Kibbutz Sasa w/ Aviva, Zohar, and Danny

In the far north of Israel, one mile from the Lebanon border, is Kibbutz Sasa. I traveled up there to spend a few days with friends Aviva and Zohar and their adorable 13-month-old, Danny. Zohar grew up on the kibbutz, and his parents still live there. Most of these pics were taken on a fig-gathering mission in one of the kibbutz orchards. They don't grow figs commercially so anyone is welcome to come pick some whenever they want.

Heading out to pick figs

Taste-testing the figs:

Purple figs...

View from the orchard:

Thistles all dried out:

Wild blackberry bush:

So cute!

Yellow figs...

 

More thistles:

 Sunset from the orchard:

Another plant:

Aviva demonstrating some of the armaments leftover from one of Israel's wars. Maybe '67?

An early pomegranate:

The haul; about 6 kilos of figs plus one pomegranate:

So cute!

Here's what the figs look like split open:

Aharon and Ziva (Zohar's parents), Aviva and Zohar

Fig, carmelized onion, and camembert cheese tart. Basic approach: Make pizza dough, brush with olive oil, pile on the figs, carmelized onions and cheese with fresh thyme and rosemary and a sprinkling of salt, then bake. Aviva and I "invented" the recipe. Yum!

Aharon and Ziva's porch is covered in big, juicy grapes right now. These will soon be picked, and placed in an empty kiddie pool. Then various grandchildren will be called upon to stomp all over them and Aharon will turn them into wine. I didn't taste any of his grape wine while I was there, but he did serve me his lemon cordial and also a cherry wine that was quite delicious--all made at home from local produce. I also got to take home a jar of fig jam (made from our figs - half that load made about six jars of jam) and homemade skhug.

One of Danny's favorite gestures. You're supposed to reach your finger out to touch his.

View from Aharon and Ziva's home. Part of this picture is Israel and part is Lebanon, but I forget exactly where the border is.

While the kibbutz's major industry is a factory that manufactures armored siding for vehicles, they also have some agricultural products under the brand "Breishit" and one of the big ones for them is apples. Here, the apple trees are covered with netting so that the apples don't get a sunburn. Or something like that.