The first time I visited Julie, I felttransported. I'd turned onto Rehov Shabazi in Neveh Tzedek and,somehow, left Tel Aviv. I'd stepped into one of those classic Egyptianeateries - a humble kitchen turned bustling restaurant, tucked away ona nameless alley.
Istood at the counter before a dizzying array of open pots, breathing inthe spices, listening to the Arabic music winding through the air.Owner Julie Ozon clapped in time, her gold bangles tinkling like bells.I looked from the moussaka topped with thick slices of eggplant, tofish in a spicy tomato-based sauce, to plump figs stuffed with groundbeef. My gaze drifted to red bell peppers full-to-bursting with meatand rice, to artichoke hearts capped with a savory mix of beef andspices, then to moist rice spilling from zucchini.
There was more rice - fluffy piles of yellow, dotted withcarrots and peas; Ozon pointed at another pot, which held a soft moundof white, studded with bits of crunchy brown noodles.
"This is rice with sharaya," she said, using the Hebrew word for rice alongside the Arabic for vermicelli.
Cauliflowerfashioned into crisp, lightly fried patties sat on the edge of thecounter next to a colorful salad and homemade tehina.
"What do you want, motek?" Ozon asked me.
It was impossible to choose. "That looks good, or maybe that."
Ozon grabbed a plate, sized me up, and decided for me. Shedipped a spoon in and out of the pots and handed my meal to me. Thenshe waved me away, almost dismissively, and resumed clapping. Her head,topped by a loose, silver bun, nodded to the rhythm.
I sat down and found food that, like Ozon, didn't miss a beat.
EIGHTEEN MONTHS ago, after 15 years in NevehTzedek, Julie moved to its current location on the corner of Yom Tovand Malan, within sight of Shouk Hacarmel. The Yemenite Quarter seemsthe perfect setting - its tight lanes and narrow storefronts crammedwith sacks of beans, pasta and delicate pyramids of spice arereminiscent of the Cairo where Ozon spent her childhood.Fleeing bombings and riots, Ozon - along with her parents, herseven siblings and their spouses - emigrated from Egypt in 1949. Theysailed to France, leaving behind a thriving family business, a house inCairo and a vacation home in Alexandria.
"We ran with our clothes and that's it," recalls Ozon, who was seven at the time.
After six months in France, the family made the journey toIsrael. They spent the next eight years in a tent camp that lackedproper sanitation and running water. And they barely ate.
"We didn't have anything. We suffered," she says.
The high-standing the family once enjoyed made the transition especially difficult.
"In Egypt, we had pasha," Ozon says, taking a second tothink of a translation for the word, which is roughly equivalent to theBritish title Lord. "We had kavod (honor)."
Eventually, Ozon married another Egyptian Jew. The couple hadfour children - two boys and two girls. But Ozon's troubles weren'tover. Her husband died young, leaving her a widow and single mother at35.
Ozon sighs and takes a sip of Turkish coffee. She says that her life story is too long and too complicated.
"I can't [tell] it in an hour or even two hours."
AN AMERICAN family comes in and asks for a menu. Ozon standsbehind the counter, points to each pot, one-by-one, and ticks offcontents on her fingers. The dishes vary according to the season, orday, as Ozon buys all of the ingredients fresh at the shouk everymorning.
"And I don't make anything too spicy," Ozon adds. "I don't want to burn the tongue. I want people to taste the food."
The woman, a Hebrew-speaker, seems curious and engaged. Herhusband, however, says he wants to eat somewhere else, then slumps in achair and crosses his arm. Ozon gestures to him, her gold banglestinkling on her arm, and asks "Why like this? Open here." And then shetaps her own forehead.
His wife laughs and orders lunch.
Taking a seat at a table, Ozon explains that Egyptian Jewishfood is unique from other varieties of Eastern cuisine. "The spices aretotally different," she says. "We have a lot of food that resemblesTurkish food. There are also a lot of sour flavors. There's not toomuch tomato sauce. And there's not a lot of oil."
"Moroccan food is too heavy," Ozon continues. "You don't see the food. All you see is oil."
Egyptian Jewish dishes, she says, are also lighter than their Arab counterparts.
"They [Egyptian Arabs] cook meat with cheese. We don't. It's not kosher," she explains.
Ozon points to the Egyptian Arabic use of rabbit as another difference.
"Oy yoi yoi," she says. "It's not kosher."
Despite the culinary differences, Ozon remarks, "We [EgyptianJews] were very good with the Arab people until [King Farouk] leftEgypt. After that, came Nasser who said bye-bye to the Jews."
After Nasser died and his successor, Sadat, made peace withIsrael, Ozon visited Egypt seven times. She found her family's homes interrible condition, as was the French school she'd attended as a child.
But Ozon was pleased to find that the synagogues and Jewishcemeteries in both Alexandria and Cairo were in excellent condition.For that, she would "like to tell [President] Mubarak thank you."
Ozon is done traveling to Egypt, she says. And she has nodesire to leave Israel. But she remains eager to share Egyptian Jewishcuisine and culture with the restaurant's visitors - who she says arelike children and grandchildren to her.
"Sometimes I don't have help here," Ozon says, "and they [customers] help me. They look at me like a grandmother."
Will Ozon, who just celebrated her 69th birthday and is a grandmother to eight, retire anytime soon?
Julie will stay open, Ozon says, "as long as God gives me the strength."
With the interview officially over, Ozon steers me back to thecounter. She prepares a plate for me, adding a dash of sauce on theside of my rice.
"What's that?" I ask.
"Taste it," she responds. "And then you tell me what it is."
After a year spent at Ozon's side at the old Neveh Tzedeklocation, Ozon's daughter, Nava, opened another branch of Julie at 35Ussishkin, Ramat Hasharon. Both Julies are open for lunch Sundaythrough Friday from 12:00 to 4:30.