The idea of an Israeli farm-to-table empire might sound like a paradox — empires being sovereign and controlling — however Hedai Offaim has managed to maintain his household’s wide-ranging culinary enterprise well-grounded, because of deep roots and a continuous quest for religious achievement.
It’s been six years since he and his brother, Yinon Offaim, established their sustainable farm-to-table empire (spelled Offaimme) that now encompasses a 67-dunam (16.5 acre) farm in the desert, a herd of goats, three cafes and a soon-to-open bar in a former goat shed close to one in every of the cafes, in Jerusalem’s Hansen House.
The menus in the three cafés — in Maccabim close to the central Israeli city of Modiin, and in two Jerusalem areas — are related, platters of arduous and gentle goat cheeses, fresh salads, egg dishes, freshly baked items and breads.
Most of what’s served is comprised of elements raised or grown on their farm in the Arava in southern Israel and eaten on wide-planked farm tables — and the occasional bathtub coated with a glass prime (at Hansen House) — for a very literal iteration of the farm-to-table idea.
“It all has to be local and fair,” stated Offaim of the cafes’ food, a few of which is supplemented by neighboring farms.
Offaim, whose identify is translated as branches, is all about reaching out. He does nothing alone; it’s with both his brother and two different enterprise companions; his spouse, Eti Libman Offaim, who was his highschool sweetheart; or different family and friends.
The idea for the sustainable farm comes from his teamwork along with his brother, Yinon, who lives on the Arava land along with his circle of relatives. They feed their goats on date leaves, hatch one and a half million natural eggs annually, and harvest dates, mangoes, greens and herbs. Everything grown there's natural and makes use of photo voltaic power, recycled water and pure fertilizers.
The brothers had been raised in Haifa by their Holocaust survivor father and kibbutz mom, staunch Hashomer Hatzair Zionists with deep roots in Kibbutz Yagur, the close by Haifa farming cooperative the place their mom was raised.
“We’re one generation from the European shtetl, and we’ve come full circle,” stated Offaim.
Offaim tells of his first cousins, the kibbutzniks, who would race barefoot on their bikes by means of the citrus groves to the place the candy clementines grew. He didn’t have the stamina to make all of it the manner there, so he developed a liking for the close by grapefruits, and finally for farming.
The Offaim brothers started exploring Israel’s south once they had been younger, turned on by the desert and its alternatives for farming and a pioneering way of life. Yinon Offaim established an natural farm, elevating pink peppers for export and creating an industrial setup for produce that was exported to huge grocery store chains in Europe and the United States.
Hedai Offaim cooking up a storm at his dwelling for one in every of his many workshops for local and visiting vacationers (Courtesy Hedai Offaim)
Hedai Offaim, in the meantime, a self-trained chef, based a tourism firm, wrote food columns for Israeli newspaper Haaretz as effectively as a number of cookbooks, and hosted cooking workshops.
Then a tragedy, the 2009 loss of life in Gaza of Ehud Efrati, a reserve obligation officer who was one in every of Yinon Offaim’s greatest mates, made them rethink their profession paths. Yinon Offaim was taking a sabbatical yr in India along with his household when Efrati was killed, and he flew again to Israel for the funeral.
At the funeral, stated Hedai Offaim, Efrati’s father stood by the grave and spoke about Israel, Zionism and pioneering, noting that he would do it yet again even understanding this tragic consequence. It made the two brothers suppose.
“I had forgotten all of this,” stated Offaim. “My brother and I had both been officers in the army and had become citizens of the world but it struck us all of a sudden, and my brother turned to me and said, ‘This isn’t what we had in mind — our workers are Thai, we don’t speak their language, we produce food that we don’t eat.’”
That was the begin of their farm-to-table idea, which included plans to work the land in a extra sustainable method, promote their produce regionally, and maintain their households in the course of.
Within months, they'd dismantled the pepper farm in favor of a wide-ranging household farm that now employs 138 local employees, raises imported Alpine goats for milk and natural chickens for eggs, and contains analysis and improvement as to the way to feed their animals and sow their crops with out importing feed and provides from far-flung areas.
The Offaim brothers first used Alpine goats for his or her cheeses, and at the moment are switching to a Spanish goat, after a lot of their herd was stolen and died (Courtesy Ofaimme)
Everything they develop is offered at their cafes and at shops on the farms.
“We call it seed to table,” stated Offaim. “We turned to it as pure poetry, but we also have to sustain our families, if not for generations, at least for decades, and have to do so locally.”
They had been one in every of the first local farms to introduce an Australian system for feeding the goats hydroponically.
“We’re organic, but high-tech,” stated Offaim.
They’re additionally socially acutely aware, paying their employees above minimal wage, internet hosting agricultural college students from 17 third-world nations to study their strategies, and creating honest commerce agreements with smaller farmers for sure merchandise and crops they don’t have.
Yinon Offaim (entrance) and a few of his farm employees on a retreat a few years in the past (Courtesy Hedai Offaim)
The brothers and their two enterprise companions opened the first Offaimme store in 2012 inside a Lehamim Bakery department in Tel Aviv. In 2014, they opened in Maccabim, after which expanded to Jerusalem neighborhoods of Beit Hakerem and the German Colony.
They’ve stumbled right here and there, stated Offaim. Their purebred Alpine goats had been stolen; most had been useless by the time they had been discovered. Now they’re about to obtain a flock of Spanish goats that produce wealthy milk that can make even higher cheese, stated Offaim, who’s a glass-half-full type of man.
Offaim isn’t religiously observant, however he’s a religious explorer, learning Jewish texts three mornings a week earlier than his youngsters get up, and serving expansive, though not essentially kosher, meals at his lengthy, huge kitchen desk each Friday evening, the place the food, speak and singing can go on till two in the morning.
The again of Hedai Offaim’s Moshav Tzafririm home, the place he grows dozens of various fruits and herbs, and grapes (Jessica Steinberg/Famzn News)
He lives along with his household in Moshav Tzafririm, a former farming group in the Ella Valley between Jerusalem and nation’s heart, the place they develop dozens of herb bushes and fruit bushes — together with figs, loquats, olives, lemons and grapefruits — on the 28-dunam property. (They keep in a renovated, Ottoman-era prepare automotive when at the farm in the Arava.)
The huge kitchen seems a lot like the varied Offaimme areas, with wooden flooring, a carpenter’s desk doubling as an island and a wall of hanging pots and pans — a nonetheless lifetime of cooking prospects.
The spacious kitchen and carpenter’s desk doubling as an island in Hedai Offaim’s dwelling (Jessica Steinberg/Famzn News)
The heart of their dwelling, nevertheless, is the expandable desk, or tisch, the Yiddish phrase for desk that Offaim likes to make use of, which may open to seat anybody who exhibits up for Friday evening dinner. It’s the central occasion and theme of Offaim’s life.
“I just want enough time to play piano, read books, work the land and make food, but just for eating, not as a foodie,” he stated. “When you notice what you eat, when you notice your physical surroundings, how the people around you feel, it’s a rectification for who you are spiritually. This is what we’re trying to do.”