Chapter 92, (PG16) Tibi Tea

     “Tibi?” The familiar voice of Meir my dancing friend calling me.

 “Hey! What’s new?”

 “We could really use you. I am glad I got you here.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “Our dance group is looking for new dancers, and I know you would be a great addition.”

 “What? Folk dancing?” I sneered.

 “It is not what you think. We just got back from a tour in Germany” 

 “Nice! You know I stopped dancing the last two years. My ex-girlfriend didn’t like dancing.”

 “We were invited for another tour, but we need new dancers; Male dancers.”

 “Does the company have nice looking women?”

 “Oh yeah! You know, dancers, they are really pretty.”

 

    He lied, well, sort of, most of the girls were ok looking only one or two were pretty. But I will get back to it later. Now I needed to go and pick up my puppy, black cute Doberman. I named him Roul which in Arabic means a warlock. Avi and I decided to move to another house, the owner of the studio didn’t like pets. This time Avi came up with an idea. We would find a place that will pay for itself. His idea was to open a Tea House; a friend’s club that will serve many different types of tea. The price of a tea bag is much lower than the price of a cup of tea. So, if we sell enough tea, it will cover more than just paying the rent.

 

    We found an old stone house that was used for storage of alcohol and drinks. The house was in bad condition. One room had floor tiles missing. All the rooms needed a new fresh coat of paint the bathroom needed repair. The plumbing was clogged. But the kitchen was in good shape. The landlord made us sign an amendment in the lease stating that he is not responsible for anything happened to us if any wall or fixture breaks on us.

 

    We spent a few weeks fixing all that needed to be done. We found a used propane water heater and I installed it in our bathroom. It was noisy and kind of scarry. The water pressure triggered the valve igniting the fire that would instantly heat the water. Unfortunately, on Friday afternoons everybody in town was taking a shower before Shabbat. The water pressure wasn’t strong enough to ignite the fire. We had to shower at Mom’s. Mom and Dad bought a new apartment in a brand-new building across the street from where we used to live, where the yellow daises field was. While I was in the military a few buildings grew at that part of our street. I felt sad for the kids in our neighborhood. No more nature playground for them. Every Friday we would remind Mom to turn on the electric water heater early so we could come to shower while they were watching the weekly Friday night Arabic movie on TV. 

 

    The room with the missing floor tiles became my room. We took Mom’s old big closet and we put it on the far end to cover some of the missing tiles. We had enough space for both of our cloths. On the other end of the room, next to the door the biggest number of tiles were missing. I dug a hole under the floor and sunk an old bathtub in it. I filed the tub with water. I installed an underground aquarium filter, covered it with pebbles. The water was too cold for fish and a regular aquarium heater was not strong enough for the whole tub, so I bought a small water heating fork and connected it to a thermostat. I let it run for a few days and then bought some fish. I went to a furniture reupholster and requested the biggest bed he could make with sandwich foam. I built a platform bed for it and from a pile of huge down pillows we found in the other room we made two large duvet blankets. Mom bought a new washing machine, so I took her old one and with parts I had at Aviva’s I rebuilt it and we had a good working washing machine.

 

    Now came the project of building the tea house. The best part of that house was the phone line that came with it. 

 “Let’s call it Tibi Tea,” suggested Avi “Tibi Tea the friends meeting place, this way we don’t need to deal with license for running a restaurant or an alcohol permit. It is a Friends meeting place. We will not advertise it and it will be small but active amongst our friends.”

 

    The house had a small foyer and a very big room behind it. We converted the entrance to a reception area with a counter and hid Avi’s bed behind it. The Big room we converted to the main dining area, or should I say drinking room? We went to Tel-Aviv and found a store owned by two old ladies who made many essences of fruits for drinks. Small little buttles with different aromas. One drop in a cup of tea would change the experience of drinking that tea. We bought all kinds of herbal tea too. 

 

    From there we went to the flea market in Jaffa. We bought a few big old carpets, round fat pillows, big and small copper trays, and all shapes and colors ceramic tea pots and cups. Of course, we needed beer and soft drinks too. Not everyone loved Tea. We had to serve some kind of light food with it. The easiest part was to serve pitas with a plate of Humus or Techina. But we had to be unique we needed something that other restaurants in Netanya didn’t sell, not yet anyway. Avi had two friends from his early childhood; Yemenite twin sisters who lived at Neve Shalom. They offered to teach us how to make Mlawah.

 1 Kilo Flour

 1 TBSP of Salt 

 3 TBSP Vinegar

 1 TBSP Baking Soda

 3 TBSP Sugar

 100-gram Margarine.

  Mix the ingredients (except the margarine) with about 4 cups of water to form a soft dough. Cover with a wet towel and let it sit for an hour. Kneed again and make 10 balls of dough, cover and let sit for another hour. Flatten each ball, (better if you do it by hand instead of a rolling pin) spread margarin on it and fold to form a ball again. Freeze for two hours. Flatten again and repeat spreading the margarine and freeze until time to serve. When ready flatten again put in a hot and dry frying pan on medium heat and cover flip after 2 minutes until it turns flaky and golden brown. Serve with Crushed tomatoes mixed with hot pepper, or Techina. 

