Last week, I happened to spot this item in our Israeli kids’ magazine. Don’t worry, I’ll translate it down below.   Wallah? Amazing fact of the week In all kinds of places all over the world, they sell a food called “Israeli couscous,” which actually has no connection with couscous. It’s actually just פתיתים / petitim, which are indeed an Israeli invention from the 1950s. And we say to the world: Wait ‘till you discover the amazing thing we call Bissli Grill (BBQ flavour)! Of course, it’s not quite true that there’s NO connection with couscous. Both couscous and Israeli couscous (petitim, which just means “flakes”) are made from semolina flour and water. It’s just a matter of what you do with it from that point. The production process for “real” couscous involves adding water to the semolina flour, rolling it around (traditionally with your fingers, but these days, by machine), then run it through a sieve to get pieces of the right size. It ends...

I keep forgetting to write about this and I SHOULDN'T, because this is a very cool product that I’m excited to tell you about. I actually bought this on impulse and didn't expect to like it so much, but I really believe it offers an interesting solution for some people (not everybody). Do you adore getting your hands into a fresh, powdery batch of dough?  If so, maybe this post isn't for you.  This post is for people who LOVE fresh bread, but HATE getting flour on their hands.  You know – like this: (if that picture, with all those floury fingers, makes you uncomfortable, you NEED to read on!) Powdery textures usually make me nuts (sand!!!), although for some reason, I'm okay with flour and bread-making.  But I have known a few people who are totally NOT okay with it, and for them, this product might be ideal. So… what is it? It's a silicone dough bag !  I saw these a while ago, first on Amazon and then on AliExpress, my preferred get-things-ch...

So you made bread.  Good for you! Now what do you do with those ooky, ooky fingers?  Try one of these three magic tricks to get your hands sparkly again in no time. 1)  Get scraping Grab your trusty bench scraper .  It doesn’t have to be fancy, but I haven’t found any other tool that works as well.  Now, just like you’re stripping paint from the wall, gently SCRAAAAAAAPE the dough together.  Off your palms, the backs of your hands, between your fingers, wherever it’s stuck.  Once you have most of the dough loosened, you can rub that around your hands to get the rest off.  Don’t throw it away.  Just ball it up and toss it in wherever the rest of your dough is rising.  2)  Fight flour with flour

So the one thing that apparently never changes is – I forgot to take pictures of the finished matzah.  Some years, I do; others, I just get so distracted and carried away by that point in the festivities that… well, I don’t. (previous years’ Matzah Bake posts:  5773 , 5772 , 5771 , 5770 (just us, no friends)) Like everything this year, it was both weird and bittersweet.  I’ll be honest:  I don’t like kids that much.  I mean, before you slam the browser shut, you should know up front:  I LOVE baking with kids.  But I don’t like kids that aren’t mine, even the nicest ones, and all my closest friends know it. So when I invite “kids” over for matzah baking… yeah, there is the element of having fun and playing with dough.  But you can be sure it’s also my main “social thing” for the day / week and perhaps year.  Here, apparently nobody gets that.  Instead, we got two kids we kind of know, bigger boys than I’ve baked with before (but th...