This recipe (and the story that goes along with it) first appeared in the June 4, 2012 edition of “From Tali’s Kitchen,” my biweekly cooking column in Binah magazine.

There’s something funny about living in a country other than the one in which you were raised.

When I’m home in Israel, I’m one of “the Americans.” But when I visit the States, I’m “the one who moved to Israel,” the one who forgets that, in the U.S., you get charged for both incoming and outgoing cell phone calls, the one who forgets that Sunday isn’t the same as Monday or Tuesday.

Although I’m fiercely proud to live in Israel, I can’t deny my American upbringing. There wouldn’t even be a point — some things are just ingrained in me.

I still carry a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer (with moisture beads!) in my bag. I still can’t haggle over prices in the shuk. And I still eat my main meal of the day in the evening.

In Israel, it’s considered completely normal to serve the main meal for lunch. Think of the foods you’d eat for dinner: Roasted chicken and potatoes, creamy pasta and salad, grilled fish with vegetables and rice. Well, Israelis eat that stuff at noon instead of 6:30.

I was first initiated to the Israeli meal schedule when I arrived in Yerushalayim for a year of seminary.

Lunch, which was naturally the main meal of the day, was included in tuition. Dinner, which seemed to be almost an afterthought, was available for a bit extra. At age 18, the thought of grocery shopping, meal planning, and cooking was overwhelming, and I happily signed up for dinner plan. The school hired a local older woman as the cook, and we good-naturedly nicknamed her “Bubbe.”

Bubbe Dinner Plan was a sweet lady who tried earnestly to make foods that we’d like. How could she have guessed that egg noodles in a creamy chocolate sauce would seem bizarre to us? Another night, she meticulously held up to the light dozens upon dozens of raisins, checking each one for bugs. (Unfortunately, no one really liked the sweet casserole that had called for all those raisins. We felt terrible about it.)

One afternoon, I left an anonymous note in the kitchen, telling her that we enjoyed her cooking but wondered whether she could try making lasagna for us. She did, several times — and I have to say, it was pretty good.

Shabbos might have been the one day of the week that Israelis and Americans had the same meal style. There’s no denying that the daytime seuda is the main meal on Shabbos day, and that we all serve it for lunch. But it turns out that Israelis and Americans have a very different idea of what qualifies as Shabbos lunchtime.

In the States, my family usually got home from shul at noon and sat down to eat by 12:30 or 1:00. Pretty standard.

Here in Israel, though, everything is earlier. Davening starts earlier, it ends earlier, and lunch is served earlier. Eleven in the morning is an absolutely normal time to whip out the cholent and roasted potatoes. Quarter to eleven, even.

But to me, this is crazy. And that’s why my cooperative husband and I start Shabbos lunch no earlier than noon. — when it’s just the two of us. If we’re having guests, I compromise with the cultural norms and push it up to 11:30. One of these days, I’m going to serve pancakes instead of kugel.

It’s with things like these that I feel as American as apple pie. Or…tuna casserole.

Tuna noodle casserole is an American classic that home cooks all over the country have been making for years, but I sometimes feel like it only belongs in my grandpa’s kitchen. It’s one of the dishes he’s known for in the family, along with his famous lasagna and homemade pickles.

Grandpa first learned to make tuna casserole in 1951, when he was a third-year law student at Harvard. He was renting an apartment in Cambridge and picked up the recipe from a subtenant, a guy from California pursuing his Ph.D. The casserole became part of Grandpa’s meal rotation — usually with a lettuce and tomato salad on the side.

When Grandpa married Grandma, he taught her how to make tuna casserole, too, and the two of them often had it for dinner. That must have lasted for years, because my mother and her siblings all remember having it on Thursday nights. Yep, Grandma menu-planned!

Grandpa’s casserole uses canned cream of mushroom soup, but without that available in Israel for even a test run, I opted to dress the dish up with a rich béchamel sauce and fresh sautéed mushrooms. I also replace the traditional toppings of crushed potato chips or buttery breadcrumbs with lightly crushed Bissli.

Which is to say that this dish kinda represents my cooking style: Lots of American influences with a bit of an Israeli twist.

Bissli-Topped Tuna Casserole
Yield: 8-10 servings

Ingredients

1 bag elbow macaroni
1 carton mushrooms, cleaned and cut into bite-sized pieces
3 Tbsp butter, divided
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup whole milk
1 cup sour cream
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup shredded mozzarella, divided
2 cans tuna, drained and flaked
200 g Bissli (about 2 cups), lightly crushed

Directions

1. Melt 1 Tbsp butter in a non-stick skillet and sauté mushrooms until lightly browned and fragrant. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. To make the béchamel sauce, melt remaining butter in a medium saucepan. Add flour, stirring constantly over low heat for 1 minute. Remove from heat and add milk, slowly, continuing to stir constantly to ensure a smooth sauce. Return to heat and stir until thickened, 6-8 minutes. Whisk in sour cream and mushrooms, then add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Cook pasta 4 minutes less than package directions instruct. (If you cook it fully and then bake, it will be overdone.) Drain, running cold water over it to stop the cooking process.

4. Transfer pasta to a large mixing bowl and stir in béchamel with mushrooms. Add tuna and mozzarella, reserving about a third of the cheese for the topping. Mix until pasta is coated.

5. Spread evenly in a 9×13 baking dish and top with remaining cheese. Add Bissli in a single layer (there will be some leftover for snacking). Bake 13 minutes, just to heat thoroughly and melt the cheese. Serve immediately.

Tip: If you’re planning to make this ahead of time, add the Bissli topping soon before serving.