Today is Christmas! What did Santa bring me? Um, It’s not like that. I woke up this late-morning to church-on-TV hymns with a “you’ve got a half hour to be ready” warning from my host mom. We were invited to her friends’ house for Christmas dinner, and they were expecting us at 1pm.
Off we went to the apartment of mayonnaise adorned salads and Ratchaturie (or Haladetz for all the Russian-speakers in da house.) Her friends were a couple with a Pekinese. After a shot of cognac, Tamara, with the couple’s permission, informed me of the calamity of their not ever having children. “Lucky is their child.” She said, nuzzling the dog’s wet nose as the proud parents nodded admiringly. When the husband first introduced the little dog to me he told me “She’s a Japanese dog with an English name- Loki!” And I joked “like the monster!” thinking the name was a variation of the lokness monster. It took until the middle of the meal to realize the name was Lucky, not Loki, just like when I called my first host family’s dog “Box” for weeks before I realized the name was “Bucks,” as in money.
We were there for over five hours, eating and drinking, drinking and eating, and more of that. My host mom warned her friends that I don’t eat Ratchaturie but they insisted so I ate some. What’s a little Ratchaturie after a little Champaign and cognac? What it is is basically chicken in a broth that has been gelatinized. It’s like when my mom used to make Jell-o for us kids with fruit floating in it. But this isn’t sweet, and instead of fruit, floating chicken. (Imagine Cosby singing about that!) Ratchaturie, Haladetz, is at every big meal. Even my family in the states makes it, and at home I was never really a fan. Out here, though, out of politeness, I’ve been eating a lot of it and am starting to understand the different qualities. I hated it when I ate it at a dinner in a village only because I could taste the water used for the gelatin (I wouldn’t be surprised if it was directly from a well.) In Chisinau, with my hip family friends, it was really good, almost buttery, chicken-soupy good, made with water from a Brita filter. The Ratchaturie today was fine, but I’m saying that because I don’t really think I tasted it because by then I was drunk.
Today before 3pm, I was already drunk, with the encouragement and persuasion of the hosts and Tamara. To recount, I drank two glasses of champaign, one shot of cognac, some homemade red wine, and some homemade white wine. At dinner I had a pretty good buzz going and caught myself speaking Romanian freely (goodbye shyness, thank you alcohol!) The food was good, the company was okay, and I got pretty bored in the last hour as we all sat watching horribly cheesy Russian concerts on TV. One detail I’ve noticed out here: dinner parties with the TV on. If the family visited is a TV-watching household, then there’s a good chance the TV will be on full-volume throughout the entire dinner, sometimes leading to conversations, but mostly interrupting.
We left the company with the excuse that I was invited to another event at the gym that I’ll be teaching my aerobics class at. When we arrived home I had about an hour before I had to be at the event, but within the hour it became apparent that I’m not going anywhere. My buzz from dinner is gone and now I’m just buzzy, and not feeling very festive, at all. Plus all of this writing about chicken Jell-o isn’t helping, but I’m obviously a self-sadist. Now I’m trying to drink a lot of water and eat pretzels as I’ve convinced myself that pretzels have a special stomach-healing power. I’ve been trying to distract myself from this ill-feeling with writing this entry, but now as it’s coming to an end, I probably really, really, should go lay down.
2 comments:
amy, they obviously said 'Loki', the norse god of mischief. duh. our little doggie is so loki!
Water? From a well? Well golly who gone done and thought o' that? durn it all, i never drank no water from a real well before, oh, except that well i drank water out of for the first 18 years of my life.
Post a Comment