OVERHEARD AWAITING A BOOKSIGNING AT STELLINA'S RESTAURANT IN WATERTOWN SQUARE

Awaiting a book signing at Stellina's Restaurant in Watertown Square, Marash Girl overheard the following conversation going on behind her.

"Can't talk about religion, can't talk about politics, can't talk about sex . . . and we can't talk about the book, 'cause we haven't read it!"

"Lawyer Means Liar!"

Ten year old Marash Girl was all excited when she told her elderly Aunt Elmast that she, Marash Girl, had decided (at the encouragement of Marash Girl's father) to become a lawyer.

Auntie Elmast quickly burst Marash Girl's bubble:  "Lawyer means liar!" Auntie Elmast asserted.

Purple Cabbage Salad

Thanks to Chris Metz, Marash Girl really appreciates her own, simple, easy and delicious recipe for purple cabbage salad.  It's simply thinly sliced purple cabbage with a dressing of all natural tamari sauce (Marash Girl uses SAN-J organic Tamari Gluten Free Soy Sauce), wine vinegar that has had a peeled garlic clove steeped in it for months (Marash Girl uses all natural Progresso Red Wine Vinegar), and pure all natural olive oil. That's it.  Couldn't be simpler if you have already made and marinated over the days/weeks/months/seasons Marash Girl's own salad dressing . . .  that's the recipe above.  If you use it, please credit Marash Girl when you receive the compliments!

An Old Country Story for the New Country

A visiting evangelist, thinking to get the attention of the men and the women in the congregation, asked all men who were afraid of their wives to stand.

All men stood save one.  The evangelist pointed to the man who was seated and asked, "Are you the only one in this congregation, then, who is not afraid of your wife?"

The seated man answered, "I cannot stand because my knees shake so badly at the mention of my wife!"

Marash Girl thanks her father who heard this story many a time while he was growing up in Marash.

A Quick and Easy (and Delicious) Mushroom Recipe

Here you go!  Just buy a box of fresh mushrooms.  Wipe them (or rinse them) clean.  Slice them lengthwise into quarter inch thick pieces.  Set aside.

Peel and slice one yellow onion.  Fry the onion in a skillet of hot olive oil or hot melted butter, or half olive oil and half butter, depending on your dietary restrictions or the preferences of your palate. Place the sliced mushrooms in the hot olive oil or butter, or half olive oil and half butter, and sauté until slightly shriveled and softened.

Voilà!  A quick and easy and delicious side dish for your entrée!

On Being Armenian in Third Grade at Claflin School

Most of her time during her year in third grade, Marash Girl spent in the hall with Jack B.  Both students regularly disrupted the classroom, one because she was bored, the other because he was bored, both for different reasons.  And both, by chance, were of Armenian heritage. In fact, both of them had parents who had been born in the "old country".  Both of them had learned English as their second (or third) language. The only difference was that Jack B. was the youngest of twelve children, and Marash Girl was the eldest of six (including her cousins living on the second floor).     And thanks to Jack B. and her third grade teacher, Marash Girl, as an adult, became a teacher of English to speakers of other languages.  It was easy.  She had done it before.

Healing, Old Country Style

There's a story that the old folks used to tell about a boy in Marash who had a terrible eye infection.  No salve the local healer suggested would heal the boy's eyes.  Finally it was suggested that the family take their son to Istanbul to the most famous doctor of all.  The family did so at great expense both in time and money.  Finally arriving in Istanbul, the boy's father asked where to find this most famous of all doctors.  

Arriving at the door of this famous hekim, the family was ushered into his office with great dispatch. When the doctor learned of the boy's plight and examined the boy's eyes, he asked the boy to hold out his hands.  The doctor then tied the boy's hands behind the boy's back and told the family that the boy's eyes would be fine, that the eyes would heal very soon.

What are you studying? Anatomy?

(Rahmetlu olsun)Stan Shafran and Marash Girl were good friends . . . They were in homeroom together in 10th grade (with Mrs. Goldstein), in orchestra together, Marash Girl on the piano, Stan on the trumpet, and they lived literally three blocks from each other and only several more blocks to their high school.  One day, after practicing music duets in Stan's basement, Stan asked Marash Girl for some help with a homework assignment.  Marash Girl was still at the piano, Stan beside her, as she tried to explain how he might accomplish his assignment.  (Yes, Marash Girl later became a high school teacher . . .) But moments into her explanation, Stan's mother shouted down the stairs, "What are you two doing down there?"
"Studying," Stan answered.
His mother promptly quipped, "What are you studying? Anatomy?"

Happy Birthday, John Simmons!

