But most ultra-orthodox, even the extremist, won't answer this like that.

Oh, I know that. There have been plenty of haredim who think that what those protesters are doing is disgusting and wrong. I liked one group of haredi women who gathered outside the school to give flowers to the girls as they arrived.

I'm really starting to think that cooking black beans from dried is not worth my time, energy, or the ginormous effing mess that results when they inevitably boil over. Grrr...

They're like 90 cents a can at TJs. So two cans plus Meatless Ground plus whatever tomatoey thing I can find on sale (by which I mean some kind of cheap diced tomato) and mushrooms/garlic plus a slew of spices (what I think of as a Moroccan mix: cinnamon, cloves, cumin, cayenne, allspice) and you've got a pot of veggie chili for about six bucks.

That's really similar to my chili recipe. Except I use Brooks chili beans and an extra can of red kidney beans, 2 cans of crushed tomatoes, faux ground beef, and spices almost exactly like your spices.

My quick chili recipe is pretty similar, except that I usually use Ro-Tel for the tomatoes, and I don't always use the fake meat -- sometimes, it's just beans, which I suppose makes it spicy bean stew rather than chili, but whatever it is, it's good.

Oh, and speaking of good foods, I tried a recipe last night that worked out really well -- polenta stuffing. Take a tube of polenta, cut it into 3/4 inch cubes, cook in a little olive oil, then add onions and celery and garlic and thyme and sage and cook a little longer. I used the pre-cut onions and celery, so it was practically no work for a really nice side dish.

oh ... your mother's cooking was like that, too?

My former sister-in-law and I never had to hear, "I wish you'd make something my mother used to cook." It wasn't that my ex's mother didn't try; she just couldn't make food that tasted good. She was a nutritionist.

Shir, I tried to paraphrase your point of view a week or so ago on Gawker or Jezebel. They had an article about how awful the Orthodox men were being, and I pointed out that someone I knew who was actually close to the conflict didn't see it like the article did. I expected to get jumped on more than I did, in actuality, but finishing off my comment by asking for Israeli opinions probably limited the number of people who were willing to say anything.

I should have kept a link. Then again, I probably totally misrepresented you, so maybe this is better.

she just couldn't make food that tasted good

My mother's mother was an institutional cook in the Depression, I think she learned methods of stretching things and making do with very little, and quantity over quality. Or she learned to hate cooking after spending years helping her mother in various work camps.

In Arizona, chili = tomatoes, onion, chili peppers (green, powder, whatever), garlic, and cilantro if you like it, cooking not necessary. All that plus beans = chili beans. All that plus meat = chili con carne. But in its essence, salsa is chili.

Oh my god. Today just SUCKS at work. Using lunch to try and regain my zen. PB and I are totally butting heads and I'm just done. We just wrestled a giant hutch down four flights of stairs. And I pulled my back again. I think everyone did.

ita, thank you for that. I appreciate the effort - it is hard to get the meaning of a spin which is so local, even in Israeli terms.

As for a useful link, you can have that: [link] - it's a Google Translate of a major media commentary site here. It's the best I can offer at the moment as it'll take me a lot of time to translate the whole piece. And please, feel free to ask me about this or anything else in Israel - all of you. I have my strong opinions (and the burning desire to throw out this government, but that's for another conversation), but I'd love to try and... well, not explain, but describe some of the things here.

Meanwhile, that scum-of-the-earth who span it - quit journalism in order to become a politician. So now, officially, it's a spin. And the thing that kills me in all of this is not that he did it on the backs of school girls - but that this spin buried a lot of important crucial stories. Like that horrid law, that passed very late last night - that I, for one, find it very hard to live with, especially after my volunteering with the Ministry of Justice's National Anti-Human Trafficking unit. Of all of the laws this government passed, this one is a new low. [link]

I'm just cranky that I'm having spring allergies, and it's freaking January.