The word for world is forest

These are days to try your soul. You went from worry, to sorrow, to fear, to rage mixed with sorrow and then you went numb, until the fear came again.

You keep everything charged- your cellphone, your computer- just in case. There's bottled water in the hallway, cat food too. You keep as many of the doors as you can closed, keeping the windows out of sight, as if a plank of wood would do much help would they shatter inward- who knows- maybe it would. Sleep in pants, not shorts, just in case. Take short, perfunctory showers. Be prepared.

Your first instinct is to deny, deny, deny. But you know it is true. You know it can happen. People are people. Hate is hate. You open Facebook and all you see are the us and them, the propaganda, the provocation. It feels like a toxic cesspool, to be honest. Nothing can grow here. Despite our geographical proximity, we have so few opportunities to stand face to face and look each other in the eye.

"You don't have to call me every time there's a siren in Tel Aviv," your sister says. "I've checked in on Whatsapp." "I know," you say, and you do, but you want to hear her voice, exasperated as it is. You go about your day as normally as you can: job searches, work, cooking with friends. Others are much braver than you. They go out, they socialize, the travel far distances. Not you. You prefer to stay close to home if you can, to be in a place where at least you have plan of action. You can't always though. "Listen," you tell the cat as you're leaving the house, "if there's a siren, go into the hallway, stay away from the windows." She just flicks her ear at you and goes back to watching the birds. She can be so stupid sometimes.

Your heart-rate speeds up every time you hear the high whine of a motorcycle passing by. It's a strange way of going about your life. You water the plants. You show your neighbor where the public shelter is. One minute you are crouched in the hallway, waiting to hear the tell-tale boom that means a rocket has landed or been intercepted, the next you are sitting in your living room, finishing Americanah.

You are one of the lucky ones. The very, very lucky ones.

You've been thinking a lot about an interpretation of Deuteronomy 13: 18 that you once read (though you cannot, for the life of you, remember where): "And He will grant you mercy, and have compassion on you": In the face of great cruelty and violence it takes an extra measure of grace to remain compassionate and merciful. So much so, that compassion and mercy are considered gifts from God. Those words feel apt these days. May we all, in Jerusalem and Hebron, Tel Aviv and Gaza, be granted that extra measure of compassion in these days and all the days to come.

I'm a stress-baker. It's a thing, for-reals. And when I stress-bake, I don't want anything elegant or delicate. I want chocolate and brown butter, butterscotch and salt. I want comfort food in the form of what is essentially a big-ass chocolate chip cookie. This is what my roommate and I were confronted with when Deb's (of Smitten Kitchen) Blondies came out of the oven. We ate almost half of them right there and then. I put the rest in the freezer, because otherwise I knew I would just pick and pick at them until they were finished. To be honest, that strategy has been only semi-successful, since I now find myself making excuses to open the freezer. Make these, take a bit of comfort.

Brown Butter Blondies

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

8 tablespoons (113 grams) butter
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
pinch of salt
1 cup flour
3.5 oz (100 grams) dark chocolate, chopped
a handful of walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350 f.  Brown the butter. Place the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring often until the butter turns a lovely golden-brown color and begins to smell amazing and nutty. Remove from heat.

2. Combine the butter and brown sugar, and mix until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Then stir in the flour, salt, chocolate and walnuts.

3. Spread batter into a buttered 8x8 pan. Bake for 20-25,  until set. Cool and cut into small squares. Eat in peace and quiet.

Of My Own

To say that I am an introvert is a gross understatement. I am so far on the introvert scale, I fall off the edge. In order to face the world, I need a lot of quiet, alone time. These past weeks have been a haze of running around this very unpublic transportation friendly city looking at one apartment after another (spoiler alert: I have not yet found a new apartment). Needless to say, I have been a little bit low on energy lately. I'm pretty prone to finding things overstimulating on a relatively quiet day, and these have not been quiet days. So I treasure my alone time. I am greedy for it. I take pleasure in cancelling plans (I have cancelled plans with one specific friend so many times in the past weeks, I am surprised she still likes me). This is not to say that I don't love my friends and want to spend time with them. I have spectacular friends and I love spending time with them. I love the joy and comfort and laughter they bring to my life. They are my emotional bulwark. This is also not to say that I have become a hermit and disavowed any form of social interaction. I go out. I see people. I go to work and make small talk with my equally awkward and intoverted co-workers. I do things. I attend satirical academic conferences on the importance of cake. (And cake is very important as we all know.) But life is so much right now and feels so pressing that I find myself clawing and fighting to carve out some time just to sit, just to be, just to find myself again.

