I’ve decided that Dr’ Suess’s famous book, Go Dog Go, is truly the story of an Armenian Wedding (or maybe any ethnic wedding, really). Go find it again and look at through it. All the dogs gathering, little by little – driving around, showing off to each other, swimming, insulting each other’s clothing choices, 20 of them sleeping in one bed, then the big caravan to a treetop party!!

Sounds exactly like every Armenian wedding I’ve ever been to.

Once there was a Armenian jeweler, living in New York City. It was the roaring 20’s. Imported items from all over the world came to his shop – carved jade from China, hand painted ivory from Persia, carved cameos from Europe, stones of all kinds from all over the place. Art Deco design was all the rage and so was extravegant cluster rings.

Well, that jeweler was my grandfather. And after all of these years, his daughter (my mother) passed away and all of those beautiful stones and jewelry came out of the safe deposit box. Yikes! Now it’s in the homes of the three granddaughters and if I wore a different ring everyday, it would take me three years to wear them all. Amazing.

I’m back on the religion front. Still in my struggle over the politics and hierarchy of the Armenian Church and how leaving it because of politics becomes leaving your heritage. Theology-wise, I’m right there, generally. It’s a Christian church and I believe in the teachings of Jesus and the Bible. But as an American WOMAN in the 21st Century, I’m really getting pissed off by the idea that females only have administrative or cooking roles in the church. Do the work – outside of the sanctuary, while the men partake in the ritual.

I’m not even going as far as women as priests, but we are not even allowed to STEP ON THE ALTER. Girls are not acolytes (alter helpers), they cannot get their feet washed during that ceremony, no women deacons. The only reason we can approach the alter is for communion, after confessing our sins.

When my daughter was 6 or so, she asked me point blank, “Why can’t I get my feet washed? Didn’t Jesus want to save me, too?” I looked at her and all I could say was, “I don’t know?” Then I tried to explain the role of symbolism and tradition and it all became some kind of weird justification that I’ve been telling myself for years. She got confused. and so, there I am passing on that emotional baggage to her – inferiority.

Isn’t your faith supposed to empower you? Make you strong and ready to go out into the world and stand up tall, fearing nothing can hurt your soul. But, I feel that my church hurts my soul by making me second in line to God.

Well, you say, then leave! Become an Epicopalian or something. And there is the rub! If I leave the Armenian Church, I leave my ethnic identity. I leave my family. It’s like having an overbearing father that you love, but you know is bad for you to hang around.

Do I stay my whole life in this limbo? or do I make a stand for myself?

At almost every family gathering, our Aunt makes yalanchi. Well, my poor Aunt has been having more and more trouble with her arthritis and the past several family gatherings – no yalanchi!

There were grumblings among the cousins – who is going to start making yalanchi??? That sacred grape leaf, chariot of the hatchkar, filled with the taste that permeated our childhood memories through all major life events – marriages, christenings, holiday dinners, and playing hide’n’seek in the dark upstairs while the parents were chatting downstairs. Food is our culture – our heritage – our destiny!!

All right, maybe I’m getting carried away. But we can’t let it slide away, so I stepped up – as if I had the time (I’ve got three kids and a was working at the time) or the cooking ability (my specialty is frozen pizza).

This is the modern problem with historic Armenian food: It was all developed in a pre-industrial culture where there were about 10 adult women, with their families, living in one home/compound, all cooking, all the time. As a well-oiled machine, these ladies would work with 20 hands to roll out paper-thin philo dough for baklava. They could sit down and produce Dolma (an entree of stuffed vegetables) for 50 people in 10 minutes. They started learning the techniques at the age of eight, perfecting their craft all through their teens. In a time when wifery was a woman’s lifelong career, this skill was a top husband-attracting advertisement, up there with beauty, good teeth, and child-bearing hips.

I don’t live there.

For better or worse, I live here, in the 21st century, the – one mom per house, double income needed, information loaded, over scheduled, run to the store, and put it on credit – century.

The next family gathering was approaching and I had made my commitment, so I pulled out the handwritten Yalanchi recipe. My Aunt gave it to me about 8 years ago. Apparently, she had to practically steal from her own mother, the undisputed culinary matriarch of the family.

