As our Group Study Exchange team has coursed its way through Israel, we’ve been giving presentations about ourselves, our professions and our communities.

The one element of our presentation that almost always gets a rise out of our Rotary Club hosts deals with an item of food: a Texas steak.

Katt Krause, one of our team members, reminds our hosts of the saying that “everything’s bigger in Texas,” and to illustrate the point, she talks about the Big Texan Steak Ranch, and the monstrous 72-ounce steak one gets for free if he or she can choke it down in an hour — or less. You have to eat the steak, plus all the sides, she says.

Of course, when she converts the ounces to pounds, and then back to kilograms (it’s about 2 kilos), then our audience members’ eyes really light up.

And this occurs is in a country that, based on our experience during the past two weeks, seems to thrive on the consumption of food — and lots of it.