The um...long periods of cooking.
My mother used to cook all types of Armenian dishes,
which were great, wonderful
and nostalgic memories of my past.
I loved the Armenian
things that were not that
-that are not restau-restaurantable today
and they took an awful long time to do [intelligible]
Yet the ah- many of our contests
had to do with gatherings where
we children were always taken.
We weren't left home.
And then we would
also have these contests where the elderly
would tell these wonderful old stories
that were sometimes
made, usually for adult people.
And when we were supposed to be sleeping in another room
with a with a baby sitter,
I would wake up and walk to the door and listen to these fascinating stories.
Also, we had picnics long, long, hot,
just incredible number
of people who would re-go up into the mountains
we’d dig a hole and put this huge
crock with all types of vegetables and meats and so on, and cook it
semi on the ground and all through the day
people would eat Mazza
as it's called, hor d’ouves.
They're drinking raki and we dance on Oriental rugs.
And then
certain groups of people would be in one place
and then other groups would be in a
hill next to it and so on.
And at night we would start singing
some Armenian songs that would be uh- we would sing
certain stances of it and, and groups on the other mountain
would echo and sing the second verses, etc..
Anyway, these are the pleasant things that happened in Armenia.