Chatting With Miriyummy: Batya Medad

Meet Batya Medad.  I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time.  Since I started blogging myself she’s been a wonderful help and inspiration. 

Batya in her daughter’s kitchen

Introduce yourself.  Who are you, what are you, why are you?
I’m Batya Medad.  What am I?  a woman, wife, daughter, mother, grandmother, teacher, saleswoman, jblogger, photographer and probably a few other things too.

Where do you live, and why? 
I live in Shiloh, Israel.  We’ve been in Israel since soon after our wedding 41 years ago and moved to Shiloh 11 years later.  We always considered it important to live in a part of the Land of Israel liberated in the 1967 Six Days War.  From our first visit to Shiloh it felt just right, like a comfy pair of shoes.

(The photo to the left is Batya at Tel Shiloh)

What is your family like?
We have five kids, each chose his/her own path.  They’re all adults and don’t like me to publicize their exploits, though the youngest finally agreed after he opened up his sports bar/restaurant HaGov, the Lions Den, 5 Yoel Solomon, Jerusalem.  It’s kosher, great food.

What is your relationship with food?  Do you like to cook?
I don’t obsess over food.  I was a vegetarian for 25 years and that is now past.  After trying all sorts of “natural and not so natural” ways of eating, I eat a fairly “conventional” low carb diet which has kept my weight out of the obese range.  I don’t believe in fat free.  It’s well documented in me-ander. I’m a lazy cook, simple cooking etc.

What is your first food-related memory?
As a kid I never met a food I didn’t like.  Two memories, one when my mother was tired, maybe pregnant with my sister, she asked me what to give for breakfast and I said “noodles.”  #2 At a cousin’s birthday parties there were always those bakery cakes and when my aunt would ask “Who wants the flowers?” I’d be the first to say “me.”

 
How would you describe yourself in the kitchen?  As a host/hostess?
Simple, not fussy, not a great housekeeper, did I say easy to make food…?

What is your favorite comfort food and why?
That’s a tough question, since I no longer eat what was comfort food.  My big treat is fruit, and if I’m hungry and need to feel satisfied I eat cooked veggies with carrots, and if I can’t cook I’ll eat some raw nuts.  But when I’m in the States I buy Haagen Daz mint ice cream.  Only there, of course.  It’s kosher and sometimes I have no other kosher food easily available.

Desert island picks, name three foods you could not live without:
Raw nuts, apples and carrots

Is there any food you hate?  Why?
Fake fat free or rice crackers

Do you have a food-related story you would like to share?
Give me a few minutes to think about it….  In the jblogging world, I’m known as a food blogger especially because I started and still run the Kosher Cooking Carnival.  I started it because a now inactive recipe carnival rejected my recipe, because the theme of that edition was ham and they were making no exceptions.  Years later, it’s bli eyin hara still going strong.  Jewish Boston hosted the most recent KCC.  Please feel free to contribute a post about any aspect of kosher food via the blog carnival.  And if you’d like to host an edition, please contact me directly at  shilohmuse@gmail.com. 

Thanks for this opportunity.  And you should know that besides me-ander  I blog on Shiloh Musings. Please visit them both.