me sufficiently upright. I’d bury my head in her coat, become intoxicated from the fragrance of the 4711 and listen for the one-thousandth time to the story of the beggar who sits by the tree in Zion Square.

He wasn’t always a beggar, Mooma launched into her story. He used to be a robber. He was one of seven robbers who would sit in Zion Square and take poor Benzion’s money.

And you want me to give half a lira to that man?!

"Kudi, why don’t you listen? Wait until the end of the story and you’ll understand. Benzion, who didn’t know how to deal with money, worked at the newspaper on HaSolel Street. Once a week, when he received his salary, he would go down to Zion Square and there sat seven shoe shiners. ‘Mr. Ben-Avi!’ they called to him, ‘Mr. Ben-Avi, won’t you shine your shoes? Soon it will be Shabbat and we don’t have a fish.’ Do you understand how they robbed his money? They knew that he had received his salary, and simply ambushed him in the square. And what did Benzion do?"

What did he do?

Again you’re interrupting? Why can’t you keep quiet a bit?! I’ll tell you what he did: He would go to the first shoe shiner and ask him to polish his shoes. When the man finished, Benzion paid him. But then the second one would call Benzion and say: ‘Mr. Ben-Avi! Soon it will be Shabbat and there’s no bread for the children!’ And what did Benzion do?

What did he do?

Kudi! Mooma silenced me. Don’t interrupt the story. I’ll tell you what he did: He went to the second one and had his shoes shined again. And then the third one, and then the fourth and the fifth and the sixth, and finally, after the seventh one finished shining his shoes, there was no one with shinier shoes in all of Jerusalem, and there was no salary in Benzion’s pocket.

But why did he shine his shoes seven times, I don’t understand, I said, annoyed.

I also asked Benzion, Mooma replied. And do you know what he said?

What?

Mooma hushed me with a look that made it clear that one more interruption and she’d toss me out of the bus herself, without waiting for the driver to do so. Then she sat erect in her seat, and mimicked Benzion’s way of speaking – Benzion, the man she loved so and for whom she had given up her wealth, pedigree and comforts. "He said: ‘My dear, how can I say no to them? After all, the melody they play is the most beautiful one in the world, more than Beethoven and Mozart and I don’t know who.’

"‘What melody?’ I asked Benzion. ‘They’re shoe shiners! They don’t play concerts!’ And Benzion replied: ‘Yes they do, and how! My dear, you still don’t understand? They are poor people. Who will give them the time of day? Who will listen to what they have to say? But each shoe shiner has in his box, along with the brushes and polish and rags, a little bell that he rings after each shoe shine, announcing: ‘Now sir, you owe me some pennies.’ And to hear this bell ring, and see the joy in his eyes at that moment, as if saying: ‘Now I’ve earned my bread. I’m asking for my wages, not a handout’ – for this, it’s worth shining my shoes again and again, and once more.’

"That’s what Benzion said, and I knew that this week there would be no salary again. And I thought that perhaps my poor mother was right when she said to me under the wedding canopy 'Leutshah,⁵ it’s not too late to change your mind.’ But now it was too late and I had to go to my sister Pearla to ask if she could give me the wings of the chicken so I could feed your mother and her sister. And now, don’t waste my time with your stories. Go to the driver and tell him that we’ll get off in Zion Square. But hold on tight to the seat handles so you won’t fall and I won’t drop dead on the spot."

And so, I had to walk up to the driver in a small ritual of humiliation (humiliation, because I longed to pull the wire by the ceiling, the one that rang the bell, but my inborn dwarfism deprived me of this right) and ask him to stop at Zion Square and listen to him respond for the umpteenth time: Sure, cutie. Don’t worry. And tell Mrs. Ben-Avi that if Egged belonged to me, she’d ride free of charge for life!

Before we alighted from the bus at the small and dusty square, Mooma would open her handbag, search for a coin and place half a lira in my hand. In the square, she’d prod me toward the beggar next to the tree and say, "Come on, give it to him kudi, and say thank you nicely."

Why don’t you give him the money? I asked, and Mooma would reply: Because he already robbed me enough.

So why should we give him anything?

Kudi, Mooma would respond, "have you no mercy in your heart? After Benzion passed away, the musicians in the square lost their livelihood. Who shines their shoes these days? We have a new world. A world in which children don’t comb their hair and no one shines his shoes. No one does this now, and no one listens to their bells. The robbers went to play their tune elsewhere. Some ask for money at cemeteries, others at the main bus station. Only this one remains by the tree, and do you know what breaks my heart? He doesn’t even have a bell anymore to play his concert.

"Don’t be cruel, kudilo. Always remember: Even after I’m gone and you’ve grown up and become a successful and important man, always be the first to greet every person, and especially simple people. They need your greeting more. And don’t pass a beggar on the street without giving. Understand? It’s forbidden, kudilo, forbidden! I won’t allow it! Now, run and give him the coin, and don’t forget to say thank you."

