The Best Meal I've Ever Had..

Our stomachs weren’t quite ready for food, but our eyes scared us into hunger. We were in the middle of nowhere. Ein Gedi. We were warned that we should bring food, but for sure there had to be at least one restaurant, and there was, except that it closed at 2:00, and now it was nearing 7:00 and there was nothing. As we walked, swallowing hot desert air, an inventory was taken
“I have that bag of nuts we could eat” said Klara
“I have a few packets of oatmeal and 2 rolls from earlier today”
Truth is, it could have held us over until the breakfast that the hostel offered in the morning, but just knowing that we couldn’t go out and get anything to eat made us panic. I mean, it was for one night. People can go plenty of days without eating. And suddenly the leafs on the trees looked like lemons, and the thought of hunting and devouring an Ibex crossed my mind. The sulfur like smell coming from the sea rolled down the road, mixing with the food smells from the other hostel.
“Smells like fart and food” Klara laughed as we treaded up the steep hill
A few hours earlier as we were sitting waiting for Cely’s bus, I felt a plop against my thigh and looked down to see a yellow splat. I looked up and saw the bird perfectly aligned with my leg, and Cely started clapping and cheering like I had just set a world record.
“It’s good luck!!’ she exclaimed as she handed me a tissue
I wiped it off and handed it back to her,
“Here you can have the luck”, but in my head I was hoping that the good luck would come in an edible form.
So back at the Field School, after my shower, I find Klara outside talking to someone she had just met. I sit down, we are overlooking the dead sea, and I realize the new friend of ours works at the place. “So you can get us food?”
“You want food? I have food, but I can’t cook. If you want to cook it, you can have it”
The offer was taken.
“In Israel you can’t get something for nothing. You will really cook? I will call you around 8:00” Dor said as he walked off
The anticipation for a good meal was more than I could take. He picked us up in a golf cart and took us back to his apartment at the Field School. The water was already boiling with spaghetti noodles floating. He said he got it started for us, but he had to leave and go back to work.“Do you know how to make sauce?”
“Yeah, I’m really good at sauces” Klara said, “what do you have?”
He gave us tomatoes, onions and garlic. Olive oil and spices.
“My mom gave me this recipe” he said as he looked at it clipped to a board next to the stove and began to read off the directions, then he was off, “don’t wait for me, I’ll be back in about an hour..”
So we diced and sautéed, grooved to the music he put on for us, shoed away the roaches coming in from out front and tried to make due with what we had, anxiously hoping that it would taste great.
And I think it was the best meal I have ever had. Thank goodness for the bird making its business on my leg.