Mar 2012 - Welcome Dinner

After a long 10.5 hour flight, when we finally landed at Ben Gurion Airport, my grandfather called and said he was waiting for us after we got through customs.  My mother being his only child (logically, making me his only grandchild), he was VERY excited to finally meet me.

Of course, I had only seen his grainy image on Skype video chats so it's always a bit awkward seeing someone for the first time (as you J-Daters will readily attest to).  This dynamic was also exacerbated by the fact that I was not used to anyone other than my own parents.  But as you can see, I had an immediate connection with my grandfather.

From Ben Gurion Airport outside of Tel Aviv, we drove about 2 hours north on Route 2 to get to my mother's hometown of Haifa.  Around 1PM, we arrived to my grandparent's apartment in the Halisa district of the city, where we were greeted by the rest of my extended family including my grandmother, her brother and my great-grandmother.

For my arrival, they prepared an amazing homecooked meal with my father's favorite Uzbek dish, Plov (also spelled pilaf for those readers who think Mexican counts as ethnic food).  It's a dish consisting of seasoned and spiced rice with large chunks of fatty beef, carrots, chick peas and entire cloves of garlic.  Think of it like Central Asian version of Spanish paella, but definitely do not confuse it for Uncle Ben's Rice Pilaf in a box.

My father learned early on during his courtship of my mother that his in-laws found it amazing that he enjoyed their cooking.  Little did they know that my father is basically a pig and enjoys anything remotely close to being called food (having eaten snakes, guinea pig, crickets and even Taco Bell).  Nevertheless, they gave him permission to start eating and drinking, so who was he to refuse?  He started to grab his spoon, but then he was stopped by the stern hand of my grandfather.

First ... came the vodka.  Out came double shot glasses for the men and then the celebratory cheers in broken English.  I didn't understand this Uzbek/Russian family tradition, but I did enjoy watching my father make funny wincing faces after each double shot (and I thought I was the baby here).  And finally (after hours of eating airplane food and peanuts) came the food.  Upon dousing his serving in spoonfuls of Tobasco, he grabbed his fork and went to town on his plov, much to my grandparents' proud delight and my mother's utter disgust.

After settling into the apartment, unpacking, and watching my father pass out on the couch, we took some family photos.

Four generations of Aginis women, starting with my great-grandmother (a Holocaust orphan/survivor), my grandmother, my mother and me.  Extra points if you can figure out which is which.