Shopping: Israel v USA

In the United States, malls are a tribute to consumerism -- many indoor malls have a palatial quality with an ambiance of luxury and wealth.  The stores carry items we don't need but certainly could use like a $5000 massage chair.  Clothes are displayed with panache and sex ala Victoria's secret, and other stores hint at the promise of eternal youth with their expensive cosmetics.  Often, the center of the mall will have a water fountain with comfortable couches and chairs so weary shoppers can sit and relax.

Israeli malls aren't quite like that.  The largest mall in Israel, home to over 200 stores -- the Grand Canyon Mall -- is just that: and indoor building with a lot of shops.  It looks promising from the outside with various neon signs one being for Office Depot.  After standing in line and going through security, the interior is not up to US mall standards.  The floors are well-worn and the stops rather dreary, all of them selling practical stuff.  Window shopping does NOT inspire dreams of new wardrobes, fancy parties, a professionally decorated home, entertaining with flair, eternal youth or sex.  The one store displaying female undergarments had mannequin torsos with no arms or legs and were wearing sturdy white bras and grandma panties:  no see-through titillating, bust enhancing bras and oh-so sexy thongs here.

Rather than a play area for children or a fountain, the center of the mall has an area where people can look down on red gravel with an art display that looks like a stack of rocks or boulders suspended from the ceiling.  It's not very pretty nor interesting to look at.  The other mall is a little better in that the floors are not in dire need of refurbishing.  It also has some comfortable chairs where you can sit, but only if you buy a drink or some food.  I would say an old, crappy American mall beats Israeli malls by a mile.

I was told there were plenty of health food stores in Israel, so far haven't seen any.  What I thought was a GNC super store, turned out to be a pharmacy.  I saw the Hebrew letters: pay, aleph, and bet, and dyslexically transposed them into GNC.  Even though I realized my mistake, my mind is still convinced there's a GNC in the mall somewhere.

The only "supermarket" we have been in is at the Grand Canyon Mall and it is about a quarter the size of a small US supermarket.  At least it is well-lit and the aisles are wide enough to pass two buggies through.  In order to get a buggy, you have to put a five-shekel coin into a slot to release the buggy and if you return the cart you get your five shekels back.  The store did offer some familiar brands like Nabisco and Kellogg's cereals, and, of course, the ubiquitous Coca Cola.  You can always tell if you're in an Arab-run establishment because they sell Pepsi.

You don't have to go all the way to the mall for groceries.  There is a food market on about every third corner.  In some ways these are convenience markets and the prices are more expensive, but they offer plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables over junk food readily available at convenience stores at gas stations in the US.

I can't tell if the produce here is locally grown or imported.  My thinking is if the veggies or fruit are all the same size and look flawless they come from a large monoculture corporate farm probably located in California.  I try to buy from local, family farms and look for the less than uniform produce that has imperfections.  Anyway, these corner food markets are dingy, poorly lit and have very narrow aisles barely big enough to get one buggy through.  They are complete with deli, dairy and fresh meat.  Some even have baked chicken -- or emu -- depending on the store.

We have found the food tastes better here and it seems to be more robust.  For example, in California I always purchased organic, free-range eggs and/or eggs from the farmer's market.  Regardless of where I bought the eggs, the yolks were always pale yellow.  The eggs I have purchased here have bright orange yolks.  The other thing I do is take chicken bones and boil them to make a broth for soup.  The US chicken bones produced a nearly clear broth.  The Israeli bones make a deep yellow broth that looks exactly how chicken soup is supposed to look, which makes me wonder:  What is going on with American food?