I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane...

...but I do know that I will be back again.

We are leaving today for our winter vacation! We are going to Austria to visit my aunt and cousins. We will also be going to the Czech Republic and Hungary. Emet and AL are then returning to Tbilisi...while I meet my friend Beth in India!

I will be gone for three weeks. Hopefully, I will have cool things to tell you about upon my return.

Talk to you soon.

Am I Imagining This...?

...or is there a similarity?

Emet as a kid

Lucas now (5 1/2)

Cheers!

One of my favorite things about Georgia is the people. It is evident that hospitality is an art that is cultivated through the generations. I have been fortunate enough to be able to attend a few Supras and it will never allow me to eat dinner with friends in the same way (watch out)!

When I first arrived in Georgia, I thought a Supra was just a dinner. I was so wrong. Yes, it is a place to eat (and eat and eat and eat), but it is also a time to celebrate friends and family, culture and traditions, and take time to be thankful for all we have. These are all things I know I do not spend enough time doing in the states.


So...after quizzing multiple guests at each Supra I attended, here is what I learned (with a few of my observations thrown in, of course):


A Supra is a traditional Georgian feast. The amount of food and drinks that are available during a Supra is unbelievable. The food is literally piled high on a table that seems to have no end. Guests sit for hours eating and drinking. It is not uncommon for a Supra to last until the wee hours of the morning. People may end up playing games, dancing, or in our case, listening to Emet play guitar (yeah!).


Each Supra is led by a Tamada or toastmaster. On large occasions, such as a wedding, the Tamada is chosen by the guests in advance. If the Supra is more intimate, say 20 people in someone's home, the host may take on the role. The Tamada must be an eloquent speaker, able to command the attention of the guests, and hold his liquor. Each Tamada has a "second". This man's responsibility is to add to or enhance the toast. He is never to initiate a toast without the Tamada's permission. When the Tamada begins a toast, the men stand. From my observation, they have a hefty amount of alcohol at each toast! Imagine the size of a juice glass filled with wine or liquor and downing it with each toast. It is considered a "sin", whether man or woman, to be at the table during a toast with an empty glass. As you can imagine, the night gets fun pretty quickly.


The few Supras I have attended, the Tamada toasted many, many times throughout the night. By the end of the evening, they had toasted each guest, people who have passed away, and Georgian historical events and even the beauty of the language. I have learned a great deal about the people who are with us at the Supras and about Georgia!


The last Supra we attended was at one of Emet's co-worker's dacha (thanks Jeff for helping me with the spelling!). A dacha is a second home away from the city. It is a place to get away for the weekends or the summer and avoid the heat and smog of Tbilisi. Georgians are big on clean air. My crazy idea is that if everyone stopped smoking, the air would be much cleaner in Tbilisi. But once again, I digress.


This dacha was adorable! It had a fireplace, an open oven (literally) in the kitchen where shashlik was cooking, a wine cellar/house out back, and was on the edge of a river. It was gorgeous!



These are some of Emet's colleagues. I don't know if you can see how much food was left on the table, but this was hours after everyone had finished eating.




So get those wine glasses ready and think of wonderful things to say...we may not do it completely Georgian style (I can't just sit all night and listen to my man talk!), but I am excited about having Supras in Virginia!

Conflict of Interest

So we went to a friend's house for dinner the other night and they ordered pizza from a place called Fantastiko. Now I don't want to mislead you. Being a Jersey girl who lived in NYC for a few years, this really isn't my idea of pizza. However, I was once told by a good friend that pizza is pizza and bad pizza is still good and better than no pizza.

Anyway, when the delivery man showed up he told us that we shouldn't order from Fantastiko anymore and he shoved a menu for another pizza place at us.

The next day, Emet said the same thing happened at his office. This delivery guy has got a deal going on! Wonder what he gets for selling out Fantastiko and giving the new place props? Free pizza, I guess.

Pass the Khachapuri, Please

I took some pictures of typical Georgian food for your viewing pleasure! When I first moved here, I did not care for any of it. The longer I live here, I find that there are a few things I like. By the time we leave Georgia, I may have developed actual cravings....hmmm, we'll see.

Every meal starts with Puri (bread)

Khinkali: dumpling with meat, cheese, potato, or mushrooms inside. There is a certain amount of skill involved in eating these. You are supposed to hold it by the stubby end, take a bite and at the same time suck out all of the juices. After all of the juice is sucked out, then you can actually eat it. Unfortunately, no one told me this when I first tried it and I ended up with juice running down my chin and all over my shirt. It is fun to see this dish being brought out by the dozens to large tables of men drinking heavily. Many people believe that Khinkali and alcohol go hand and hand.

Kabob: a flour-like tortilla (called levash) wrapped around semi-fried beef in the shape of a long rod. Not your momma's kabob.

Khachapuri: This is a Georgian staple. It is a pastry-like dough filled with melted Georgian cheese (called sulguni). There are so many different ways of making this, so it is different at every restaurant. There are also different versions based on the region of the country.

