Hells Pub - Finale

This episode is one I will never forget. Never mind the four most demoralizing months of my life where the verbal, mental, and emotional abuse continued without wear. This took such a toll on me I'm still recovering. Never in my life have I encountered a man with such little regard to the value of human life, or most minuscule respect for the energy of the universe. All I know is when he gets his, it won't be pretty.

It's Thursday night, second busiest of the week. Myself, Mika, Olla, and Neta are working. First off, we didn't need Neta. It was more of a pain to keep her there then it was let her go, not to mention she was hammered and the worst bartender/worker I had yet to experience. So while she was spilling drinks and I slowly watched the entire bar get completely intoxicated I decided to start slamming water (I know...) because I had a bad feeling about the night, you know it's going to be bad when I quit drinking to keep the sanity. Understatement of the year...

To shorten a painful memory... one of our regulars requested his bill, several shots later GR aka Scott asked him for the money and he told him he gave it to "one of the girls". Scott then starting screaming at each of us "did you take this mans money?!" *insert thick Chicago accent here. After we all said no, Olla went around the bar to try and calm the patron down as Scott continued to scream at him and pulled out the til tape  to prove the money hadn't been registered. Next thing I see, Scott takes one of those massive Octoberfest tempered glass mugs and cracks the guy over the head and proceeds around the bar with fists flying. Somehow in this madness, Olla was knocked out and we had to call the ambulance and try to revive her while the fight was dragged outside.

Scott comes back in, in a rampage screaming "clean my bar! I gotta get out before the cops show up!" showing no concern for Olla. Everyone is scrambling about trying to clean while he continues to scream and I've had enough. I told the girls to grab their coats and let's get out of this hole. He blocks the door "where do you think you're going?" I'm trembling at this point, I can't get the girls out, and he is still in a very violent state. I've seen some action in my time but I've never experienced such stress.

As the girls scramble about, making more of a mess then cleaning one, he starts interrogating Olla about the money (I felt like we were in a courtroom) and telling her it was her fault she got knocked out.  Few more unmentionable name calling later and he was finally ready to send us off out the front while he coyote uglied out the back to avoid the cops and we gave the keys to the hooker who was going to his house.

*come to think of it I should have been writing stories of all my shifts at the bar, but working there I wasn't in the best "shape" for days to follow.

Needless to say, that was the last straw for me. Even though I have no rights here, in fact I don't even exist, I couldn't handle anymore. Looks like I'm going crawling back for a spot on Real Housewives of Tel Aviv.

Happy New Year to everyone else

While new years eve here was a bust due to the singles sausage party that was shut down at 1:00 a.m. We attended, I did wake up as every 25 year old girl should in the morning of a New Year. Naked. Alone. On the ground. Eye level with a tipped over empty bottle of champagne, with clothes and condoms strewn about...resolution, Achieved!

A very Vegan Christmas

I have been abroad or even away from home during Christmas but never have I been to a place where there is no Christmas. Mom and dad, it was bad enough you lied about Santa being real, but delivering presents to ALL the boys and girls? I'm disappointed.

Anyway, it turned out to be quite fun. I got to Skype with both sides of the family and I must admit virtual Christmas is almost nicer because you can still take a Xanax and drink wine but when you are over it you push a button and it's done. I'm thinking a new tradition is in order.

I was lucky enough to be able to cook a vegan Christmas dinner for six, and everyone (including Itay, my hardest critic) enjoyed it. Here is the menu:

Cabbage Rolls - filled with lentils and vegetables
Perogies - potato and onion
Rice Pilaf - onion, celery, OJ, nutmeg, cinnamon, apples, pecans
Christmas salad - mixed greens, walnuts, pears, dried cranberries
Ginger Snap cookies
Chocolate raspberry cookies
Pecan Pie - which turned out awful but MP ate with a smile on his face.

On that note, it was quite the chaos in the kitchen trying to pull this off. At times it was stressful and I'd simply scream "I hate Christmas!" and take a heavy sip of my champagne, but when it was all over and everyone was eating with smiles on their faces it was well worth it. I wonder how my family has been doing this for ages, in suppose it gets easier. But I know one thing, those Melnyk boys better find some wives because the odds of me cooking for all of them are about as good as them eating my vegan cooking.

