Crembo and Coobe - Winter arrives

I guess its my third winter here in Israel and it still surprises me when it rains. I could swear that the good Jewish education of mine taught me about the water crisis in Israel and how it is the desert and it never rains. Guess what, it's raining and it's raining hard with thunder and lightening here in Tel Aviv as I type this and the winter is colder than in Cape Town. Over here, it does not really drizzle, it just shoots down fat drops of water hard stopping and starting. There are not many drain experts here, when it rains things just flood. It will probably be hot tomorrow.

What makes it winter here:

1stly: socks and shoes, last week was the first time a few months that I put on socks and shoes. It is a strange feeling, and it takes one so long to get dressed now in the mornings.

Aside from that all the ice coffee and fresh fruit shops start selling soups and my two personal favourites spaza shops start selling Crembo and little neighbourhood spaza stores sell Coobe soup.

2ndly: Crembo, you know winter has arrived when shops start stocking Crembo because it would simply melt in the summer and would not last a second. Its like a Sweetie Pie which is a wafer at the bottom, sugary cream (see picture) on the inside and chooclate coating on the outside. THere is a whoel philosophy over how one eats the crembo - bite it, eat the chocolate first, wafer first then lick the cream? It facinates me how it is a product that can only run in the winter.

3rdly: Coobe - The corner spaza shops sometimes have different dishes on the weekends, orginally I thought who can eat a meal from a corner store? but soon I discovered that the winter special is a home cooked soup with coobe (pastry with meat inside) served with rice. Coming home on the weekend after a late night out in the cold winter, nothing goes down better than a good portion of coobe from the local corner cafe (or pitzutzia as they call it here).

So winter has arrived, and that's my view on top of this rainy world tonight in Tel Aviv.