The isolation and closure have led Israelis to rediscover home cooking • Five recently published cookbooks and recipes make our culinary fantasies accessible - meat surgeons, chickpeas, and high-sugar desserts

Staying at home brings with it quite a few drawbacks, but it also has its advantages, and one of the most notable ones is the time we have taken to develop new hobbies or develop existing ones. Many people decide to spend their time on cooking - and why not? It is an activity that can take place in the family and spend time pleasantly, taking great pictures on Instagram, and most importantly - comforting, and we all need comfort during this time.

Most of the recipes are on social networks today, but the world of cookbooks has not remained frozen and has adapted to digital reality in recent decades. The added value of books is usually evident in creating an overall cooking experience, beyond the recipes. 

In recent months, quite a few new and interesting cookbooks have come out, offering a wide variety of recipes of all kinds, and even include recipes for children.

Easy Easy Easy (Liza Panels)

After her previous two books, "Lisa Panels Kitchen Book" and "Big Housewife's Kitchen Diary," became a bestseller - Hagit Bilia presents, "Liza Panels," a third book based on her successful cookbook.

The book's title, "Easy Easy Easy" (Modan Publishing), gives away the main idea around which it revolves - easy recipes. You will find no recipes here that will transform your home kitchen into a Michelin-starred restaurant, and no recipes for dishes that will take up half a day of your precious time. What there is in the book is a great collection of recipes that can fit any occasion - a festive couple meal, fast food that goes uninterrupted, and also a family cooking activity with the kids.

Billia makes the recipes accessible to people with only a basic knowledge of cooking and allows them to upgrade the meal so that it looks and creates a feeling that it is more luxurious. All this, without "breaking your head" with complicated recipes and hard to get ingredients.

It's hard to find a book that can be said to be "suitable for everyone," but "easy easy easy" is just that, and it's the biggest compliment you can give. Each one can find more than one recipe for it at any given moment. It has starters, spreads and salads, a variety of soups, an entire chapter of vegetarian and vegan recipes, stews, plenty of desserts and dozens of pages of recipes designed for children, that is, ones that kids will love to make and eat. Bilia's writing is light and popular in the positive sense of the word, meaning accessible and updated Hebrew. Exactly the style we would expect from a blogger.

The meat - recipes, information and much more (Israel Dodek)

Talented ultra-Orthodox chef Israel Dodek, who has been working hard to promote a combination of ultra-Orthodox men in the culinary world, recently published a packed and packed book on meat information, on a variety of kosher types.

In general, meat lovers are divided into two groups. For the first time, the sloths belong to those who like to eat meat but have no power to invest in too much work and interest. The second group, whose status has grown more and more in recent years, includes the "researchers", those who are always in the pursuit of the perfect share, and the quality and brand of meat are just as important to his taste on the plate. 

Dodek's book is for both groups, but may slightly complicate those who seek only basic knowledge. The structure of the book is friendly and so is the writing. There is also a division into chunks, which helps beginners to monitor and understand the meat parts. The first section is called "Simple Language Professional Information," and it is advisable not to skip episodes such as "Introduction to Fire," "Meat Election," "Meat Soaking," and, if you are important, a brief Kosher conversation. 

On the other hand, Dodek's book has more niche content ("From Grow to Sales") or matters that are not clear to average meat lovers ("The Art of Sharcotry - Confetti and Wright"). While these may interest a certain segment of readers, they may interrupt the reading sequence of the book, or at least postpone it for more difficult days of closure. 

Still, it is an effective book for Israeli cuisine, which enjoys meat and which utilizes the most favorable weather most of the year to grill on the terrace or in the yard. Each explanation of a chunk consists of a brief introduction, a technical specification on the chunk, for reasons and anecdotes. These are accompanied by personal chef tips - and forward to work, a basic recipe for cooking in the pot or oven, ingredients and instructions. 

