Saturday Supra

The women's Relief Society at the Avlabari Branch here in Tbilisi had a cooking/eating activity last week. At a typical Georgian Supra (feast) there is usually a toastmaster, copious amounts of wine, and many courses of food. This was a much simpler affair, a sorta supra. That's not Georgian, btw.

 We made these -- very much like deviled eggs, with more spices.

This was the most delicious carrot salad I've ever tasted. They added a secret ingredient, some Georgian spice that I haven't yet found the translation for, that made it irresistible.

This salad was similar but with lightly cooked beets. Also wonderful.

This one was more like what I would call a typical Russian salad, except that it also had mushrooms and crabmeat. It sounds strange putting those things together, but again, delicious.

My friend/interpreter extraordinaire divides up the shoti.

They really know how to cook with fresh seasonal ingredients here. I'm trying to learn the local specialties, because they are much easier to prepare than trying to reproduce American standbys for which the ingredients are unavailable. Luckily these sweet women were more than happy to share their tricks of the trade.

We also had a children's contingent. I would mention that after being unofficially involved in primary since my arrival (having two primary-aged girls) they made it official last week with a calling. Now my formerly-mentioned courageous interpreter and I are also partners in primary.

Until fairly recently there was no primary organized in Georgia, then they started teaching lessons and having activities, and now we're fully correlating with the worldwide Church program: following the official Sharing Time Outline, teaching a new song each month, preparing for a primary program this fall, and teaching the standard lessons on schedule. The kids are good sports about learning some songs in English, and a missionary is translating other primary songs into Georgian for us. We've also kept a tradition they started in the branch here, something that's completely extinct in the stateside Church: an intermediate cookie break. Gotta love being in primary.