The Art of Shakshukah

I went to Tmol Shilshom today, a Jerusalem cafe and literary hangout. They have a picture on the wall of Yehudah Amichai reading, books along the walls, beautiful old tables. I hadn't eaten anything so I ordered shakshukah, pached eggs in tomato sauce, with eggplant and goatcheese, spicy, for breakfast. The waitress put a paper placemat down on the table and I looked at it and laughed. It had a short story on it by Etgar Keret. It said that it was written specially for Tmol Shilshom. I love Etgar Keret, having read a collection in English called the Nimrod Flipout, a gift from my gis, Menachem. It was the quest for Etgar Keret that had lead to my conversation with opinionated owner of Jordan Books (another post). Anyway, Keret's stories are especially suited for placemats mostly because they are so short, microfiction they are sometimes called. My shakshouka came when I was about a third of the way through the story (a story about, it turns out, a man named Etgar and his mother who owns a restaurant). I told the waitress that I was sorry to put shakshukah on literature, and she promised me that I could have another placemat when I was done. The shakshoukah was fantastic but of course it is messy and it got all over Etgar Keret's story.
I took the opportunity to tell the waitress, in my broken Hebrew, the story that I heard Etgar Keret tell about the experience of writing his first story. He wrote it during his army service in a bunker under the ground when he was all alone for forty eight hours with nothing to do but sit at a computer. When he emerged he had leave so he took the story and went to his brother's appartment. It was six in the morning so his brother was just waking up and maybe wasn;t too thrilled to see Etgar, but he agreed to come down and meet him, because he needed to walk his dog. Etgar showed his brother the story. His brother read it and said. "Hey, Etgar, this is really quite good. Do you have another copy."
"Yeah" said Etgar.
"Great," said his brother who leaned over and picked up a smoking dog turd with the story and threw it in the garbage.
"So you see," I told the waitress, "I feel bad about messing up his art."
"But he knew exactly what it was for when he wrote it," she said.
Good point.

Here's the author pic from the menu.
Can't find an artist credit.