My friends, David and Edna, now live in San Diego. They came back to Cleveland and Ron and I joined them for a weekend of celebrating. We started with a get together at Edna's parents' house on Friday. Edna's family is of Middle Eastern descent, so we were introduced to an entirely new way to party! And let me tell you, this family can party!
Dinner was catered by a local Middle Eastern restaurant. I don't know the name of it but the food was as delicious as it was different. I was very out of my box and tried everything that came in the door. First, I made sure that no fish heads or cow brains were used in the making of this food. I am NOT as adventurous as some in my family! Once I was assured that nothing out of the ordinary was in the food, I chowed down. I had an explanation of everything that was on the table, but now I couldn't tell you what anything was! Let it suffice to say, it was all good!
After dinner, entertainment was provided. Did I mention that this family knows how to party? The entertainment was not a rousing game of pinochle or even bocce in the backyard. The entertainment was a belly dancer! True story!
The music is fantastic and I dare you to listen to it without dancing in your seat or at least tapping your toes. The girl worked the crowd and as you can see, David was more than happy to dance with her as well. Don't think he was the only one, as most of the people there took their turns dancing with the belly dancer.
One of my favorite pictures, here is a picture of Edna, taking a picture of me, taking a picture of her! Kodak moment, huh?
Saturday, I was the numb skull that didn't take my camera with me. Saturday, we went to the St. Elias Church festival. We started with dinner under the tent. Since again, we don't know one food from another, Ron and I each chose a sampler plate. We were treated to stuffed grape leaves, stuffed cabbage rolls (not like our Slovak ones!), hommus, these meat or spinach pies and assorted other things that I had no idea what they were.
Edna's Dad was nice enough to give us instructions on the proper way to eat some of this food. For example, some things are to be eaten while being held in your hand, and not cut up with a knife and a fork. Also, the little chips that were on my plate were supposed to be put in this salad type thing I had and not just used to scoop up the hommus! Who knew? We took our instructions and chowed down with the best of them. All I can tell you is that both of our plates were empty when all was said and done.
Again, after dinner was entertainment. A band was there, playing Middle Eastern music. I can't tell you how they had the crowd going. There weren't many people in the chairs as most people were up on the dance floor either belly dancing or doing this dance where everyone was holding hands and snaking around the floor. I obviously can't describe it, but it was beautiful and very contagious. What started with three women by the end had maybe 40 people from the ages of 7 to 90!
What a great weekend. I got to learn so much about a culture that is so rich in customs and proud of their heritage. And, thanks to David and Edna for inviting us along to play their reindeer games this weekend! You guys definitely need to come to town more often!
No comments:
Post a Comment