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Back to School - 2012

It's that time of the year again!  Back to School...

We decided to continue with our tradition of a Back to School dinner in honor of our "Graduate" as she calls herself...  

Our girl came up with a simple menu for dinner and sent me shopping for the ingredients.  She also decided that the theme of the dinner was to be Sea Turtles and suggested that it would be really sweet if the Parents of the Graduate brought Purple Cala Lili's for her to the dinner (probably inspired by my yellow Cala Lili wedding bouquet).


A crown was commissioned for the guest of honor and we sat down to a delicious meal of Persian Kotlets and home made french fries with organic ketchup (which incidentally tastes vastly better than anything Heinz makes) to celebrate the importance of the upcoming school year and all the exciting things that we'll do over the year, in a round table working dinner format!

I suggested that we go around the table with each of us recounting school related stories: things we aspire to learn, school memories, etc... 

The other two Urbans seemed only happy enough to allow me to go first.

So I started "Anytime I make Kotlets, I think of my grandmother, Aziz, who among her many specialties and talents, made The Best Kotlets imaginable.  My grandmother who was born around ninety years ago, never had the opportunity to get a formal education.  She didn't go to Preschool or Kindergarten, or Grade School... She couldn't pick up any book she fancied reading off the shelf and she couldn't read or write long letters to friends or her sisters... the only thing she ever longed for throughout her life was an education.  She made sure that she would instill the love of education in her children and all her grandchildren.  [As a 30-some year old widow living in middle class Iran - which I left out of the speech] she made sure that her children received the best American education, and that her grandchildren, especially the girls, reached as high as they could academically...."

As my fries were getting cold I decided to take a break and allow the others to recount their own educational hopes and dreams.


So our girl decided to go next : "Anytime you make Kotelts, IIIIII  think... about how much IIIIIII   Love Kotelts...."!

Happy Back to School 2012!

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