                                                                                                    Photo by Marash Girl

Another Quick Summer Recipe

Shrimp Cocktail Sauce

1/2 cup tomato ketchup, preferably one containing no preservatives

1 tsp Gold's Prepared Horse Radish (hard to find, sometimes; need to ask a store manager where it is located in the refrigerated section of the supermarket)

Stir together, and voila . . . a quick and easy dip for those delicious fresh veggies from your garden or your neighbor's garden!

Use as a dip for shrimp or freshly cut up, crisp veggies such as carrots, cucumber, green pepper . . .

Thanks to (rahmetlu olsun) Arppie Charkoudian for the recipe!  She would always arrive in Wilbraham with not only the dip, but the fresh veggies to dip into the dip!  Or, if it was late in the summer season, we would simply go to the garden and gather whatever veggies we needed!

Spit Up

Can't remember the original expression in Armeno-Turkish, but Marash Girl grew up hearing the saying which translates, "Spit up you hit your mustache, spit down you hit your beard."  Or the English equivalent, Caught between a rock and a hard place; caught between scylla and Charybdis.
In the days when spittoons were prevalent (methinks they disappeared around the 1950's), folks understood!

Summer Avocado Dip

Simple and quick, this avocado dip is perfect with your favorite chips.

Cut a ripe avocado in half, remove pit and save for later (see below), remove flesh of avocado from skin and mash; stir in a tablespoonful of your favorite salsa and a teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice and serve with your favorite chips.

If the pit has begun to sprout a root or two, pierce the pit half way down from the top of the pit with three toothpicks evenly spaced around the pit and allow the toothpicks to hold the pit halfway into the water, half of it above the water, with the toothpicks resting along the side of a glass full of water.  Place on a windowsill and watch the roots grow down into the water and a beautiful plant emerge above the water.  When the plant is large enough, it may be placed in a pot of soil an eventually become a beautiful tree!

"Get Thee Behind Me, Satan!"

Have you ever noticed how holding onto anger or negative feelings towards others drags you down?  There's a secret to releasing yourself from that bind.  Let go of those bad feelings and free yourself, or order those feelings away, as Jesus is quoted as saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan!"  It's amazing how much lighter you will feel, how free you will be of that weight that had been dragging you down.

From Marash, Eastern Anatolia, to Brighton, Massachusetts

Bedros arrived home crying, covered with bruises and a few bloody spots as well.  

"Ne oldu?" (what happened?) asked his father Moses.

Bedros told the story of how the Brighton boys tried to talk to him but when he couldn't answer in English, they beat him up.

"Neh etdin?" ("What did you do?") asked his father.

"Hiç bir şey değil," ("Nothing!") answered Bedros.

"The next time you come home beaten up like this and you haven't given the boys better than they gave you, I'll give you a worse beating."

Bedros soon became one of the Brighton boys, thanks to his father's advice!

"Don't You Just Love Stuff?"

Marash Girl's cousin Chuck (or Charlie, as she knew him growing up), the former owner of the Christmas Tree Shops on Cape Cod, spent the first 8 years of his life on the first floor of our two-family house in Newtonville, his father the co-owner of the building . . . One of the memories that Marash Girl holds dear is when, as an adult, Chuck commented to Marash Girl, "Don't you just love stuff?"

Why?  We both grew up during World War II and had little or no "stuff" to play with, and anything we did have, we had to share with all of our many cousins.  Rahmetlu Olsun Chuck Bilezikian

Another Easy Summer Recipe

Ripe avocado (skin and pit removed), mash with a fork, add salsa and stir.  A delicious summer dip!

Easy Fruit Salad

Got an apple, an orange, a banana?  Cube them, sprinkle with a bit of sugar and lemon juice, and there you've got a healthy fruit salad.  Keep it in the fridge for a quick, cool summer snack, or a delicious summer evening's dessert.

Delicious Summer Dip

Quick and easy, this dip, thanks to its originator rahmetlu olsun Arppie Charkoudian, is perky and delicious.  Simply stir together a quarter cup of tomato ketchup with a dash or two of horseradish and, voila! A dip for your freshly cut up carrots, cucumbers, celery and whatever other crispy veggies you may have in the fridge. . .

Never Know Who Might Be At The Door

Several sunny days ago, while sitting on our front porch in the late afternoon sun knitting, Marash Girl noticed a dragonfly come to the front door and actually attempt to ring the doorbell.  She was honored.

"Kantz mu ounis?"

Medzmama, a Marashtsi survivor of the Armenian Genocide, never chided the little ones when they pooped in their pants.  She simply asked, "Kantz mu ounis?" which translates from Armenian into English, "Do you have a treasure?"

How different from a relative recently arrived from Beirut who advised Marash Girl to light a match, blow it out and immediately (while the distinguished match was still hot) touch it to the bottom of the child who had just pooped in his/her pants.  "That'll teach them never to do that again," she assured Marash Girl.