The best bread in the world

Our desert hike had a destination: a Bedouin tent where a woman named Mazhdalen makes the best bread in the world.

The Stein cousins approaching Mazhdalen's tent.

My cousins discovered Mazhdalen on an earlier hike (you can see pics from that visit on their blog) where they came across her boards-and-blankets tent perched in the middle of nowhere on a high plateau, along a hiking trail. Outside the tent is a handwritten, wooden sign listing the foods she serves up: pita, lebaneh (a tangy cheese that resembles a very thick, creamy yogurt), za'atar (middle eastern herb mixture with sesame seeds) and hot tea. But this is no restaurant. A visit with Mazhdalen is like time spent with an old friend.

Mazhdelen wasn't in the tent when we arrived. Thankfully, modern life meets ancient ways in the middle of the Negev desert, and Lynn called Mazhdelen on her cell phone (the number is written on another sign outside the tent). Soon, a figure in a long black dress began to make her way toward us from another tent in the distance. When she got close enough to see who it was, she recognized Miriam and Rebekah immediately. A huge smile lit up her face, she was delighted to see her visitors from two months earlier.

A staff od Mazhdalen's wheat

She built a fire with sticks from dried bushes, added tea and a liberal amount of sugar to a black iron pot, and set it on the fire. Then she mixed flour, water, and salt in a bowl, explaining that this was flour from last year's crop, because this year was so dry, they didn't harvest much wheat.

While the dough rested, we talked about lots of other things, too. I don't remember how we managed to communicate, but somewhere between her sparse English and our broken Hebrew, we managed to get our points across, maybe because we listen to each other in the same way. The magic of human interaction: when people share similar ideals and traits, sometimes they don't need words for everything.

Mazhdalen shows Bekah the technique

Mazhdalen took the tea off the fire, and poured it expertly into a set of glasses for each of us. Then she covered the fire with a big concave iron plate. When the dough was ready, she made it into six balls. She patted one out into a circle, and then flung it back and forth from one hand to another, putting her shoulders and torso into the movement, until she had a wide, thin circle. She tossed the dough onto the hot concave iron, where it began to brown and puff ever so slightly. After a minute, she flipped it over, cooked the other side, and then tossed it into a basket, a piping hot, perfectly cooked flatbread.

She invited each of us to have our hand at breadmaking, which we were happy to do. You'll see in the video how she patiently waits and watches as each of us do our best, and then takes over like a pro.

Miriam digs in to the deliciousness.

When all the flatbread was cooked, Mazhdalen presented us with a beautiful basket overflowing with her handiwork, as well as a big dish of lebeneh she'd made with milk she'd gotten from her sheep that morning, and a plate full of za'atar. We hungrily tore of pieces of bread, scooped up some cheese,  dipped it all in the herbs, and filled our bellies until there wasn't room for another bite.

While we were eating, four Israeli hikers passed by, looking into the tent. We invited them in, but they turned us down. "No time," they said. They had something better to do that sit with others and share fresh food. Mazhdalen said that often hikers are only interested in Coca-Cola, or watermelon, or power bars, something quick and neat, to send them on their way down the trail. Her Bedouin hospitality isn't something they find worth stopping for. Sometimes, she said, they even taunt her or mock her for being Bedouin, and for living her life in her traditional way.

Me, Miriam, Mazhdalen, Rebekah, and Lynn

Later that evening, Miriam and Rebekah talk about how upsetting it is to them that people would make fun of such a smiling and generous soul as Mazhdalen. For me, the afternoon has shown me that sometimes the things we have in common with others are surprising: on many levels, our family shares much more with urban Israelis on vacation in hiking gear than with a woman in an old cloth dress and head wrap who's spent her life in an isolated desert. But in the ways that we seek and find friendship, it seems we have a lot in common with Mazhdalen.