Shavoa Tov and Happy Purim!

 

The month of February is over and we have charged your cards for your shopping of the month. I remind you that you receive two receipts. One is for fruits, vegetables and sprouts that are not charged VAT. The second is for the delivery fee and other dry produce for which VAT is required.

 

You can see the details of all charges if you enter your account in our site, under " דו"ח הזמנות ותשלומים". Please verify that the total sum is zero and that your account is balanced. If not, it may be that were not able to charge your card, so please contact us to sort this out.

 

Also, if you received two invoices (חשבונית מס) that are not receipts (קבלה) it means that you are paying by another method other than by credit card. In this case please contact us to clear this up in your preferred way.

 

Thank you for your cooperation. We are always under workload and are counting on you to help us. 🙂

And to Purim and the Garden and Sprouts…

This week we received more winter plants, but because the ground is still saturated and therefore difficult to work, the plants did not get planted and are still waiting in their trays…

So Friday was sunny and very warm, almost 30 degrees! I watered the plants and thought how this will be rough on the cabbages and lettuce in this weather … it also made me think "what's going on here?! Last Friday everything was covered in white snow!"

Recycle, recycle, recycle…!

 

"If this year I blessed – we'll make it to Adar. And if so far a draught – we'll see what Adar brings… " (Bedouin song from Sinai, free translation)

The meaning of the song is that rain in Adar is essential for the success of crops, mainly to protect them from the hot summer… So although we had beautiful rains this year, I'm hoping for more and that this month will be wintery, as it used to be, as in books… 🙂

And I'm requesting a big "Nahafochu" That Winter will be returned! (Sorry to all the dancers in purim)

 

This week we have for all those celebrating Purim and imagining life and other worlds … our real true family Purim story:

 

In the fall of 1678 or so (they didn’t really keep track back then) on one of his many cruises, my great-great-great grandfather and his merry band of pirates met hard and stormy times out at sea – the worst stormy days they had ever had. All pirates, even the youngest, are especially afraid of the two biggest dangers during their voyage – storms and disease!

 

Even before the arrival of the storm that almost flipped the boat, disease had started to spread. The journey was long, 4.5 moons at sea and no sign of land on the horizon, and more than half the crew spent its time in their bunks. The remaining crew suffered through their work with continuous complaining.

All of them were weak, sick and miserable, counting the days until they reach land, no matter which land.

 

One evening, after sunset, the wind began to blow. My great-great-great grandfather, Blue Scar, began to fear. These were dry western winds, the kind which the Bedouins of Sinai today accept as justification for insanity. Blue Scar woke up the healthy crew members and they fought the aggressive storm. They rolled up the sails, emptied buckets of water, helped the sick who fell out of beds… No doubt the crew functioned well as there were no injuries and the damage to the ship was minimal.

 

The next morning they woke to a bright, cloudless day and the wind was just right to send them at 60 knots to the black skulls island where they wanted to hide their treasure.

They were satisfied and hungry and the healthy ones among them went to make breakfast. When they got to the food storage rooms in the ships bottom they could not believe their eyes !! Water had entered the bottom of the ship and everything got wet. All the dry crispy grains and beans were now wet. There was no woman on the boat, so they did not understand why they had this bad luck.

 

In short, the team worked hard to evacuate the water that accumulated in the ship's hold. When they finished with the water they had no choice and began to cook a meal from the wet rice and beans, that had sprouted in the meantime. With great disgust they ate it…. After two days of eating this food, everyone felt good and healthy!! (except for Captain Morgan who drank too much rum, but he didn’t care).

 

Once it was common after several weeks at sea that the seamen began to suffer from bleeding gums, teeth loss, and bleeding into the skin, muscles and joints. It was later learned that the disease, called "Scurvy", was due to a severe shortage of vitamin C, a vitamin that does not exist in dried legumes. However, vitamin C exists in sprouted legumes by a factor of tens or hundreds of times more than in the mature plant. Vitamin C develops during germination, (like a lot of other great things) and high consumption of it immediately heals the collagen tissue affected by scurvy and the disease goes away.

 

Today in the western world, our body is regularly exposed to pollutants from food, air, water and so on. These oxidants interfere with the smooth functioning of the body. As we now know, Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant and sprouts contain large amounts of it. In fact,

germination increases the amount of many vitamins, minerals and amino acids by tens or hundreds of percent. We have many kinds of sprouts, made by us each and every weekend.

 

Have a good week and we hope to see you on Friday morning at Louisa food Artists Market in Abu Ghosh, all dressed up!

Yours,

Maggie and the garden staff

 

I expect in our weekly boxes (draft only) :

 

Carrots

 

Onion

 

Cucumbers

 

Tomatoes

 

Sweet Potatoes

 

Broccoli

 

Lettuce

 

Parsley

 

Cherry tomatoes

 

Kale

 

 

 

Larger ones also:

 

Cauliflower

 

Peppers

 

And chard

 

 

 

Fruit baskets:

 

Hermon Apples

 

Oranges

 

And Sweeties

 

 

 

Larger ones also:

 

Red Grapefruit

 

And bananas