oh white bread, you minx

Some shit went down in the wheat-growing industry recently. Nobody really knows what happened (or I don’t care to do the research to find out), but for some reason the price of wheat went up, up like a qassam rocket over Sderot. But when the bread-makers asked G-d for permission to raise the going rate of their products, the powers that be asserted a big Nun Vav. (N-O, to translate.) Their reasoning – charge all you want for the specialty loaves, but your basic white bread prices are fixed so that every breadwinner, whether he be a Bedouin, an Arse, or even a Russian immigrant, can afford to provide his or her (but clearly his) family with a healthy amount of empty calories from carbohydrates.
In typical Israeli fashion, the bread-makers’ response was very straightforward: a national bread strike. And the people’s reaction has been understandably dramatic. “Why why why why why!” can be heard echoing through the streets of Jerusalem. “All I want is a loaf of plain bread,” whimpered my cousin at dinner the other night.
As for me, I’m not actually affected by any of this, considering I tend not to eat white bread when presented with any other digestible option. In fact, I am actively engaged in what I like to refer to as the “Warsaw diet,” which basically involves only buying inexpensive food from the shuk.
You’re probably wondering how I can sustain myself for two months eating only items from an open-air market, but I guarantee that it is entirely feasible, especially when you have the eating habits of a farm animal to begin with. Additionally, it is actually recommended to stick to this way of life when your wallet has the elasticity of a chocolate wafer, which mine decidedly does. Am I getting all the nutrients necessary for survival? That’s debatable. But have I sampled every type of fruit produced in this country in the last eleven months? Why yes, yes I have. Such is the life of the impoverished OTZMA alumna.