Usually, weekends are for friends- for sharing food and conversation. Meals are eaten in a group- dinner parties or potlucks. Sometimes I host, sometimes I am a guest, but Friday night dinner and Saturday lunch are almost always spent in the happy company of other people. A few weeks ago, though, faced with the prospect of having no plans for Saturday lunch, I realized that I didn't want plans. Even if plans had materialized, I would have said no to those plans. I needed some "me" time. So instead of eating with friends, I made myself a lovely citrus-fennel salad (even better the next day) and a variation on a chicken recipe my mother used to make when I was a kid.  I sat in the quiet and ate my delicious food. I read, I slept, and thought thinky thoughts. I was still until nightfall when I stood up, shook myself off and went out into the world again.

My mom's corn flake crumb chicken- exactly what it sounds like, baked chicken coated in corn flakes- was a delicious staple growing up. It is one of my ultimate comfort foods. However, me being who I am, I couldn't help but tinker with the recipe. A while ago, a friend of mine, or rather, a woman who served as a surrogate mother figure of sorts all these years I have been far away from my own mother, gave me a recipe for breaded chicken with mustard. It's a good, quick recipe and I used it a lot. Eventually, it too, evolved. Mustard became a mix of mustard and tehina and as of a few weeks ago, bread crumbs became corn flake crumbs. This is how new recipes are born. The chicken is moist and flavorful, the coating is crispy and wonderful. It's a good recipe to have alone or with friends.

Corn-Flake Crumb Chicken with Mustard and Tehina

Adapted from Ricky Krakowski, Carol Toff and many others

This is not a precise recipe- think of it more of a list of suggestions and ratios. Want to add more mustard? Go for it. Don't have corn-flake crumbs? fine- use panko or plain old bread crumbs. Don't have time to marinate the chicken overnight? Also, fine. This chicken will be great if you leave it let it sit for an hour, or even just 20 minutes. It's all good and delicious.

1 chicken, in 8 pieces
1/3 cup tehina paste
1/4 cup mustard (Dijon is preferable, but plain is fine too)
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram or oregana
a good pinch coarse salt
a grind of black pepper
corn flake crumbs.

1. The day before you bake the chicken. Mix together the tehina, mustard, marjoram salt and pepper in a large bowl. Add the chicken and mix to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in the fridge overnight. (If you don't have time, just coat the chicken with the mustard-tehina mixture and leave it for as long as you can.

2. Take the chicken out of the fridge and bring to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Pour some corn flake crumbs on a large plate and coat the pieces of chicken entirely, pressing down to make sure the coating sticks. Place in a baking pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the chicken thigh reads 165 (you know the drill).

The Waiting Stew

The first time I made this stew, I was delirious and still half in panic mode, having spent most of the previous night in the equivalent of the animal e.r. with my cat. But by the time I sat down to eat it with friends, about 20 hours later, the panic had subsided some- the outcome of some much-needed sleep and the realization that at that point there was nothing to do but wait and enjoy the company and comfort of my good friends. The second time I made the stew, I was anxiously waiting on word about my little nephew, born just a few days before, still unnamed, having breathing issues and in the hospital. By the time I sat down to eat it with friends, again, about 20 hours later, the little boy was out of the hospital though the breathing issue was not- and still is not- totally resolved, and there was nothing I could do, being so very far away, but sit and wait. Now, as I  am eating the leftovers of that same stew, I am waiting for the penicillin I have been taking for the last 30 or so hours to finally kick in at full force so that I can get rid of the pesky needle-stuck throat that comes with strep, and get on with my life.

