Getting “back” to normal… On baking in Israel.
Decorating challahs with kids makes me feel "normal," like we're at home, no matter where we happen to be living... We are starting to get into a bit of a routine, but things are still difficult. I don’t know; the ingredients are all the same, for the most part, but a lot of what I bake just doesn’t turn out “normal.” I had a few weeks of making lemon bars that were just awful, like practically inedible. Part of the problem is the pan size – you can’t get 8 x 8 or pie pans here, so you have to adapt recipes or they will turn out wrong. The lemon bars, for instance – I was making them in a bigger pan and it just didn’t work. They were too thin and overbaked. Last week, I hauled out my one 8x8 pan, which is dairy, and made the whole lemon bars dairy just so I could use the pan. (Well, they were pareve, but used dairy things for cutting and squeezing and grating and mixing the lemons.) Other things just taste weird, or disappointing. I made blueberry buns a f