I bought the ingredients on my recipe list. “OK,” I told myself,” I can do this. It’s going to be great.”

I chopped parsley.

I chopped dill.

I chopped onions.

I chopped more onions.

I cried and I chopped more onions!

I sautéed and mixed and seasoned.

“OK,” I reminded myself, “I can do this. It’s going to be great.”

Then, the rolling part came. I put on my favorite Green Day CD, figuring I could get a groove on and get into some kind of Hye Zen state of factory yalanchi output. I sat at my dining table with everything in front of me. I knew what it was supposed to look like, but the rice was hard and I was not sure how much to put in. I inspected each leave, not knowing what I was inspecting for. I rolled the first one and it looked right, so I put it in the pot. So, I rolled and re-rolled the filling into the leaves, lining the them up in the familiar patterns that were etch in mind from a lifetime of family feasts.

“OK,” I mumbled to myself,” I can do this. It’s going to be great.”

My kids came in one at a time, looking over my shoulder, asking me how I was doing. The comments ranged from, “Eww, it’s slimy,” to “Are you sure you doing that right?” One of them is old enough to help. She lasted about 10 minutes.

Two hours later, the skin on my fingers was shriveled and my back hurt, but all of my little bundles of culture were neatly piled up, ready for cooking. So let the boiling begin. There was an intricate method of lining the pot with leaves and using a perfect sized plate to weigh them down. Then, covering it with the pot lid, I let it simmer for the prescribed amount of time. The little buggers were supposed to absorb the water and become plump – but instead, the water just boiled and boiled and boiled, but did not seem to get absorbed.

I panicked. I called my sister. I complained to my husband. After an hour, it was supposed to be done and ready to go. But it wasn’t. So, I let it simmer for another hour.

“OK,” I hissed through gritted teeth,” I can do this. It’s going to be great.”

I turned off the burner and let it cool on the stove. Every few minutes, I’d walk by it, hovering nearby like a skittish mother watching her forgetful child in the school play.

Then, the moment of reckoning was upon me. I opened the pot and smelled. The nose is the first avenue to the taste. I gingerly peeled off the plate and peered through the steam. It looked funny.

It was too dark.

It was too light.

It was mushy.

It was hard.

“Calm down!” I reprimanded myself “Remember, Hye Zen???”

My tentative fingers reached for one of the small, green pods. I moved it to my mouth and bit down. Chewed. Swallowed.

“Hmmmm.” I sighed with relief. It had the right texture! It actually tasted just like yalanchi!

The next day, I proudly produced this culinary feat to my extended family, nervous of how it would go over, especially with my Aunt. Everyone else had an offering of improvement – this is an Armenian family, afterall. One person wanted more salt. Another said it was a little too salty. When my Aunt appeared at the buffet table, we all gathered around her as she eyed the platter. I held my breath when she took the first bite. For a moment, her expression was unreadable. If her stamp of approval was not given to my little endeavor, I was doomed to familial ribbing for the rest of my life. She finally grinned.

“Garine!” she exclaimed, “You did this? It’s great!”

Whew!

ok, so now that my kids, your kids, and all people with funny names can officially become president, we have no excuse. I just came from watching the inauguration at my town library. The fact that the guy is – huh-humm – “around” my age just makes me take stock. What the hell have I been doing all of this time?

With something to note, now I have a straight line on motivation. Let’s get moving!

I started to write a short reply letter to an Armenian Reporter commentary about the spiritual outreach of the Armenian Church. The editor was lamenting about the lack of outreach and daily spirituality in the Armenian Apostolic church.

Generally, I don’t get stalled while writing about a passionate subject such as this, but this was tough. I kept going back and forth on the reasons that we don’t have more outreach. At first I decided it was our fault – “us” meaning the Armenian community. I often think that most of the people who attend the Apostolic Armenian Church are somewhat agnostic. If we were truly searching, we would have been asking for it from the clergy for centuries. Then I decided it was because we all use the church as a cultural center, not a religion. Then it became the fact that the Armenian religion is not protestant – the Apostolic tradition, as with Catholicism, holds the tenant that you don’t have a direct line to God, you go through the Priest. So, when you have a middle of the night meltdown, you’re supposed to call your Priest.

