Chapter 50, Luzata

Mom used to makes a special Tunisian Juice. Mom didn’t have an extencive menu, most of what she cooked I didn’t really like. But this juice was something good. It was made from an ingredient that takes time to collect, sometimes years. The juice is called “Luzata”, and it is made from bitter almonds. Not just bitter almonds, you can buy at the stores. This was made from the seeds of the apricot. The season of the apricot fruit is very short. A month or two at the beginning of the summer. Mom would buy maybe a kilo or two per week. After eating them we would break the very hard shells with a hammer and collect the almonds that are hidden inside. There for it would take about a year or even three to collect enough almonds to make one bottle of concentrated juice.

When we returned to school from the Passover vacation, we found right next to the spot where we park our bikes, a thick and long pole laying on two metal legs and another pole leaning toward it. It was a balancing pole. At 10:00 AM the long break, Moshe Kotler the vice principal stood in front of us. 

“Now that we finished our daily calisthenics, I Have an important message for you. The game “Big Donkey” is banned all over the country. It is too dangerous, many kids were hurt, were paralyzed or even died. You may continue play “little donkey” under supervision, but no more “big donkey”. This is why we added this balancing beam for you to play with.”

None of us said a word. We were all dumb founded. 

Little donkey was a game we mostly played at gym classes when one kid will bend over with his hand on his knees. And the rest of the kids will jump over him with the help of our hands pressing on the kid’s back, one kid at a time. The last kid in the row will then bend over and we will start over again. Now, “big donkey” was a little different; We would break into two groups, one group will be the “donkey” and the other will be the jumpers. The donkey group would line up one behind the other against the wall and bend over forming the long donkey. The jumpers would jump on top of the donkey and pile up as many kids as they can. If the donkey collapses that group will lose. If any of the jumpers falls, the donkey wins.

“I hate that!” Said Yossi.

“Yeah, that is no fun,” said Yaakov Bloom, what are we going to do on that balancing beam?”

“Walk on it,” Ariella Lanski jumped in.

“And then what? Asked Sarah Mimon.

“Jump off,” Ariella answered.

“We could see who lasts the longest on the beam,” I suggested.

“You’d be the first to fall, Tzutzik!” I heard someone yells.

“Big Shot,” I answered, “let’s see you try.”

Big Israel from the sixth grade stepped out and walked toward the balancing beam.

“After you,” he bowed down and pointed toward the beam, “After you, tzutzik!”

I had no problem walking on the beam, it was an old thick electric pole. I got to the center and turned around. Big Israel tried to climb up and his weight took over him, he lost balance and fell before he even managed to get to the top. Everyone was laughing as he was trying again and again. The poor guy kept falling off and at the last time he fell right with the pole in between his legs.

“Let me try,” Bentzi called and pushed big Israel aside. He managed to climb up and walked toward me. He extended his arms toward me, lost balance and fell off. I am not sure why I was able to stay on, maybe the fact that I was small for my age and closer to the ground. I was able to keep balance for the whole break period. They came up one after the other and all fell off before or just as they reached me. This was getting boring.

The next day we tried it again for the first few breaks but by the time the long break was over we were thinking of the seasonal game; “Gogoim”, apricots pits. This was a simple game, in fact two games. One was called “Closer to the Wall” and the other was “Pit in a Can”.  Both games were games played with coins, but the coins gaming was not permitted. The ideas were simple; A bunch of kids would stand in a line and throw the apricot pits toward the wall. The one who gets closer to the wall wins and he gets to keep all the pits. The other game was a little different, the kids would line up and throw the pits toward the can. The kid who would get the pit in the can would collect the rest of the missing pits. I was better in playing the closer to the wall part and was able to collect a few “gogoim”. I had to find a way to win more gogoim. Watching the “Pit in Can” game one more time gave me an idea. When I went home I looked for my new shoe box and made a few holes in the cover, each hole a different size. Next to each hole I wrote a number. On the big hole I wrote the number 2. On the smaller one 5, and the smallest one 10. I asked Avi to loan me his stash of gogoim and collected all of mine. I took the box with me to school the next morning and on the first break I placed it on the floor in the corridor and announced: “New Game! If you throw the gogo into any of the holes you get back the number that is next to the hole.” In very short time I was collecting apricots pits more than I could dream of. The next day I brought an extra bag for the pits and by the time the season was over I had so many pits that my Mom was able to make 4 bottles of the concentrated juice. Unfortunately, my fingers weren’t so happy, many times I missed the pit while striking it with the hammer, I had bruises to testify. 

 

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Rice and Peas

 

So many different rice grains are in the market. The one I like for this dish is Basmati rice. It reminds me the Indian dish called Biryanis but without the meat or the nuts. I learned the recipe from a Hungarian friend of mine.

 

Ingredients:

1 Cup Basmati Rice

2 Cups Water

½ Cup Pigeon Peas (fresh or frozen)

½ Red Onion 

2 Garlic Cloves 

1 tsp Salt

½ Bell Pepper

2 TBSP Olive Oil

 

Preparation:

 Cook rice with the salt in the 2 cups of water, bring to boil, cover, and lower the heat to simmer. Check after about 20 minutes to see if the water disappeared. You should see holes in the rice where steams came out. Cook the Peas for 20 minutes and drain the water. Cut strips of red onion. Crush and mince the garlic. Chop the pepper. Fry the onion until lightly brown. Add the garlic and a minute later add the pepper and keep frying until the pepper is soft. Mix all with the rice and peas and serve.

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