FOREWORD

As I climb the four flights of stairs up to Adeena Sussman’s light-filled apartment a few blocks from the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv, I get a feeling that I’m hard-pressed to reproduce anywhere else. It starts with her hug, warmer and more genuine than most (although her husband Jay’s isn’t too shabby, either), and seems to presage the irrepressible hospitality that awaits. The smell of freshly baked bread begins a few floors down and leads directly to her kitchen, where the island countertop seems perpetually laden with a bounty of tasty delights. All the senses are engaged.

On a recent visit, there were perfect Persian cucumbers no bigger than my finger, sliced lengthwise and sitting beside a dish of coarse sea salt and a wedge of lemon. There was a pitcher of ice-cold fresh almond milk, scented with vanilla and sweetened with silan—a treat to drink by itself or mixed with the cardamom–scented cold brew coffee sitting next to it. Beside that was a carafe of freshly squeezed mixed citrus juice—whatever was lying around, she said.

This is an understatement on two counts. First, it’s winter in Israel, and a riot of oranges and grapefruits and pomelos are practically bursting out of their skins at the market. And second, there’s nothing effortless about Adeena’s cooking. She only makes it look that way.

The location of her apartment is also no accident. When Adeena permanently relocated to Israel a few years ago (she was raised in Northern California but has traveled to Israel extensively her entire adult life), the Shuk HaCarmel loomed large in her decision about where to live.

There ought to be a word for the Instagram envy I feel watching her feed, which is like a technicolor flipbook through the seasons. She is on a first-name basis with her fishmonger, and knows where to get the absolute best strawberries during their season. She has a coffee guy and a butcher and a spice guy. The market is practically an ingredient in her cooking—a style that prioritizes pristine produce and simplicity over luxury ingredients and fussiness, earnest technique over shortcuts or fancy tricks. In fact, the lengths to which Adeena goes to blanket her guests in hospitality is an integral part of what makes her food sing. The love you take is equal to the love you make.

This is evident in the bread that sits on the counter, taunting me. She was up until midnight the night before getting it ready for the oven. Now it is hiding inside a lidded aluminum tin (like the ones Danish butter cookies mysteriously appear in every holiday season). This is kubaneh, the Yemenite Sabbath bread that bakes overnight so that the butter and flour slowly caramelize into something wheatier and yeastier and richer than it has a right to be. It is a dish that gives definition to the landscape of Israeli food—born in poverty, brought to the country by Yemenite immigrants, and embraced by Israelis of all backgrounds.

Adeena removes the cover and flips the kubaneh out onto a platter, followed by a chorus of oohs and aahs. We discuss the importance of hand-grating the tomatoes for resek (a classic kubaneh accompaniment) and how the eggs in their shells nestled in the dough turn creamy from the slow, overnight bake. My eyes widen with joy (and a bit of pain) while devouring a hunk of kubaneh slathered with her homemade schug, the fiery green Yemenite chili paste. And all the while I keep asking myself, how does she do it? How does she make the most incredible kubaneh? How does she turn everything she touches into gold?

Well, now we know. The pages of this book ooze with her passion for the romance and beauty of Israeli cuisine. The recipes are soulful, elemental, and stunningly delicious. Her aesthetic jumps off the pages in the way she coaxes beauty out of simplicity. This is not just a cookbook. It is a study in the alchemy of converting the ordinary into the extraordinary.

In some ways, Adeena and I are opposites. I was born in Israel but grew up in the States. She was raised in the States but chose to make Israel her home. But we have both devoted our professional lives to exploring the wonderfully complex and constantly evolving nature of Israeli cuisine. I do it in our restaurants and Adeena does it for the home cook. She is Israeli by choice, and in that I think she has a unique perspective on what is special about this culture and this cuisine.

I wish that all of you could score an invite to Adeena’s apartment in Tel Aviv and bask in the sun-drenched warmth of her food and company. This book is not a hug from Adeena Sussman. But it might as well be.

—Michael Solomonov with Steven Cook