Original subtitles

I want to eat something grilled, something special...

Do you want me to set a table for you?

I don't need a table, just laffa (bread) or something.

We are taking universal techniques.

We start from the French techniques, we study the Spanish cuisine.

But we are bringing it to our plates in our way,

and that means local products,

like goat cheese from Israel and olive oil from Israel

and local fish and local lamb.

What we find that is the best in Israel,

that's what we're going to put on the plate.

What is amazing in Israel, I think it's the only country in the world

that so many cuisines came here together.

And you have, like, more than 150 different cuisines that came.

And all of them, of course, Jewish.

And what we are trying to do here is to take those traditional Jewish dishes

and, like, play with them.

I do this every week just before we start to work at the restaurant.

In the summertime, I can find sumac,

which is a very important spice for cuisine around here.

It's acidic in a very specific way.

We can use it as a bouquet garni for stocks.

Marinate lamb with it, which is what we're going to do for this lunch.

And when you get it fresh, it's very, very different.

This is the lamb rack.

The lamb has been growing around those mountains,

and it is organic as well.

We picked the sumac, rinse it, then rub it all in and start cooking it.

On sumac.

We are going to start with a bit of cream of sweet potato.

This is steamed daikon.

Yes, of course. And leeks.

No, I brought this from the Dead Sea! No, that was a joke.

Still working on that.

Help yourself.

Here we have beautiful shrimp.

Yeah, these are all local.

This is tiger.

Sometimes things are so ingeniously made by the Creator,

we don't have to add too much.

pulao = rice

Shakshuka

My father was a fisherman in the Kinneret.

When I was a little girl, we'd go away to the Kinneret

to do fishing and to make some picnics.

So I love the Kinneret,

and to cook the fruit of the Kinneret.

And I cook just local food,

traditional Tiberianic food in my kitchen.

St. Peter's fish

We are making Palestinian food.

Yes, keves.

Just lamb.

Here in El Babor, here in the Umm al-Fahm,

it's, like, about 50-50 Arabic and 50 Jewish.

If someone says Palestinian food and Israeli food,

what do you think about that?

The food is Palestinian.

This food came before I was born, before my father was born.

These recipes are hundreds of years old.

Food makes peace.

If you come to eat with me, and if you come to learn my food,

maybe it's going to bring us all together.

That is our famous kebab.

We call that Kebab El Babor.

In 2000, there was another intifada here,

and the restaurants constantly suffered.

Even today I'm suffering.

Now, in Arab restaurants, every little political event that happens,

the Jews stop coming.

Whenever you talk about Israeli food in the world,

people immediately will start talking about the conflict.

It makes the whole thing much less marketable,

and every time you approach it, it turns into a debate.

And I truly believe that the way to resolve that debate,

or maybe to help, to negotiate, is through food.

It's really hard to be an Arabic chef

that you can shine your name over your restaurant.

It was an issue,

but I never feel it between my circle of people that I work with.

But maybe the outside market, we will see it, yeah.

Actually, the whole idea for me of cooking,

it starts from my mother's and grandmother's kitchen.

My mother is going to make for us today maqluba for dinner.

In English, that means "upside down."

We cook it with chicken, rice, and different types of vegetables.

And we just turn it upside down, and then we have it for lunch.

Thirty-two years she's been making it.

I'm thirty-three.

So I will help her with removing the chicken.

There is kurkum, there is turmeric, also cinnamon.

She's going to make it as layers.

She put the chicken in the bottom of the pot.

She don't like me to be in her kitchen a lot.

Now, Mike, this is the most dangerous and interesting part.

This is where we turn it over.

No, I prefer to do it on my own, it's better.

There was arrogance among the Jews in relation to Arab cuisine.

"What is that, anyway? The Arab kitchen is nothing."

That was the arrogance in the '60s, '70s, even the '80s.

The falafel is ours, the maqluba is ours, the hummus is ours.

What do you have? Where is it from?

Where is your maqluba from?

Where is your hummus from? From where?

Where is the kitchen that you call the Israeli kitchen? Where is it?

Let's create an Israeli kitchen together! Come!

Take those raw ingredients and make what you want.

Come! Let's join hands and work together!

We say that food brings hearts together, but you don't want to.

We try here to collaborate with Arab chefs, Palestinian chefs,

and create a new language through our food in the restaurant,

and maybe to grow from there.

But it's only the beginning, and we have a long way to go.

Probably not. No.

We are in Ein Rafa. It's a very small village.

It's about 900 people, Muslim.

One Jewish.

And we didn't marry, of course, until now.

We've lived together for 18 years.

Of course, their parents was so upset

because it's-- she has to be Muslim, I have to be Jewish.

When the children came, they said, "Okay."

That's it.

My mother told me stories about Morocco, that she lived next to Arabs.

They were best friends. And it was different.

But here, it's...

I meet Jewish all the time because we work in the hotel,

kibbutzim, Katsubah and Ketanavim

and Jerusalem, so we know what is Jewish.