There is also the cultural disjointedness of the Armenian community in the United States, the politics, the pull toward assimilation and the fear of being ostracized by other Armenians if you are too . . . spiritual, liberal, “American.”

There are actually three Armenian religions in the US – the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is the church we are talking about and the largest one; the Armenian Catholic Church, which follows the Roman Catholics with the Pope as the top cheese; and the Armenian Presbyterian Church, of which there are only about 20something parishes in all of North America. The split within the Armenian diaspora is paralell to the split in the Roman Catholic church. It’s the history of Christianity. Political power comes in. Bible interpretation comes in. Money comes in. But most of all, for those brought up in one church or another – family/cultural baggage plays a huge role.

The problem is that there are so few of us to begin with, splitting up like that make us a blip on the spiritual landscape of what is out there in the United States.

Being Armenian is so complicated.

I’ve been writing and rewriting this thing for days. I guess the bottom line is that I am confused about it all myself…maybe I need some spiritual guidance?

ok, I’ve already broken the number one rule of blogging – to write in your blog everyday. Then again, I am not exactly one to stick close to the rule book. Circumventing the rules has often been my largest priority. I have this idea that there is a real reason for rules that generally derives from those who go to extremes, like drinking in a public park. Drinking in a public park wouldn’t be a big problem if nobody got blasted drunk in public. But they do, so I cannot enjoy a glass of wine at my picnic – unless it’s in a koolaid container.

Rule # 2 broken in the past few days – choose the Armenian church over pop culture. But I think this one, even Der Hayr would forgive me. . . On the same night that St Mary’s had it’s big groundbreaking ceremony and party for the new hall to be built, I had tickets to see Aretha Franklin. That’s right, the QUEEN OF SOUL. Orchestra seats. $100 bucks a pop. Considering that my priest is from Canada and not Yerevan, I think he gets it. Sorry, but the Chain of Fools trumps a plate of yalanchi. I can make a plate of yalanchi. I cannot sing “Respect” backed by a 12 piece soul band with grammys, rock’n’roll hall of fame inductions, and millions of albums sold under my chubby arm – however much I might like to.

I suppose, I will have to make up for it on Sunday, though.

I opened the Armenian Reporter today and saw a headline, ” Elect Barak Obama and Joe Biden,” it read.

“HUHH?” I said out loud.

I’m 45 years old and have been going to Armenian Churches and Events for, oh, about 45 years, and never do I recall hearing the established, well off Armenian-Americans – businessmen, all – in the group promote the democrats.

This is historic. This is amazing. This is great. . . This is making my father, God rest soul, turn in his grave.

Don’t get me wrong. I have voted Democrat pretty much in every presidential election that I have voted in. And there are members of my family who are active in the Democratic party, even, but it’s a fact that Armenians in the US have been historically conservative.

But as I read deeper into the article, I see that it’s not because of economic policy, the drive to exit the Iraq war, or any of the other issues, it is strictly as it applies to the Armenian bill to recognize the 1915 massacres as genocide.

That is the one and only reason they stated to promote this vote.

So, go for it. knock yourself out. Vote for the one issue reason, and you’ll finally get a good president!

Hi. I’m Armenian.
Well, I’m American, as in I was born in New Jersey and grew up in Texas. My parents were born in the USA, too, in the early 1920’s. But my grandparents were all Armenian from Armenia. If you are reading this, you probably know the history, so I’m not going over it here.

And besides, this blog is about now. About how to keep your heritage in a slowly shrinking diaspora while moving forward with your life.

As a kid, I lived in the suburbs of Houston, where everyone thought I was probably Mexican – because I was the only one in my class with dark hair and a real nose. “Armenia? what’s that? a type of cheese?”

There were not even italians or greeks in my neighborhood, so it was a hard history lesson to sell.

Trying to get a proper pronunciation of my name was another challenge in a place where most girls were called Ann, Michelle, and Lori. Anything more than two syllables was some sort of travesty.

“Gar eeeeee neh” I would say. “roll the ‘r'” Texans do not roll R’s and forget the concept of an accent over the letter “e.” That just added to the suspicion that I was a really a closet hispanic just making this whole exotic heritage thing up.