This is Adjarian Khachapuri: the bread is made into a boat shape and then filled with cheese and baked multiple times. Right before they bring it to your table, they put a raw egg and a pat of butter on top. The proper procedure for eating this kind of khachapuri is to stir it immediately upon arrival so that the egg cooks...that is how extremely hot it is!

Lobio: The word for beans in Georgian is lobio. When you order lobio in restaurants, these kidney beans come stewed in a clay pot. People eat it plain or with their puri. They use some different spices and it is pretty tasty.

M'tsvadi (Shashlik in Russian): This is what we think of as shish kabob in America. You can get chicken, pork, beef, or veal. You can often see people BBQing this on the street as well. It is customary to remove the meat from the skewers with one piece of bread. This bread then has all of the juices from the meat and therefore considered a delicacy.

Water: Not as simple as one might think. There is water with gas and without gas. Within the 'gas family' of water, there are three kinds: Nabeghlavi, Likani, and Borjomi. The difference between these three waters is their level of saltiness.

Salate Kitri da Pomadori Nicoisi: Cucumber and Tomato Salad with Walnut Paste. Yummy!

Badrijani: Grilled Eggplant stuffed with walnut paste (there are a few versions of how this is prepared, but usually have similar ingredients). Eggplant is used in many dishes...too bad I don't like it.

Georgian Lemonade: The best part about ordering lemonade is when the server asks, "what flavor?" There is pear, tarragon, and lemon. The lemon tastes like 7 up on a sugar high. The tarragon resembles a radioactive by-product, so I refuse to drink it.

Lemon Flavor:

Tarragon Flavor:

So although I may be beginning to like some of the Georgian food, the one thing I will not get used to is the smoke filled restaurants. When I come home from a dinner out, I smell my clothes and hair and am reminded of my many nights spent in bars (does this sound bad?). I rush to take a shower and hang my clothes outside to air out (my old trick of putting all my clothes in the dryer with a dryer sheet does not work since we don't have a dryer!). However, if you go out early enough, you can avoid some of the smoke.

I tried to capture the smoke lingering in the air...not sure if you can see it, but believe me, it was there.

How Long Do Vibes Last?

A few weeks ago, Emet's friend Jonathan came to visit--such fun! While he was here, we went on a day trip to Stalin's birth place. Traveling to Gori did not take very long, but we got to see beautiful landscape and lots of animals along the way. Not really being a history buff (this is a bit of an understatement, as my father-in-law might say), I walked around the Stalin museum wondering how someone's life ends up the way his did.

Stalin's Death Mask

We saw the train he used to travel the country.

This was Stalin's house when he was a child. His entire family lived in this small room.

As Lucas laid on the bed where Stalin slept, I became a bit unnerved. Are Stalin's vibes still there? Will they seep into Lucas' skin, penetrating his soul? OK, maybe a bit dramatic, but really these were the thoughts that ran through my mind as I hurried Lucas off the bed.

Before we continued our journey, we stopped for lunch. I love going to restaurants outside of Tbilisi...you never know what kind of experience you will have. Being a former vegetarian, I tried my best to ignore all of the animals on display.

Just a little down time, before our food arrived.

We then drove about 15 minutes to Uplistsikhe. This is considered one of the oldest urban settlements in Georgia.

We paid our entrance fee and hired a guide. He spoke a bit of English, but I had a very hard time understanding him. It was obvious he had created a "script" because if we asked a question, he would get all flustered as if we disrupted his place in the script and was unsure if he would be able to find his place again. We were able to put together some information from our guide and he charged us much less than other tour guides because he told us that he didn't have "60 Lari English only 40 Lari English".

It was fascinating to see how people built their homes on the edge of these cliffs. They had sewer streets, a well, pagan temples, a theater....

This is the temple at the top of the hill.

Doesn't this look like a face (profile)?

Since my return to Tbilisi, I learned about a legend that the slaves who built the town were given an axe of gold, with an iron end. The harder they worked, carving the buildings out of the sandstone rocks, the earlier they were left with a piece of pure gold. Disclaimer: I have no idea if this is true or not.

Click it or Ticket

I may have mentioned in previous posts about the crazy, zig-zag, make you dizzy way of driving here. I know I told you all about the fact that the white lines on the roads are optional. Did I also happen to mention that NO ONE wears a seat belt?

Beliefs about seat belts, as told by Georgians:

1. If you put on a seat belt, you are drawing attention to yourself. Obviously, you must be drunk or impaired in some other way. Don't do it, you will just get in trouble with the police.

2. If you are a passenger in a car and reach for your seat belt, you have just insulted the driver. You are insinuating that the driver is unfit to drive. You might as well just get out of the car if you make the mistake of reaching for your seat belt. It won't be a pleasant ride.

Well, as of today, December 1st, all people in the front seats of cars must wear their seat belts. If they are pulled over and not wearing one, it is a 40 Lari fine.

Hooray! I have tried to teach some of my Georgian friends the phrase "click it or ticket"...I don't think they get it though. They do, however, get a laugh from watching me attempt to act it out.

Next step: No more babies between the driver's legs.