Sly James has issued his fair share of ceremonial proclamations in his tenure as mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. It takes only one raised index finger to represent the number of the mayor’s decrees read aloud from the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem’s Old City.
The honor and distinction of proclaiming Kansas City as “a Culinary and Cultural Sister City to Jerusalem, Israel” fell on Lon Lane, president of Lon Lane’s Inspired Creations, an established catering business located in Brookside. In early March and with the Kansas City mayor’s proclamation in hand, Lane and three dozen fellow caterers, chefs and their family members representing all corners of the United States spent a week in Israel as part of a Culinary Mission. This “learning journey” was associated with the International Caterers Association Education Foundation (ICAEF) of which Lane is chairman.
It’s been two months since Lane and members of his family landed back in Kansas City from this 10-day excursion into Israel. Establishing the sister city culinary connection between KC and Jerusalem was certainly a high point of the trip. Truth be known, the Lanes’ hearts, minds and conversations are still very much in Israel. The buzz from this “amazing, simply amazing” journey has not subsided.
“The people on this learning journey were blown away,” said Lane. “They had no idea what to expect.”
Lane knew what to expect. Indeed, the entire trip is very much due to his persistence and vision. While not Jewish, his family had spent a week in Israel 10 years prior. He was captivated by the land, the people, the food and the history of the country. He was ultimately able to convince his peers at the ICAEF to schedule one of the organization’s annual international group trips to Israel.
“At first we couldn’t sell it,” Lane said. “People were afraid to go to Israel. We’ve been working on this for 10 years trying to get it off the ground.”
Israel, it turned out, was an amazingly profound “discovery” for this group of culinary enthusiasts. In follow-up correspondence many described the trip as “a life-changing experience.”
Stewart Lane, Lon’s son and research and development director for the Lane family’s catering business, said at the beginning of the trip there was trepidation on the part of some members of the entourage. The first evening in Israel concluded with a gathering on Mount Zion that turned extraordinarily spiritual due to happenstance. The group unexpectedly experienced hearing the simultaneous blowing of a Jewish shofar, the ringing of Christian bells and an Islam call to worship. It was a moving experience that set a “spiritual tone” for the visit.
“One group, after that first night, said they didn’t know the trip was going to be so religious,” Stewart Lane said. “Two days later it was, ‘Oh, my god, it’s so much more!’ They dove wholeheartedly into the experience. People expected it to be either a religious or a food experience and it was a really great amalgam of all those expectations.”
With the Mount Zion experience and the reading of the Sister City proclamation setting the stage, the culinary mission unfolded with a strategically choreographed itinerary. Visits to what one guide called the historical “non-negotiable things you have to do” were combined and intertwined with culinary experiences reflective of local traditions, indigenous foods and wines.
“Israel is the only place you could do such a unique culinary learning journey because you draw connections to all the pieces of the puzzle to make sense of what you’re experiencing,” said Stewart Lane. “There’s no way you can do an Israel learning journey without getting into the religious aspects, without getting into the why things are the way they are and that involves a lot of history and that involves politics and that involves so many different aspects.
“This journey was so much more than what I would say is a service-level experience. It actually dove into details as ‘why.’ You can have hummus every single meal but someone makes it a little different and the Jewish quarter makes it different and the Arab quarter makes it like that. It’s getting into all those nitty-gritty details.”
Lon Lane said the culinary component of the visit to Israel made a strong impression on ICAEF participants. Israeli chefs prepared local dishes and engaged in hands-on teaching experiences, almost always in unique and historic settings. Group participants were able to experience Israeli restaurants, food shops, gardens, orchards and wineries.
“All of us will take away something we will incorporate into our business and to help make us more competitive,” said Lon Lane. “When you see the process and you see it’s all fresh and it’s few ingredients and all this and ... Wow! This is like an explosion! Now we’ve been there. We’ve tasted. We’ve seen. We know what to buy. We have contacts we can now send menus to and ask what wine they would suggest.”
A behind-the-scenes influence for this mission was a close friend of Lon Lane’s. Bonnie Siegel, president of ASE Group, a Kansas City-based event management company, has visited Israel upwards of 18 times. A member of BIAV, she collaborated in the planning of the trip and, along with her husband Matthew, accompanied the group. John Isenberg, board chair of the Jewish Federation of Kansas City, and his wife Jenny, also went on the trip.
Seigel said she joined the ACIEF learning journey with two intentions. The first was to make sure any inaccurate or misleading perceptions about Israel were negated by experiencing “the reality on the ground.” Second was to help guide the group to historic sites and to show aspects of a country she deeply loves..
“It was really rewarding for us to see delight in people’ eyes as they were experiencing Israel for the first time,” Siegel said.
Lon Lane said this first ICAEF learning journey to Israel is the first of a three-phase plan. With this initial mission providing a general introduction to the historic aspects of Israel and the native cuisine, a Phase II trip in 2020 will focus more on culinary and wines. Twenty-eight of the 36 on the first journey have already signed up. “It’s a land they love now,” said Lane.
Lane said the true value of such a trip is realizing “people are far more similar than we are different.” Lane said. He said to experience Israel is to understand Israelis, Arabs and Christians all want the same for their families and their people.
“They all want peace and harmony and a wonderful world in which to raise their children,” said Lane. “Basically when you look at the three monolithic religions, they’re all saying the same thing. They’re all teaching us how to be human beings and live with each other. We’re just not doing a very good job of it.”