Christmas: It's not a real house that doesn't smell of sarmale!

The first thing people told me about Christmas in Romania (also for Easter) --"Be prepared to eat lots of sarmale." In the days leading up to Christmas I could tell where this saying originated because I could literally smell sarmale being cooked all around my bloc neighborhood. Romanians, in my opinion, spend WAY too much time preparing food! My friend Dana and I discuss this often...and it always ends with the fact that I'm American and like quick meals and casseroles. Whatever! Romanian women spend the 3 days prior to Christmas preparing the food they'll eat for one day. That is crazy to me, but I offered to help Dana for fun!!! I do, however, appreciate the hardwork because I like to eat!!

Quick tidbit about me -->Before I came to Romania, and my grandma Phyllis will tell you this, I hated cabbage!!! I would not eat it, and I didn't even like to see or smell it. When I departed for Romania I told myself I'd try anything once (not my best idea!)...cabbage turned out to be one of the easier things to try because that promise I made myself led to me eating pig skin, fat, and tripe... I'm just waiting for the next nasty thing that is offered to me.

Back to sarmale. I actually prefer it cooked in layers in a big pot with shredded cabbage...but the cabbage rolls look nicer. It's a mixture of meat, rice, and onion...mostly pork meat here in Romania/Transylvania. It's wrapped in cabbage (sometimes fresh but here most people use sour cabbage). Different countries add their own special touches which is to be expected (different meats, rice, grapevine leaves...). Here I just like to chop it up and put sour cream on it. Delicious!

My Christmas was spent caroling all night on Christmas Eve (eating cakes, sarmale, and drinking too much wine! Pictures of that still to come!), and on Christmas day having a wonderful meal (sarmale, soup, and salata de beouf which is essentially a different kind of chicken salad) with Monica, my counterpart, and her mother. They have become my adoptive Romanian family.

I can't wait to get home and cook some sarmale for you. It's just a little piece of what I love about Romania!!