Kadaifi

Oh, my, the courage my grandmother had! She arose at 4 a.m., read her Bible, then set out to work.  The Israel of my youth was a barren place, and we had few amenities.  We had a radio that played two stations, one in Hebrew and one in Arabic.  We had a wooden icebox that required refilling with a chunk of ice daily.  We had a hot water heater that got a workout Friday nights - the other days we took cold showers.  But what we did have was Grandma's muscles!  Periodically, she would make kadaifi.

Kadaifi is a classic Middle Eastern pastry, sometimes filled with cheese, certainly with nuts, and drenched with a heavy sugar/honey syrup laced with a bit of lemon.  It also had lots of butter (the real McCoy, not some ersatz from Publix).  The kadaifi dough resembles a bird's nest, and is made by cutting phyllo dough in very thin slivers. 

What is remarkable about Grandma's kadaifi is that she made it from scratch.  Yep, including the phyllo dough.  I remember the only table we had in the dining room, this enormous slab of wood (or perhaps it only appeared enormous to the eyes of a child), laden with the makings of the phyllo, and Grandma rolling out the dough in ever thinner sheets, until they were almost transparent.  She would then cut them very thinly, and lay them to dry on the bed, just as she did with noodles.