Top 10 reasons I'm gaining weight in 2010

10. Bring on the grease...steamed veggies don't exist here, but extra butter, oil, and fat do.

9. No means Yes.

8. Katchapure...pan fried cheesy bread, a traditional Georgian dish eaten all the time

7. booze, all the time...are you kidding me?

6. Fried potatoes at every meal.

5. Weekly homemade cake...Paula Dean style

4. They LOVE their salt and sugar here. Also, I might mention everyone has a blood pressure monitor at the table...

3. Homemade apple jam...it's sooooo yummy!

2. Bread...70% of their diet. I'm turning into a loaf of french bread

1. Tchame tchame tchame!! Eat Eat Eat! Georgians don't know the word 'full'.

Bebua making me criss-cross, chug wine with the neighbor

This is an extremely loving and communal society. People here are extremely friendly, helpful, and hospitable. They absolutely love guests and they will stuff you FULL of food to show it. Actually all I hear is “Tchame! Tchame!”, which means “eat! eat!”….and they say that ALL. THE. TIME. I actually shed a tear the third morning I was here because they were feeding me so much. I thought I was going to be ill. Hahah But they honestly take offense if you don’t want to eat or you’re full.

Speaking of food, we eat a lot of the same things every day. They eat loaves of French style bread at every meal, homemade cheese, katchapuri (cheesey bread), salad (which is cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes). They make a georgian style catsup situation, which is pureed tomato, garlic and peppers, which they eat with everything.

  Nino teaching me how to dance

They have this ‘feast’ thing that they call ‘supra’. It’s usually for special occasions (birthdays, weddings, guests, etc) but impromptu supras happen all the time. First off, at these supras there is an overabundance of food. The entire table is COVERED with food and drinks. The most important part of the supra is toasting with wine, tcha tcha, or vodka. –Really quickly let me give you a quick lesson on Georgian alchohol..most every family here produces their own wine, and they are VERY proud of it…‘Tcha tcha’ (said like cha cha) is homemade vodka that they make from the left over wine grapes. They are also very proud of their tcha tcha and they will drink it at any occasion, ANY time of day. Tcha tcha is absolutely TERIBLE…it tastes like 151 and it smells like rubbing alcohol, but they can take it down like water. Also, my family uses tcha tcha as a ‘fix all’. Anna’s foot has been hurting (I think she has a stress fracture) and they wrap her foot in tcha tcha soaked bandages…Lika had a pimple, and she put some tcha tcha on it…I’ve had a rash on my arm and bebua had me rub tcha tcha all over it…so apparently there is nothing that tcha tcha can’t do. OK back to supra… There is a ‘toastmaster’ who eloquently leads toasts and speaks about the reason that everyone is there getting together. Then each person follows suit to say a few words. This is followed by everyone chugging their drink…until it is finished. Rounds and rounds of this continue until the night is through. Usual toasts included toasting to parents, grandparents, kids, cousins, ancestors, to peace, to Georgia, to America, to friends….pretty much anything and everything. Most supras in my family usually end in traditional Georgian dancing and singing.

Bebua doing the split and chugging wine off the ground...amazing

One night Marissa came over to my house and a spontaneous supra broke out. My bebua starts toasting and having us chug one glass of wine after the other. Then he started making us criss cross arms and chug wine with different people at the table. After a while of this we were invited to the neighbor’s house for some more wine (of course) and a night of dancing. The girls in my family were teaching marissa and I some traditional Georgian dance moves, and we were doing our best to keep up. We tried to teach them some two step hahah But it was a terrible attempt. We also sang ‘deep in the heart of texas’ because they wanted to hear a ‘texan’ song. It was quite embarrassing but they loved it. This night was the first time I had seen this one particularly funny celebration dance. They put a glass of wine on the floor, dance around it, then bend over in the splits without using hands and grab the glass with your mouth and chug it. Again all of this is without hands. My 65 year old grandpa here (bebua) did this, while I watched in absolute shock. Needless to say, it was one of many fun nights here in Georgia.