This is the perfect stew for tenter-hooks, warm and comforting, but still bright even after 20 hours of slow cooking. The brightness comes from the copious 20 pods of cardamom that somehow retain their flavor after all that time. As Charlie Trotter points out in his cookbook, cardamom and ginger are related. The stew reflects that. I found the cookbook Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home in used bookstore, being sold for a whopping 10 shekel (about 3-4 dollars). I couldn't pass it up. Despite the fact that I grew up in Chicago, and still consider it my hometown, I have never eaten any of Trotter's food, but I know enough to know that he changed the Chicago culinary scene forever. I wanted to see what he would do with a home kitchen.It turns out that Charlie Trotter at home is well, still Charlie Trotter- by which I mean complicated. All of his recipes are compelling and accessible, no doubt, but they also inevitably involve numerous components and steps. For the sake of time, and due to the fact that I was desecrating the recipe and sticking in a crockpot to begin with, I streamlined this stew a bit. I think it turned out pretty gosh darn good. I hope Chef Trotter is not turning in his grave. I somehow think he is not.


Stew for eating with friends and for waiting.

Cardamom Beef Stew with Potatoes, Celery Root and Parsley Root

Adapted from Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home by Charlie Trotter

1 cup chopped celery
1 cup carrot, cut into chunks
2 cups chopped onion
2 tablespoons canola oil
20 cardamom pods, crushed and bundled together in some cheesecloth
1 pound stew meat, cubed
salt and pepper
1 head of garlic, unpeeled
6 cups stock (Trotter calls for beef, I used turkey stock because that is what I had in the house- you can use whatever you have on, even water would probably be fine)
2 cups potato, also diced large
1 cup celery root, diced large
1 cup parsley root (or even better, parsnip, if you can find it), diced large

1. In a large pan, heat the oil over a medium-high heat. Toss in the beef, season with a bit of salt and pepper, and brown- about 3 minutes per side. Dump the meat into the crock you have set up and turned on high. Toss the vegetables (leaving aside the garlic) into the frying pan (without cleaning it out first), season with some salt and pepper and move them around a bit so they color and take on some of the good, beefy flavor. You may need to do this in batches. Place the vegetables in the crockpot with the meat. Pour in the stock. Add the cheesecloth and the garlic. Cover and let the stew come to a boil. Turn the crockpot down to low and cook for a good 20 hours until the meat is falling apart. Serve over a grain- pearl barley is particularly good here.

***An even more streamlined version- toss all the ingredients (leaving out the oil) into a crockpot. Cook on high until it comes to a boil, then lower the heat to  low. Cook for 20 hours.

Jerusalem in Jerusalem (Winter Version)

It started with rain. No, let's go back some- it started a few weeks ago when a friend of mine invited me to a screening of the BBC's "The Food of Jerusalem" with a panel at the end featuring, among others, Yotam Ottolenghi himself. Well. I spent about 45 minutes trying to decide to wear and then another 45 minutes trying to decide if I should bring my book(s)-guache? cliche? totally worth it? I didn't bring my books. I regret that. "The Food of Jerusalem" is a lovely little feature and in film and in person, Yotam Ottolenghi reveals himself to be intelligent, witty and warm. It was a great night. (Though at a certain point both my friend and I felt compelled to stand up for our Ashkenazi, Hungarian culinary roots-there was a distinct lack of Ashkenazi representation both in the film and the book- and we all know that cocosh is where it's at.)

In an extended scene in the film Yotam cooks a dish of wheat berries, Swiss chard and pomegranate molasses with a friend of his. Watching the scene, I realized that I recognized the recipe from his cookbook, Jerusalem, and it was one of the few recipes Naomi and I had not yet cooked (we've been doing this weekly for almost a year- we're running out of recipes). The time had come.

Then came the weather. In the past week Jerusalem has been hit with about 50 cm of snow. It snowed- on and off- for three days straight in a city that very rarely even gets one snowfall a year. To say that it brought the city to a standstill is an understatement. I lost electricity (and heat, since I heat my apt with electric radiators) for about 7 hours and I was one of the lucky ones- there were quite a few people who didn't have electricity for days. As of now, almost a week later, we are still dealing with burst pipes and leaks, icy sidewalks and downed trees. The snow was fun, the rest, not so much. But before the snow, there was rain. Cold, gross, blowing rain and it was in that element that I walked to Naomi's to cook. Never have I been so happy to cook a dish. The wheat berries were perfect for the cold, miserable night- warm and soft and comforting, but still bright and flavorful. I wish I could have carried that dish with me into the coming week- into the snowstorm. Sure, I ate pretty well during the course of the last week-brownies and pancakes and stew and acorn squash risotto-winter foods all- but nothing quite measured up to the Ottolenghi dish.