Aharoni - Food Stations in My Life (Israel Aharoni)

It is not certain that a single 216-page book can be enough to map and tell about all the points and events of a person as intriguing as Israel Aharoni. But it's a beautiful start. Aharoni, who led the revolution that transformed Israel from the state of falafel and meatballs into a culinary power, offers his life story similar to his lifestyle and clothing - fashionable and colorful.

Aharoni's culinary autobiography, which has seen a publishing house issue, is a personal and intimate book, and readers who are not food enthusiasts and recipes will be able to connect with it. In the book, edited by Tomer Kammerling, the chef recounts his characteristic open-mindedness and open-heartedness about the complex life he had as a teenager who experienced bullying at school and later abandoned religion.

The book is divided into 24 chapters, each of which tells a story or event experienced by Aharoni, followed by a relevant recipe. These are accompanied by quite a few professional secrets that Aharoni reveals. And when it comes from him, with all his vast knowledge, it's worth gold.

Hummus (Ariel Rosenthal and Orly Wonders)

It is very high, but hummus is not Israel's national dish. On the other hand, he is certainly the food of the Middle East, and as such, he has traversed quite a few sectors, gone through upheavals, many recipes and substantial and peculiar changes, until he became the main cause of falling asleep in the workplace and Friday afternoon.

It is not defined as a recipe book, although it contains quite a few, but as a "cookbook and art" book. Behind him stands restaurateur Eric Rosenthal, who is known and identified as "The Magician" - named after the street food restaurant he founded in Tel Aviv. He was joined by journalist Orly Wonders Bronstein and designer Dan Alexander. The book was self-published.

When the book was published a few months ago, Rosenthal described it as follows: "A journey of recipes and stories, a human journey, simple, beautiful and delicious. A journey between cities, people and dreams. From Cairo and Gaza through Jaffa and Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Acre, through Beirut and Damascus "I feel fortunate to have chosen hummus for everyday work. I thank everyone, the group, the people and the tradition, who have brought this gift to the world, even to the good God who has given us His grace. After all, God's hummus!"

To appeal to the international market and maintain the hummus cosmopolitan status, the book appeared in English, not always basic, which may make it difficult for some readers. However, it is designed to glorify and display hundreds of photographs of food and people eating, and there is nothing more beautiful in the world, so even people who do not read English can enjoy it.

The 400-page book also contains no fewer than 70 recipes for hummus, for its variety and types. If you like chickpeas, this should take you a long time in isolation. This is the culinary encyclopedia of the Middle East, and something that must be home to all food lovers, and legumes in particular.

Most Delicious at Home (Natalie Levine)

The name certainly takes on another meaning during this time, even though it was chosen long before the outbreak of the Corona virus that brought us all into the house and made us look for recipes online around the clock. And if we were looking for an interesting dessert on the Internet, we probably came across Natalie Levine's "CookieNet" blog, based on the book's recipes.

Levine's book is not intended for the right nutritionists, to say the least. It has no low-calorie dishes or "healthy" desserts. There's a sweet mouth here, and lots of it, of all kinds, genders, sizes and levels of difficulty.

The book, which was published by Azure Publishing, is very effective, it has recipes - and that's it. Levin saves explanations; In her opinion, most readers who are interested in a recipe for pie or alfresh cake have no interest in knowing the history of coconut chips or the way cocoa beans made from rainforests to our baking pattern.

Levin's recipes are very comprehensive, accessible and clear, even for the inexperienced baker. So, after a few weeks of isolation, each of us can have a potential for a pastry chef. 

Levine divides the desserts into self-evident episodes: next to the coffee, classics, and a sweet and savory cookie jar for the weekend, where you'll find all the "Instagram recipes."

The vegan population has not been disadvantaged either, and the book features ten particularly intriguing desserts. Then comes a chapter for sloths, "Desserts Winning in Five Groceries" and finally, perhaps the most effective chapter in the book - holiday desserts and recipes.

The fact that makes Levine's book particularly good is that the difficult recipes in it are also relatively easy. If you go over the table of contents, you will probably find few desserts that you have not eaten in recent years at a restaurant or dinner party with friends. Levine presents a collection of desserts worth gold, and the simplest way to make them. You don't need more than that.