Ambrosiac musings of a food maniac

Last January Keren and myself celebrated my birthday at the 'Salon' restuarant in Tel Aviv, one of the most applauded restuarants in Israel. Lots has been written about Mr. Shani and his restaurant and by greater writers than yours truly, so I will leave the superlatives to them.

This ragù is based on the traditional Bolognese ragù but replaces half of the beef with lamb. Note that the meat is roughly chopped rather than minced, this gives the sauce a more 'meaty' texture. The use of sage as the sole herb compliments the lamb's aroma.

This soup was an improvisation using leftover vegetables from a previous shipment of Chubeza, my CSA provider and a few vegetables from the latest shipment. What I like about this kind of improvisations is that often I find the result to be much more tasty than I have anticipated, like this particular soup has proven to be. Only later did I find out that the combination of chickpeas and chard is actually quite popular.

The recipe for this soup is an excellent basis for all kinds of different soups; it can be modified to use lentils, beans, chickpeas or any other type of legume. I have also used it to make a broccoli cream soup and an asparagus cream soup. Try to improvise on this basic recipe and find out what works best for you.