Wheat berries and Swiss Chard with Pomegranate Molasses for a Jerusalem Winter that Exceeds Expectations

 Adapted from Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

1 1/2 lb (600 g) Swiss chard or beet greens
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
2 large leeks, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
3 tablespoons (more or less) pomegranate molasses
1 1/4 cups wheat berries
2 cups stock (chicken or vegetable)
salt and pepper
yogurt, to serve (optional)

1. Separate the chard leaves from their stalks. Chop the stalks into 1cm slices and the leaves into 2 cm slices.

2. Heat the oil and butter in a large pan with a heavy bottom. Add the leeks, cook for 3-4 minutes and then add the chard stalks. Cook for another 3 minutes, then add the chard leaves and cook for yet another 3 minutes. Add the sugar, pomegranate molasses and wheat berries. Mix. Add the stock, slat and some pepper. Cover, bring to a boil and then simmer gently for 60-70 minutes.

3. When the wheat is cooked through, but still al dente, uncover and raise the heat a bit. Boil off any remaining  liquid until the bottom of the pan is dry and the bottom layer of wheat is lovely and caramelized. This may seem like overkill, but really, it makes the dish.

4. Taste. The berries should be sweet and tart and very bright. Add some more pomegranate molasses if you feel it needs more flavor. Serve with a dollop of yogurt, if so desired.

Jerusalem in Jerusalem: Barley Risotto with Marinated Feta

This is a temporary measure. Really what I would like to be writing about is this wonderful potato salad with roasted radishes that I have been making, but it is not quite ready yet. The dressing still needs a bit of work, and I don't want to post it until I get it down. In the meantime, have some Ottolenghi, which, to be fair, is a pretty awesome temporary measure. As temporary measures go, I would say it's a 14/10 in a blow your mind kind of way.



Barley Risotto with Marinated Feta

As always, adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's Jerusalem

1 cup pearl barley
2 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 stalks celery, diced
1 small onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, diced
4 sprigs thyme
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 bay leaf
4 strips of lemon peel
1/4 teaspoon chile flakes
1  14-oz (400 g) can chopped tomatoes
1 1/4 cups of crushed tomatoes
3 cups vegetable stock or water
1 tablespoon caraway seeds
10.5 oz (300 g) feta, crumbled
1 tablespoon fresh oregano

1. Rinse the barley and drain. In the meantime, melt the butter and 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large pot. Add the celery, onions and garlic and cook  over a low heat for about 5 minutes until soft. Add the barley, thyme, bay leaf, smoked paprika, lemon peel, chile flakes, tomatoes, stock or water and some salt. Stir and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for 45 minutes, stirring often so that the barley doesn't stick.

2. While the barley is cooking, toast the caraway seeds in a dry pan until they take on some color and smell toasty. Lightly crush them. Add them to the feta along with the rest (4 tablespoons) of the olive oil. Stir to combine.

3. When the barley is soft and most of the liquid has been absorbed, remove from heat. Serve in bowls, topped with feta and a sprinkling of oregano.

