Christmas Eve, Bulgarian Style

So as Christmas Eve was approaching, i got an invite from a workmate, Stefka, to spend that evening with a couple of other workmates at her house for a Bulgarian Christmas Eve tradition. Y'see, in Bulgaria, its the custom to fast for December (i think that's what they said) - not in the sense of not eating at all, but essentially becoming vegetarian and forsaking meat. This is to allow the body to 'detox' as it were from meat. Thus, Christmas Evev is a sort of last pre-meat feast and is, by tradition, meant to consist of simple fare (fortunately, the younger generation disregard the alcohol aspect of this).

Thus, Saturday came around and, armed with two bottles of red wine (thinking of the anti-oxidants here), off i went. The food was, to be blunt, fantastic - considering there was no meat (and i do like meat, i confess). One of the nicest was rice wrapped within (i think) grape leaves - annd a great mix of vegetables with olive oil and garlic. This was one amongst many dishes (there was some roast peanuts and cashews for later as well - i LOVE cashews) so, suffice to say, it was easy to follow the Christmas tradition of eating lots. There was also some entertainment in the form of Bulgarian Folk Music - yet we didn't manage to get Stefka up and dancing. One of these days, mark my word!!