One of my favorite dinners I've had occured the night of Oct. 30, 2010, my mother and stepfather's handfasting. No two handfasting are the samebecause everyone has their own idea of what they want to have performed during it. My parents choose a simple one in which a priestess reads something that's close to what a catholic priest would say (using goddesss instead of god), the rings are blessed by the five elements (fire, water, earth, air, and spirit), their vows, and then the tying of their arms together with a cord made of colors of their choice (red, black, and white in my parents case). Afterwards, like most weddings, everyone celebrates with food and a party. For this dinner, my stepfather John, picked a few of our favorite dishes for the meal and he brought in his own Latvian family tradition.
The appetizers of the dinner were mussels and garlic dip with crackers. The mussels, shellfish, were cooked in white wine, garlic, and butter. The garlic dip had a lot more in it than we thought and was served on wheat thins, multigrain crackers, and ista rupjmaize (one of the most popular dark rye breads of Latvia). The garlic dip was a mixture of garlic, yogurt, chives, bread crumbs, white wine, peppers, cream cheese, and more that we cannot remember. We never seem to eat the same thing twice because John never remembers what he puts in our meals. During this time, all the family members including my energetic great grandmother (Mary), Jan (I do not know that much about), Carol (John's mother), and my sister (Chrissy) were telling stories and talking about how beautiful the creek where the handfasting had been performed at. All but the family living in the house at the time did not notice what the decorations put up in the house looked like (the pentacle on the ceiling for example).
When we heard what the main course was going to taste amazing along with the Italian Bricco Riella Moscato D'Asti dessert wine that was being served throughout dinner. The main course was individually stuffed, baked chicken. Each piece of chicken was stuffed with spinach, onions, peppers, garlic, and Swiss or goat cheese. The sides were mashed potatoes and green beans. The mashed potatoes were peeled and mashed that day with garlic and butter mixed into it. The green beans were sauteed in olive oil and covered in garlic that had been chopped that day as well. We did not have dessert directly after the main course but more drinks were brought out just before dessert.
We had a variety of drinks during but mostly after the dinner. The Moscato D'Asti was served throughout the entire dinner but some people had White Russians and Apricot Schnapps. The drink that everyone had, the Latvian tradition that John showed us, was called a Niqualaska (not sure about the spelling) were you drink a shot of cognac and then suck on a sugar coated lemon. The closest name I could find to this drink was called a Downtown. The actual desserts consisted of german chocolate cookies (made by my sister) and multiple flavors of cheesecake from Cheesecake Therapy. We might have had more desserts but I cannot remember what they were.
This dinner and day seems to be my favorite because it was the only time when we could talk to our family without them trying to stab us in the back and actually enjoy their company for once. The people I live with are Neo-Pagan and Wiccan so it made the dinner even more enjoyable because there was not any religion restrictions like at the other weddings I've been to. Even now my family has these kind of meals frequently (minus the extra people). I still think back sometimes how that dinner had brought people of different religions together and how they actually got along even if there were not many of them.
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