Graf Family Christmas
Gathering 2011

Today we had a Graf family Christmas party here at our house in Milwaukee. Graf family members came from Littleton,Colorado, Iowa City, Iowa and Angelica, Wisconsin. We were missing a few family members due to illness and distance but we all had a good time.

The main event was the Stuffed Grape Leaves Dinner, an annual tradition of our middle eastern ancestry we celebrate whenever we get together. Today the grape leaves had been picked in our backyard during the summer and today wrapped by nephews, brother, grandchildren and Pat and I. As usual we ran out of Grape leaves at the end of the meal, but managed to save some for my sick brother back in Iowa City. We played games and watch home videos from the old days when some of us were much younger and some not even born.

We are blessed in Milwaukee with a local Middle Eastern store operated by three Palestinian brothers and their families. There we can purchase freshly made pita bread, bulgur, pine nuts, feta cheese, olives and all the ingredients for a good Middle Easter meal. But the important ingredients are the grape leaves which are handpicked.

Grape leaves from vines that do not produce grapes are present all over the world. The recipe for making Stuffed Grape Leaves has been passed on from generation to generation. My full blooded Italian wife, Pat, learned how to make grape leaves from my mother who had learned it from her older sisters (since her mother died when she was young) who learned it from her mother and on and on all the way to our ancestral home in Lebanon which at the time my grandfather came to USA was Syria.

I have found grape leaf vines growing in Guatemala, India and other countries I have visited. It is a universal food that if it is cooked with proper ingredients, rice, meat and spices is delicious, at least to all the members of our family, from the youngest, my seven year old granddaughter to the oldest, me.

After some had left my seven year granddaughter came up to me and said this was the best Christmas party ever for her. The ingredients were family, games, memories and Grape Leaves.

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