What you do

This is what you do. This is what you do when you've screwed up and it has cost you a job interview for a job you kind of really wanted; a job interview you thought you had. This is what you do. You don't go home. You're already home. You lay down on the couch, even though its only 3 in the afternoon. You wallow. You talk to a friend. You talk to your sister. You wallow. Throw the ball for the cat to chase. Wallow. You do not proofread that chapter that needs to be proofread. It needs some time to sit anyway. The client can wait. You do not answer that important email, you do not make that important call. No, not today. Not today when you are feeling too un-moored and paper thin. You read Jezebel. You read the Hairpin and Slate and i09. You watch Modern Warfare, because it is your favorite episode of Community, ever. You wallow. And suddenly it is 7:30 p.m. and you are starving and there is little-to-no food with nutritional value in your house. This is what you do. You take out the butter with flecks of crumbs in it from all the toast you have been eating. You pull out the pecorino because you don't have any parmesan. There is still a little bit of pasta left in its bin. If you were doing this right it would be spaghetti. It's not spaghetti, but that's just fine. That's all you need. Pasta, butter, cheese and the black pepper grinder sitting on its shelf. Vitamins and minerals are overrated.
This is what you do. You put the water up to boil. You add salt, as much salt as you think you can bear, so that it tastes like the sea. That is the key. You pour in the pasta and wait. You put a warm beer into the freezer so it will be cold. You pull out a piece of pasta. You burn your fingers a bit. That's ok. The pasta is not quite al-dante, there's still a dense, starchy bite to it.You pull out some of the cooking water with a mug and set it aside. Watch the steam curl up into the air as you drain the pasta. Now is the time for the butter- a good pat of it- into the pot that is back on the stove, the flame low and steady. The pasta goes back in, the cheese curls over it and a melts. You pour in some reserved pasta water- just a bit. You let it cook and mingle and smooth out, so that when you look down you see that your pasta is glazed in a sheen of something that once was just butter, cheese and water and now is something much more than the sum of its parts. You turn off the heat. You grind some black pepper, a lot of it, over the pot and this part will never not remind you of your friend in high school who lived with your family  and who used to put black pepper on her pasta. For years you wrinkled your nose at her, but you were wrong. So wrong. Black pepper on pasta is where its at. The Italians knew that years ago. (They have a name for it cacio e pepe and you love the way it sounds on your tongue.) So did Adena. It's you who was behind the times.
You eat your pasta. You drink your beer. You wallow. You talk to a friend. You read someone else's writing. Tomorrow. Tomorrow you'll get up. You'll make that phone call, you'll write that email. Or maybe not tomorrow. Maybe Sunday, or Monday. It will get done. But not today. Today this is what you do.

Jerusalem in Jerusalem: Tomato and Sourdough Soup

It's been unseasonably cold here lately. In fact, tonight as I'm writing this, it has just stopped raining. Its the kind of night that should be long- spent under a blanket watching a bad movie and eating popcorn. But it's not. We've changed the clocks already. On most nights this time of year, my windows would be open. They're closed tonight. And though I'm not eating popcorn, or watching a bad movie, I am huddled under blankets, thinking at the cat that she should get up and come cuddle, because there's nothing like a cat cuddle on a cold night.

Wednesday night, when Naomi came over for our weekly Ottolenghi cooking club, was also cold, if a bit less blustery than tonight. Still, it was a good night for the tomato and sourdough soup we had planned. We planned for soup since it was the day after Yom Ha'atzmaut- Israel's Independence Day-and we knew that after a day of consuming nothing but grilled meat, accoutrements and beer, we would want something light for dinner. It was a fortuitous piece of planning due to the aforementioned cold, and because the news coming out of Boston had left me confused and sad and angry. I needed something warm and comforting.  Fortuitous, indeed.

And since we were doing tomato soup, it seemed that grilled cheese would be in order as well. אם כבר,אז כבר, as they say in these parts- if already, then already.

Naomi can get a little bit tyrannical about cooking club. She refuses to let anyone else cook with us. Friends are welcome to eat with us, but cooking is reserved for me and her exclusively, which is, frankly, kind of nice. Then again, when Naomi suggested that we eat our sandwiches before the soup, I may or may not have emphatically and vigorously insisted that we cannot under any circumstances eat the tomato soup separate from the grilled cheese. (Spoiler alert: I insisted). So, maybe Naomi is not the only one who can get a bit tyrannical. But when it's cold and miserable and the news from far away makes you want to curl up and hide under a rock until humanity gets it shit together, sometimes you need a little warmth. Sometimes you need a friend to cook with and bowl of tomato soup (with grilled cheese, of course) to get you to the other side of the dark.

