To celebrate, we had Armenian food today. I looked online for a coffee cake recipe for brunch and found something called Armenian Nutmeg Cake. Now, some sites claim that there's no such thing and others insist that they have found this recipe in regional cookbooks. I decided to just go with it and bake this cake for our family because it was easily converted to being GFDF and seemed like something all of us would enjoy. Upon tasting it, we all concurred that it was delicious.
For dinner we had Nevik (or Neeveeg) which is a stew made of swiss chard and chickpeas and often served on Christmas Eve. Three of us quite liked it, but it didn't come as a surprise that our little Armenian wouldn't touch it. He opted for a hummus sandwich instead. I guess that's still pretty Armenian.
Tomorrow is a school day for Rex, so he is going to bring a little Christmas gift for his classmates. I made coloring pages showing the Armenian eternity symbol which has been found in Armenian architecture since the 5th century. Each child gets three crayons (red, blue, and orange) to represent the Armenian flag, and a small box of organic raisins, honoring Armenia's famous fresh and dried fruit.
In the years to come when our children are older and will be able to absorb more of their birth cultures, we hope to add further Armenian and Bulgarian Christmas traditions to our holiday celebrations.
Merry Christmas to all of our friends in Yerevan and to the children and staff at Rex's former orphanage. We miss you and think of you often.
Yum! And I'm going to try that Nevik.
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