 

    The house we rented was in a private homes’ neighborhood. A short street with some old homes and some brand new. Unfortunately, the first building in the street was the tallest of this neighborhood eight floors tall, it stood like a sore thumb, it took all the water pressure every Friday afternoon. In front of it stood a new house where a woman and her three kids. One teen age boy, a nine-year-old girl and a baby boy. Dana was her name; she was very friendly and the only one who offered her help if we needed any. She was a schoolteacher but was on a motherhood leave. Her husband didn’t live with her. They were in a process of separation, as she placed it. But we all knew, the whole town knew; they were indeed in a divorce process, he was in jail. He was the infamous “Polite Rapist”. He raped many women and every time after doing so would apologize before running away. His last victim managed to take off his mask and was able to identify him. 

 “Am I expecting to be disturbed by you guys?” Asked Dana when she saw me put the new sign that I designed for the tea house.

 “Oh, I don’t think so.” This is not going to be a noisy disco. The idea is for friends to come and have a relaxed time with soft music and tea.”

 “Good!”

 “Feel free to stop by,” I offered “And you too, if you need any help let us know.”

 “Thanks!”

 

    Tibi Tea wasn’t as lucrative as we expected but it did help pay the rent and a little more. Most of our customers showed up on Friday and Saturday evening. It was almost empty on the weekdays. We needed a few more ways to attract people. Some of the Fridays were so busy we had to make people wait. We didn’t have enough tables. Or should I say trays and pillows. The Tea House had the middle eastern feel. People sat on the floor pillows.

 

    “I have an idea,” I said to Avi. “Since we signed that the owner isn’t responsible for any walls falling, we are not responsible either.”

 “What do you mean?”

 Let’s break the low wall of the balcony and open the backyard for more visitors. We could buy rattan furniture and set tables outside.” 

 “Great Idea, lucky for us we have a day job so we can afford it.” Avi stopped working for Nissim – the paper wasn’t doing well so he got a job as a truck driver for the biggest chocolate company in Israel – Elit. I loved it; he always brought all kind of chocolate for us to enjoy. 

    We needed some help setting the grounds for the tables. We had the white thin gravel delivered but we needed some manpower to spread it out. Those days when you needed manpower you could go to the crossroad next to the highway where a lot of workers from the west bank gather for part time gigs. Avi brought one of them over and I showed him to me. I instructed him to spread the gravel around and told him I wanted it flat and even. I gave him the tools he needed and left him, while I went to get him some lunch. When I returned, I found him in the front of the yard instead of the back. He was chopping down the pretty plants we just planted a few day ago.

 “What are you doing?” I asked in Arabic.

 “Weeding!” 

 “I didn’t ask you to weed. I asked you to spread the gravel.”

 “I know, but your brother did ask me to do that too.”

 “You go back and finish the gravel. I have to get a few more things, I will be back soon. Oh, and here is something for you to eat.”

 

    I left him in the back and again when I returned, he was in the front tearing down more plants.” I reached in my pocket pulled out some money and told him to disappear. He begged me to let him work and promised to be better. I couldn’t trust a word he said and just stood my ground and sent him back, not even giving him a ride. That is when he started to curse and threaten to get back at us the “Jews”.  

  

    “Did you tell the guy to weed the front yard?” I asked Avi when he came home with the pile of chocolate.

 “I told him that if he does a good job, I will ask him to come tomorrow to do the front too.”

 “Well, we will have to fix what he did in the front but first we need to do the back ourselves. I sent him away.”

 “When did you talk to your friend Efri last?” Avi asked when we started spreading the gravel in the backyard. 

 “I don’t know, a long time ago, we kind of lost contact. His wife was pregnant, and he got too busy moving to his own place too.”

 “I just saw him with his wife and new baby.”

 “Oh really? What did they have?”

 “A Baby boy, his name is Erez.”

 

    The moment we finished spreading the gravel, I called Efri and invited him to visit our tea house. We settled for the following weekend Shabat afternoon. I just bought a used Russian professional 35mm camera with a nice zoom lens and was eager to take some nice pictures of the new baby. Next to our new home was an empty lot with many wildflowers. Erez looked great sitting in the middle of the field with the flowers all around him. Even Roul behaved great. I shot some pictures of them together and was eager to develop them. Unfortunately, the next day when I left to work at Dad’s workshop, someone broke into my room through the open window ignoring the barks of the puppy, stole my camera along with the brand-new cassette recorder I had next to my bed. Poor Roul was so upset he ate two corners of the sponge bed. Lucky it was the biggest bed I ever seen so I was able to round the corners and save it. What I couldn’t save and was very sad about, were the photos I took the day before. I was wondering if the worker from the week before who came to work on our yard was the thief, but I guess I will never know.