Tomato and Sourdough Soup
From Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 teaspoon cumin
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 cups vegetable stock
4 large tomatoes, chopped
1 14-oz can of diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon sugar
1 slice sourdough bread
2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper

1. In a saucepan, heat the oil and add the onion. Saute until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the cumin and the garlic, saute for another 2 minutes. Add the stock, tomatoes sugar and some salt and black pepper. Bring the soup to a simmer. 10 minutes in, tear up the slice of bread into the soup. Cook for another 10 minutes. Add the cilantro. Using a hand blender, blend the soup, leaving it a bit chunky. It will be thick.

2. Serve with a garnish of cilantro, a drizzle of olive oil and a grilled cheese sandwich on the side.

Recipe for Disaster

This is a story about the week I didn't cook.

As part of our training (and part of the way it keeps itself afloat) the kitchen often takes on catering jobs. We split up the work. Some women cook, some women work the event. On this particular week, I was working the event. Despite the title of this post the event was not actually a disaster, it just felt like it was going to be a disaster. First bump in the road- the space we were using for the event didn't have a refrigerator large enough for the drinks, so we had to find a way to transport them to another building that supposedly had adequate refrigeration. We found someone to lug them there. Check. Then, the rental equipment (i.e. the tables, chairs, tablecloths, hot boxes etc) arrived late, and when it did the delivery men refused to unpack the wares leaving us 6 women to unload, drag and open all the very heavy equipment. Well, we got the tables set up and were in the process of spreading out the tablecloths (which, of course, were the wrong shape and color), when the client emerged from her office, all in a huff, because she wanted the tables set up a completely different way. So off came the tablecloths and the few hotboxes we had managed to set up. And drag, drag, drag went the tables. The rest of the set up really does read like a grown-up version of Alexander and his Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day. The plates were dirty, the samovar didn't work, we were missing knives, the drinks never actually made it to a refrigerator; and when I walked into the room where we were storing the few drinks we could stuff into the one itty bitty refrigerator at the event space, there was water all over the floor and a strong smell of electricity in the air. (There were lima beans for dinner, and I hate limas.) The good news is that nobody was electrocuted. The bad news is that we had lukewarm drinks on a hot day. But hey, that's what panicked calls to the kitchen for "ice, lots and lots of ice", are for, right?

Then, the guests arrived and everything fell away. A friend of mine noted that the thing she loves most about these events is watching how a plain space turns, almost magically, into an elegant one. And I concur- there is a lot of magic and comfort in a set table and vase of flowers. But for me, the thing that I love about these events is the feeding people. Once I was set up behind my station and the guests were lined up with their plates in hand, all the stress and worry just sort of dissipated. My feet didn't hurt. I forgot that I was thirsty. I wasn't annoyed. The smile on my face was real.  There is simply something so potent about the moment of contact when you're feeding people, because you know that's it's not a simple business interaction. You're not just supplying a service. Food is laughter and friendship and family and cups sweating in the heat and memories and the moment you taste something new and just stop; it's deals made, and lingering conversations about politics and literature and greasy hands wiped on napkins, or jeans and shirts. It's a fried egg, eaten alone. It's a room full of hungry guests. Food is dirty and strong and bold and subtle and elegant and whispering. Food is comfort. Food is.

I came home that day exhausted and grumpy. The clean up was just as chaotic as the set-up. The high of service had completely faded away. I crawled straight into bed, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars. I took a nap, had some coffee and thought about my aching muscles. Then I made myself some comfort food.

Grilled Cheese with Harrissa

This is the ultimate comfort food. (Also, I am currently obsessed with harrissa)  It's good for nights (or days) when you can't move, or don't want to move and you just want something warm and gooey. You could, theoretically, serve this with a green salad and feel virtuous- but, why?
Good cheddar cheese is quite difficult to find in Israel. Sometimes I import from the States (thanks, Mom!) and sometimes I splurge and go to the fancy cheese store at the shuk. What I am trying to say is that if you don't have cheddar, use something else.

-bread of your choosing, sliced
-butter
-good cheddar
-harrissa


Butter your bread as you would for regular grilled cheese. Spread a thin layer of harrissa on the insides of the bread. Layer on a few good slices of cheddar. Heat your frying pan, griddle, or iron. Grill. I'm sure y'all know how. Eat hot. Lick your fingers. Make another.