And that’s what I did, though I had other ideas about how to use a considerable sum like half a lira: We could buy ice cream at Alaska or poppy seed cake at Kapulsky or eat falafel, or buy two Galkor lemon popsicles that you could only buy at Zion Square – but Mooma had budgeted only half a lira for the outing, and we already spent this on the concert. What’s more, if I had only dared to ask her to buy me a falafel, she would have shuddered: Didn’t that mother of yours tell you that only a dog would eat in the street?!

So, half a lira for the concert and then the purse was locked. I had to suffice with the candies from the saleswomen in Maayan Stub, who always told Mooma that her granddaughter was charming, even if a bit short in stature.

In the evening, back at home, Mooma prepared us a quick meal of Moroccan hot and sour chicken and rice. That’s what she used to make when Benzion was listening to the concerts in Zion Square, and she had to produce a meal from wings charitably provided by Aunt Pearla. Now, since we could afford it, Mooma prepared this simple and quick dish from chicken breast. While waiting for the sauce to boil, Mooma sent me to wash my hands with Syntabon soap – and wash your face too, please. I don’t understand why your mother doesn’t insist that you do that more often. I don’t want to eat my meal across from the face of a horse groomer.

Properly washed and smelling like laundry soap, I returned to the kitchen and sat at the yellow Formica table to eat our poor man’s dinner. But I had yet to receive my full measure of reprimands for the day: Why are you sitting there like a prince, can you explain to me? Mooma asked, turning to me while standing at the stove, her back hiding the pot of chicken. It was clear that no food would reach the table before I placed a sufficient explanation on it.

I washed with Syntabon, I answered. Here, smell. And I thought we were going to eat, no?

How can we eat before you give bread to the birds on the balcony?!

Berated and ashamed, I went to carry out the daily chore I had forgotten: collecting the old pieces of bread from the breadbox, moistening them a bit, crumbling and carefully placing them on the stone railing of the kitchen balcony. By the time I returned, Mooma had already set the table and motioned to me to sit down. She served me a heaping plate of white rice, with chunks of chicken piled on the side in red and sour sauce. And then, before we ate, she kissed my head and repeated her three rules one more time, flicking another finger for good measure as she listed each one: "Remember what you learned today, kudilo. Always remember: You do not eat before the servant has eaten. You do not eat before the poor person and the beggar have eaten. You do not eat before the birds on the balcony have eaten!"

I try to follow these rules to this very day, and when I collect old scraps from the breadbox, I lovingly and gratefully recall the concerts in Zion Square and Mooma’s old pieces of bread. And sometimes I also remember that happy child, who sat at the yellow Formica table and knew that the world was perfect: The housekeeper had a cake, the poor person had shoes, the beggar had half a lira, the birds had bread – and I had Mooma.

¹ Nawaris are Arab gypsies, held in low esteem by the mainstream population.

² Mooma always called me by this Ladino term of endearment, akin to sweetheart.

³ My darling (literally my life in Arabic).

⁴ Good gracious (literally my God) in Ladino.

⁵ Little Leah.

Moroccan Chicken in Paprika and Lemon

When you make this dish with chicken breasts (skinless and boneless, but not pounded like schnitzel), the meat comes out a bit dry. That’s okay. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. If you like juicier meat, you can use wings and drumsticks, but cook it longer.

Ingredients:

1 cup chicken soup (made from soup powder)

juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp sweet paprika

1⁄2 tsp hot paprika

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 chicken breasts, cut into pieces the width of 2 fingers

cooked rice, for serving

1. Place all of the ingredients – except for the chicken– in a pot. Stir well and bring to a boil.

2. Put the chunks of chicken into the pot, stir and return to a boil.

3. Lower the flame, cover and cook for 20 minutes.

4. Serve with rice.

Broadcasting Live from the Bukharim Neighborhood

It’s nice that you wrote a book about the family, Aunt Reumah told me one day in an encouraging tone. But then she added, It’s just a shame that you wrote nonsense. First of all, I wasn’t insulted. Reumah is a particularly strong-willed aunt, with a firm opinion about everything and in particular, as she would say, about the written word, which she regarded as supremely important. So, if I wasn’t precise about some detail, it was definitely a justified reason to grumble. And if I also insisted on publishing this, all the more so.

You wrote, Reumah continued, that it wasn’t logical that the Arabs fired at us in the Bukharim neighborhood when we’d run from the apartment (or more precisely, from the nook in which we lived) to the kitchen and bathroom in the courtyard.

It’s true, I was happy to confirm, because if the house was built like a wall or at least like a fence around a courtyard, and the shared kitchen and bathroom were in the middle of the courtyard, how could they snipe at you?

Oh, Gili, Gili, sighed Reumah and pet my bald pate, just as she used to pet my head when I still had hair. You really don’t understand. The truth is, when it comes to the army and shooting,