 

    “We need to do something to bring more people during the week,” Avi said, “this way we can afford staying home during the day.”

 “Yes, Roul is still young to be watching the place.” I answered, “What about a movie night?”

 “A movie night, good idea! What about every Wednesday? But how?”

 “well, we need to get a big white sheet and hang it at the end of the yard. Your girlfriend Tali lives in Beit Herut?”

 “Yes, what about it?”

“They have a social hall, where they show movies every Tuesday. See if you can talk to the guy to show the same movie here on Wednesday.”

 “What about our neighbors?”

 “Leave it to me, I will talk with Dana.”

 

    Now that we had movie nights and busy weekends, we were able to break even and slowly the Tea house was supporting itself. Every Sunday afternoon I had a rehearsal with the Netanya Folk Dance Company and slowly learning the repertoire. Learning might be the wrong word; if you asked me what comes next or to describe the steps of the dance, I will never be able to tell you. My body leaned the dances not my head. Once the music started, I danced to the exact choreography with no problems, I was even able to change sides – left or right which could be a problem with many dancers. I guess we can call it muscles memory.

 

    My first performance was at the Park Hotel overlooking the beach. With the help of my old friend Nehemiah from Neve Shalom and my new young friend Tzvika who gave me private practice time I was ready. For the first time I felt great about being the shortest person in the group. I was paired with the smallest female dancer that just happened to be the prettiest of them, Ilana. She had black hair, blue eyes, and a slim body shaped like a Spanish guitar. The show went perfectly. Ilana and I felt like one, even the lift part of the dance was perfect.

 “Will you drive me home?” Asked Ilana as we were walking out of the hotel.

 “Sure, where do you live?”

 “Dora.” Dora was a southern section of Netanya where a lot of immigrants from Morocco lived. It was a poor neighborhood for the same reason my grandfather was poor after he made Aliyah – discrimination and nepotism. 

 “Can we stop at your place, please?” Ilana asked softly. “I need to use the bathroom.”

 “Sure!”

 “Coffee?” I asked a little loudly when she went to the bathroom.

She didn’t answer, she walked out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around her naked body.

 “Maybe after…” she said and pooled my arm toward my bedroom.

 

    “Oh my God, I forgot, my fiancé is waiting for me at home!” she exclaimed about an hour later. Can you drive me please, now?”

 “Your fiancé?” I asked as we were getting in the Sussita.

 “It’s a long story, I don’t know how I feel about him, there were some incidents, I don’t want to talk about it.”

 “OK.”

 

    As we entered the main street of Dora, I slowed down to avoid kids running in the street. We passed a few buildings and as soon as we approached a crossroad, a car came from the right, disregarding the stop sign, and rammed into the side of the Sussita. Lucky for us, and him the damage wasn’t bad, but the guy was trying to put the blame on me, but when I told him I was going to call the police to settle it down, he relaxed and gave me his papers and we left it at that.

 “Now you have a real excuse for being late,” I told Ilana as she left the car next to her home. 

 

 

***

 

Meluhiya – The Food of the Spartans

 

This is my opinion, so don’t take my word for it. I read somewhere long ago that the spartan soldiers were fed black soup or stew. The ward for salt in Hebrew is ‘melah’. The plant which we are going to use for this dish is called Maliach in Hebrew or Meluhiya in Arabic, also from the Hebrew root for salt. Therefore, comes the word salary as for the pay the warriors received, the dark green powder made from the salty plant. My mother used to force this food on us once a week. We used to dip a lot of bread to mask the strong flavor and soak the oil in the dish. We called it “the food that never ends”. Now I changed the recipe a little to fix the flavor and to lower the amount of oil and bread.

 

Ingredients:

1 TBSP Meluhiya Powder

½ Onion

1 Garlic Clove

1 tsp Chopped Ginger

1 Section Fresh Fennel

6oz Meat (Beef, Chicken or Lamb)

1 TBSP Balsamic Vinegar

1 tsp Soy Sauce

2 TBSP Olive Oil

½ tsp Paprika

½ tsp Cumin

¼ tsp Turmeric

Pinch of Salt

Pinch Cayenne Pepper

¼ Cup Chopped Parsley

¾ Cup Water

 

Preparation:

 Marinate the meat in the balsamic and soy sauce over night. Chop the onion, garlic, ginger, fennel very finely. Cut the meat and sauté it with 1 TBASP Olive oil on each side to caramelize and put a side.

In a dry deep pot start roasting the spices with the Meluhiya powder while stirring it for 30 seconds add the olive oil and sauté the onion. When the onion is caramelized add the garlic and ginger and stir well. Add the chopped fennel and continue until soft. Add the meat and the rest of the ingredients except for the Parsley. Mix well and bring to boil. Simmer for 2 hours. Add the fresh chopped parsley before serving. 

-----