Organic veggies and natural beauty...well, sort of natural

I met my friend Anat at the namal (port) yesterday to hit up the weekly organic market. Stunning day. I'm wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt -- and sweating! We squeeze our way through throngs of people snatching up fruits and veggies for their weekend feasts, sampling, sniffing and dividing up delicious oranges, tomatoes and strawberries between us. Our sacks fully loaded, we drop off our groceries before breaking for pizza. We're in a rush to get the bill because Anat has an important appointment with one of the "artists" at il.makiage, an Israeli cosmetics company. A friend of hers had hooked her up with the appointment, she tells me, and anyway, perhaps thirty isn't too young to start wearing some makeup? From farm-fresh to primped-and-powdered -- talk about contrasting experiences! "I want to look natural," Anat tells the "artist," whose deer-caught-in-headlights expression behind a thick mask of pancake makeup does not inspire confidence. As heavy brushfulls of mineral makeup are dabbed onto her cheeks, I sense Anat squirming. "Nakhon yafe?!" our "artist" keeps asking -- "isn't it nice?!" I smile sheepishly. Anat blinks, "Uh, a little heavy, don't you think?" The "artist" looks more incredulous than insulted. Somehow the whole "customer is always right" philosophy doesn't apply here. Instead, she sees this as a teaching moment. "Not at all," she replies. "There's no makeup lighter than this! And you don't have to worry about quantities, because your skin will absorb it." Now even I'm squirming. After tabulating everything on Anat's face, the total cost comes out to 1000 shekels, or a little over $250 US. What the...?!?!?! Anat gently draws one eyeshadow and a mascara from the vast pile of creams, powders, glosses and brushes and hands the slightly defeated "artist" her credit card. We're headed back to my place when Anat's husband calls and says he'll swing by on his rollerblades to pick her up. As we come out of my apartment building, we find him sitting on the sun-warmed sidewalk, unstrapping his wheels. He looks up at her and squints. "I like you better without all of that," he says softly.

I returned to real natural beauty in the evening. My new friends Natalie and Noam had invited me to Shabbat dinner on their Moshav, just a little ways north of Tel Aviv. Everything was taken care of. Their friends Amit and Virginia would pick me up on the way. As we drive down one of the main thoroughfares of Tel Aviv, I notice Virginia ducking in her seat. She's worried someone from her synagogue will see her in a car on Shabbat. She's working toward converting and taking the process seriously. "I'm nervous about choosing a Hebrew name," she says in her endearing Alabama accent. She wonders if they'll just translate her English name directly. "I wouldn't go with Betulah," I tell her, introducing the Hebrew word for virgin. We pick up another friend and arrive at the moshav. Stars abound. It's dark, but I can still make out flecks of bright orange from the kumquat tree in their backyard. Natalie serves delicious vegetable soup in beautiful ceramic bowls, which, I quickly learn, she made herself, and Noam grills a ridiculous amount of steak. A true embarrassment of riches, but the atmosphere is so chill and relaxed. The conversation is a mishmash of English and Hebrew. Virginia, who is a dentist, tells us about the time she accidentally told a patient he had a "khor ba-takhat," that is, er a "cavity in his ass," having confused "mitakhat" (underneath) with "batakhat" (yep, in the ass). Darned foreign prepositions! Her boyfriend consoles her. "But you weren't wrong!" he exclaims, "everyone has a khor ba-takhat, right?!" As the laughter subsides and we take our last sips of tea with nana, Noam and Amit clear the table and start stacking up poker chips! Well how's that for a shabbes tradition?! I turn to Virginia: "Maybe don't mention this to your rabbi."