At the End of a Long Line to an Old Grandma’s House, Legendary Hummus From a Master Chef Awaits
Hod HaSharon is, ostensibly, just another sleepy bedroom suburb with a drab main street lacking any particular charm. The nice thing about it is that it makes no pretensions, and those who live there like it quiet. But when you look more deeply, and strike up a conversation with one or two locals, you discover an unexpected layer of local food and intriguing creators. ● Just 20 minutes from Tel Aviv, there is a forest full of culinary surprises and heartwarming discoveries ● In an old café in a small moshav, we ate the best lasagna in the country
10:00 | Something to eat: hummus at Grandma’s house that they didn’t want you to know about
In the heart of the Neve Ne'eman neighborhood in Hod HaSharon, a nearly religious ritual takes place every Friday. At the back of the modest Grandma’s House, a patient line forms of people coming to take hummus home, and others arriving for a cute Shabbat reception on site, just before their nap. They insisted for a while on keeping Hummus Na'eman a secret from me, and not without reason, the line is long anyway, the tables in the courtyard are filled with happy insiders, and there is no need to burden the place further. Hummus, on the one hand, enjoys broad consensus as a beloved dish, but on the other hand it is the source of endless disputes over texture, acidity, and other strict criteria that hummus experts like to debate seriously. In my view, Hummus Na'eman cannot be drawn into all those deliberations, partly because it does not strictly follow the dish’s rigid conventions, and partly because this is hummus made by a woman.
Sabich on a plate / Photo: Maya Haliva
The woman, Sarit Haliva, formerly worked in well-known fine dining restaurants, stands tall and steady at an open kitchen station in the house’s courtyard, spinning hummus as if she were a DJ. At the heart of the menu is hummus of the heavy kind, in the best sense of the word, and around it is an entire world: chickpeas with a soft-boiled egg, spicy pepper and parsley, and for those who want, there is also fried eggplant, sprouted lentil salad, Greek salad that is no worse than those in tavernas in Greece, and even a wonderful burgundy shakshuka. The desserts are also a culinary world of their own, a wonderful dark chocolate mousse with a mound of whipped cream and salted caramel, and malabi that you must take home. So many miracles and wonders, but the hummus is open only on Fridays from 10:00 to 15:00, and all that remains is a feeling of FOMO.
11:00 | Something to do: women talking beside buckets overflowing with flowers
I have known Avital Bar since my travels to Naples. She is a former social worker who studied professional floral design and always dreamed of hosting intimate workshops of flowers and words at her beautiful home in Hod HaSharon. After retiring, she made the dream come true and began hosting flower-arranging workshops for bereaved mothers as a volunteer, in partnership with the Or LeMishpachot association.
Flower-arranging and words workshop / Photo: Nurit Peled
Today Bar also hosts small workshops for participants celebrating birthdays, or close friends who love colors, flowers and words and want time together. The participants are welcomed by buckets overflowing with flowers, excellent refreshments made by her own hands, and a table with cards containing phrases that invite feminine conversation about female friendship, love, disappointments and more. The magic happens under Bar’s gentle guidance as she explains the principles of flower arranging and, in between, navigates among the flowers, the women and the words.
Arranging and talking at Avital’s
13:00 | Something to buy: fairies, gnomes and witches in a gallery with a story
The home of artist Hila Maoz is an enchanted house, from the witch on a broomstick at the entrance to dolls from around the world of witches, fairies and gnomes, and colorful glasses, earrings, rings, candles and utensils, all stamped with a witch’s mark, a good one of course.
The artist Hila Maoz’s home / Photo: Hila Maoz
Maoz’s story is woven into the experience of visiting the place. She grew up in Beersheba, Ofakim and Tel Aviv, and on one of her trips around the world she caught sight, out of the corner of her eye, of a clothing hanger made of metal that looked like a female figure. The figure inspired her and later became the “Illuminated Women” collection, 12 female figures made of metal, each painted in its own color, with a unique and colorful personality. “They became my friends,” she says. Maoz, who currently works as an illustrator and book producer, some of them well known, leads us between the gallery and the living room, pointing to her many works painted in bold and cheerful colors.
Magic Art Studio
14:00 | Something for the soul: curl up in hammocks and drift into another dimension
In these days of thirst for balance, among all the wellbeing, longevity and ice bath workshops, a gong bath is definitely one of the most special experiences I have tried. It is meditation through sound, which transports the participant into another time dimension, stripped of essence and full of being, and gives the body a reset. To achieve the coveted feeling, you curl up in hammocks hanging from the ceilings of the home of Haim Shnir, the facilitator and guide, cover yourself with a soft blanket, put on an eye mask and experience a sensation that is somewhere between floating, vibration and an extraordinary presence. At first the mind resists, but after a few minutes deep inside the sounds, the magic happens. Some people travel to the ends of the earth for this feeling, but we just went to Hod HaSharon, and took off.
Gong bath
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