So it was easy for me to meet Michal.

It's normal, not so difficult.

When I came to Jerusalem, it was after army,

in the army, and I've been all over Gaza.

I was a paramedic.

And I know Arab just at war, you know?

But I came to Jerusalem, and I started to hear the language.

And I started to work with

students from this village, and they really hug me.

It was like, you know, wow! It was different.

The first meal that I ate in this village, it was amazing.

This was the first time that I ate Arabic food.

Labneh, olive oil-- I will never forget it.

A bread that her mother, laffa that her mother made.

Tomatoes.

Melafefon-- cucumbers, that's it.

And I was like, wow.

I understood that it's supposed to be very simple and fresh.

And we need to make everything, and we need to grow everything.

Because this is the connection.

This is the difference.

It was very difficult in the beginning because when people came,

they asked, "This is an Arab restaurant?"

And I was, you know, standing like this.

"I don't know. Let's roll." You know?

And they said, "Okay, where is the hummus?"

"Where is falafel?"

"I don't have hummus, honey."

"Where is the shish kabab? Where is the hummus?"

And we always explain, "Arab food, it's not only hummus."

When they asked me, "What is your food?"

I said, "Really, really, this is me."

Where I come from, my Moroccan,

you know, my mother, what she made, what my father made,

and Yacob and his mother made.

Yes, they send us food sometimes.

You cook what you eat and you breathe and you see.

You can look on my plate

and you can taste the... what is Michal, you know?

This is what I know to do.

chraime = fish stew

dag maluach

Kugel

Dunam = 1/4 acre

Don't make the olive tree cry. Do it gently.

Do it gently.

We are in the valley of Ezuz in the Negev.

This is the orchard.

There is, like, a peach, a nectarine and plum and almond,

and there is apricot, and apple, pears--

many, many kinds, and also variety.

In the peaches, like, we have seven kind.

I'm not in the organization, but I don't give nothing.

Zero spray. Zero, zero, zero! But zero.

The stone terraces, we use the system of the Nabateans.

Ancient people used to farm here,

in a system of collecting the floodwater.

When there's a strong rain, it comes the flood.

And when you have a flood, you have a lot, a lot of water in the valleys.

They go down to the valleys.

It can be two times to six times, but it can be zero.

No, when the floodwater comes from the stairs, and then it fills it,

and it fills it up to the height of the trees, from these hills.

And when it gets to this height,

the stairs of the next one will put it to the next one, and go.

Fill one, go to the next. Fill one, go to the next.

We have seven fields like this.

The soil is a lot of clay.

Here, the land saves the water.

For one year, two years-- it's been saved.

In the season, we cover all the lines with the net.

All the fruit is this kind of taste. Very strong taste.

It's natural. You feel the natural, and you feel the love.

You can feel it. You tell me.

This is Muscat.

The taste of the fruit is more concentrated.

In the supermarket, it's big, it's beautiful, but no taste of fruit.

Here, it's not big, not beautiful, but a lot of taste of fruit.

It used to be here, Nabatean terraces in the ancient time.

Shabbat = the Sabbath

jamón = ham

I'm also from Morocco.

We grew up with Tunisians.

And in Tunisia, Friday without couscous is not Shabbat.

It's not hard, it's only a long time because it's cooked on steam.

Yes, this is the second time.

Studying. You're supposed to.

chevrah

Chickpeas, potatoes, celery.

tehina = tahini

The sesame seeds are from Ethiopia.

It's a very good kind. Its name is Humera.

It's a very sweet sesame.

Our drying is a very special kind. We dry by steam.

Yes, it's a very old-fashioned way. We dry very slow, slow motion.

acharuli

I was born in Jerusalem, lived my whole life in Jerusalem.

I love the city, I love eating in it and I love cooking in it,

so my food will be always related somehow.

As a young cook, and as a chef,

I was here all the time asking questions--

"What's that? What's that? What's the best season for this?"

And naturally, as I moved ahead in the kitchen and became a chef,

all the time, my menus were from here.

Going to the market, picking up stuff,

and then a few minutes later cooking it.

I think, let's say the vegetables and herbs are almost a hundred percent.

What's going on, Haim?

Haim is like our special vegetable guy.

Usually he gets really special stuff,

and he works with these small growers, like, small Arabic growers

that bring him stuff from the villages or from their gardens.

So you can find some really...

Yeah, organic and really special and seasonal stuff.

So let's make, like, a simple soup

for the beginning of the tasting menu.

Chop them, and then begin onions and leeks,

butter and olive oil.

It's a Turkish cheese. Taste it.

Let's make a sauce for the agnello (lamb).

Just with some milk and some vegetable stock.

Melt it down.

You don't create a kitchen from day to day,

but from generation to generation.

Now, creating a kitchen, it's not my kitchen, nor is it my mother's.

It's a kitchen created by the earth.

Whatever the earth produced, people cooked.

Now, call it an Arab kitchen, a Galilean kitchen,

a Palestinian kitchen, call it whatever you want.