Just a walk in the park...

                                      

 

 

 

                                                 

Veganize me!

MP and I were watching the latest episode on Master Chef Israel when inspiration struck. Their challenge was to make a gourmet version of their favorite comfort food. It got our mouths watering as we though of pizza, apple pie, grilled cheese, and creamy soups. All things we haven't had in months, maybe longer.

While he headed off to reserve duty for the day I splashed around the shuk in the pouring rain gathering ingredients to make some of our favorite things. The most frequent question we get as Vegans are 1)what do you eat? And 2) don't you miss...? 1) we eat a lot of salad, everybody should and 2) I was missing certain things until now... This just goes to show you we don't have to give up any of our favorite treats because we are vegan.

 

Becoming a kitchen master I realized all the bad things my parents served me as a child. THANKS A LOT for poisoning me.

30 day raw vegan - I've got nothing else to do

So it seems even though my clothes still "fit", a healthy diet of fried veggies and rice in the SE Asia streets caught up with me and I was at my heaviest weight in BB history. I thought by going vegan and eating amazing Israeli food the pounds would just fall off and I'd be happily at a weight (ten pounds less) that I'd maintained in my adult life. WRONG. Although I was far more active, (MP and I got into some P90X and eventually gym memberships) and eating fresher foods it seemed I was at a stand still. Could it be all the baking, olive oil, and pita I was consuming? Damn straight.

So it was time to take my weight into my own hands and drop that ten pounds, more if I was lucky. I decided to give the 30 day raw vegan challenge a go. First off, it's not as tough as it sounds. "what do you eat? Salad?" well...yeah. But with the right tools and some imagination it's not only easy but also fun. I'm sure the average carnivore would struggle more but see much better results but in just under three weeks I managed to drop almost nine pounds. I have roughly a week to go to drop that one last pound and I think I have it in the bag.

The biggest challenge for me was giving up gluten. I could eat a garden of potatoes, and loaf of bread, a pasta buffet, and 24 cookies in one sitting I'm sure...but I didn't, and for that I can thank my regular waistline. Hello again! 

I'm feeling amazing and although MP sabotaged me several times by making me soup *cheat* when I was sick, baked veggies *cheat* when I was weak and taking me for hummus *cheat* when rockets were flying I managed quite well with this new level of foodism and I hope to continue. Below are a few links that made this lifestyle change much more tolerable, and pleasant... you bet your ass I had cheesecake.

If you want to leave a smaller carbon footprint, even if it's every now and then check out...

http://www.therawtarian.com/
http://www.addictedtoveggies.com/

Not raw but gluten free!
http://www.theglutenfreevegan.com/

And go for a walk.

Hells Pub - Final Elimination

Several more weekends of chronic verbal assault, emotional and mental abuse, seemed to sail by with Chef on his A game of complete debauchery. Spirits were low, oddly enough, spirits were the only thing to get us high in this situation, so we kept a clean buzz to numb the pain until we saw the light of day once again and were safe for another fourteen hours.

At least this is what I thought. In my third weekend I experienced the most exhausting thirty hours of my life. I was contemplating my own insanity when the more practical side of my brain (which seemed to be cowering in a corner between depression and anger) gently reminded me I was not the one who was that crazy.  Unfortunately, just when I thought it was safe, when I could rest easy, it seems as though I became the last standing, better yet the Devils associate in Hells Pub.

I've witnessed at least 12 people come and go in eight weeks as I was cautiously tiptoeing around the bar when the compliments came. I wanted to smile and be grateful that Chef was showing me some appreciation, "having you at the pub makes this easy for me, I wish you could be involved in all the other aspects of my life", no thanks. but this has just made me a bit more terrified. When suddenly your enemy has a "change of heart" you put your dukes up... And your mouthguard in.

He is right however. We don't bother each other and maybe that's why this is working out so well. I really enjoy the job, who doesn't want to get paid to drink and bullshit with people? And oddly enough we work well together. So then there was BB, the last standing champ of Hells Pub.