Chef Moshe Basson learned to cook from his mother, his grandparents and the Arab women in in the neighborhood where he grew up.
Basson was born in Iraq, and his family moved to Jerusalem in 1951, when he was 9 months old. In 1960, they opened a kosher restaurant called Eucalyptus, just outside the walls of the old city.
They chose their restaurant’s name because that year, Basson celebrated Tu b’Shehvat (the new year of the trees) by planting a small eucalyptus tree in his parents’ front yard. The tree, and the restaurant, continued to grow, and Basson took over the family business nearly 30 years ago.
The restaurant’s menu reflects a modern interpretation of foods, spices and herbs whose roots are biblical. He talks at length about their savory and medicinal properties, and their abundance in Jerusalem and throughout the Middle East. He’s won culinary awards in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. He didn’t attend a culinary school, but he said his school was “MGM — mother, grandmother and grandfather.”
Basson wants to do his part to encourage people to visit Israel and to dispel the notion that they will be unsafe it they do.
He came to Overland Park to visit his friend Meredith Farnan, who’s a member of Congregation Ohev Sholom. He arrived on Feb. 2, after having visited a delegation of business people in Orange County, California, for about two weeks, at their invitation. He departed on Feb. 8 to return home. Ohev Sholom held a special Kiddush luncheon in his honor on Feb. 6.
“I’m visiting at this home first of all because with Meredith, I am with my family,” Basson said, “but also to tell people about Jerusalem, because Jerusalem is experiencing bad times — not so much because of what’s happening there but what people think is happening there. I blame the Israeli media also in this, because they show the blood, when at the same time you have (terrorism) in Stockholm, in New York and in Paris. In Israel and (the United States) the media are promoting the terrorism by doing that.”
He cooked lunch on Feb. 3 for Farnan and a guest. He called the dish “shakshuka,” and it resembled a quick Italian sauce of fresh tomatoes, red bell peppers, onions and garlic, salt and black pepper, hot pepper sauce, fresh basil and dried herbs. Into the sauce he cracked six eggs for poaching. He sliced and baked two types of bread to a crunchy crispness to accompany the shakshuka.
He’s cooked for Farnan many times since they first met in January 2002. The Jewish Federation had organized a 10-day trip to Israel for about 100 people in the Kansas City area, she said, including herself and a friend.
“We ate at his restaurant, she said. “It was during the (second) Intifada, and there was no tourism in Israel. People were afraid to go. Our trip was to show our solidarity with Israel. We wanted to do something to help them and their economy. So we wanted Chef Basson to come here and cook. I emailed him in March (2002), and he called me the next day and said he’d love to do it. He came with his son and stayed five weeks.”
Congregation Ohev Sholom also hosted him during that visit, and they invited him to cook there and at other local synagogues, and one in Omaha, and for groups of about 15 to 25 in people’s homes.
Back at home in Jerusalem, his restaurant’s business is good right now, he said, but for other restaurants and a wide range of other businesses in the city and elsewhere in Israel, “it’s very bad.”
“I don’t know what makes the difference,” he said of his restaurant’s vibrancy. “It’s a miracle; that’s how I can explain it, because tourism is down, and business in Jerusalem is based on tourism.”
About 60 percent of his customers are Israelis from Jerusalem and other cities, he said, and the others are tourists. Eucalyptus sits within easy view of the Tower of David and “one of the most beautiful fountains in the Middle East, and you can watch it while you’re sitting in our garden.”
Basson has three adult children and two grandchildren. His son, Ronny, and his brother are involved in the restaurant. Basson’s wife “is an Austro-Hungarian princess,” he said. She eats at Eucalyptus but isn’t involved much in running it. She’s a good cook, though.
“She makes an apple cake that, when it’s baked, all the neighborhood will come and say ‘Hey, hello. How are you?’ so they can get a little bit.”
Basson became a professional chef when he was in his mid-30s. He’s older now, and he stays very busy, but he keeps things simple.
“I’m now 65,” he said. “I’m happy. I’m eating good. I’m enjoying good people. And what do we need? The thing you cannot survive without is love — love and appreciation.”
