A Tray of Habit: Kechejian Family Mezze Words and Photos By: Christine Lenahan Lou loved the color yellow, or so I’m told. Louise Boyajian was my grandmother’s best friend: their kids went to school together, they shopped at the same grocery store, Arax market, and attended the same church, at the same mass, at the same time as they had since they were both newlyweds living in Brockton, Mass. Lou bought the tray for my grandmother as a housewarming gift, a bright yellow platter divided into four sections. Each section edge rounded into a four leaf clover formation, and with a gentle push, rotated on a small wheel at the bottom for easy access to all four of its quadrants. Lou didn’t know what legacy the tray would hold, or the place of honor it would command on Rita’s counter top. Her castle of brick and light blue paneled wood stood proud atop a small hill on Fairview avenue in Brockton. Silence was unheard of in the hub of life that was her bustling kitchen.
The scurry of footsteps as grandchildren played games of duk’ da yek’ (tag) and the bursts of laughter as uncles celebrated a victory in backgammon, created a sweet and familiar cacophony. While her home erupted with joys, I stood beside her along the kitchen counter. The kitchen was not only her work space, but an operating table when my grandfather, Nishan, then a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, stitched up a gnarly wound from a fish hook in my cousin Peter’s leg. The countertop was gambling grounds, as grandkids played
go fish or war, trading plastic silly straws and rainbow jelly beans. The place where grown ups made bets on the Red Soxs and Pats, depending on the season, always claiming that “Boston is gonna win it this time.” It was a courtroom, as my sister Grace claimed that my cousin Sarah most definitely stole her iPod (and she most definitely did). Uncle Greg served as the judge, dealing out punishments while the rest of the cousins sat on the jury behind the bar. But, at age seven, I barely peered over the wooden countertop without the help of a shiny oak stool taken from my grandfather’s study. Creaky and slightly wobbly, the stool was my lookout tower as I stared in a trance, enchanted by her artistry in the kitchen. From the fundamentals of basic hummus to the proper technique of rolling grape leaves, I watched my grandmother, Rita Kechejian, teach Armenian culture through cuisine. The tray itself was a creature of habit, used by the habitual creatures that occupied 50 Fairview Ave. Nishan was old school Armenian and his pride in his Yerevan roots was reflected in this tray. It has been rumored that my grandfather could hover his right hand, calloused and wrinkled, over the tray and know exactly what item was held in each section, and do it all with his eyes closed. Habits. Rita liked them too. In preparation for a family gathering, Friday night football, or an afternoon snack, her dainty fingers, the color dark sand and skin smooth and shining with olive oil, would begin to dismantle the Talbaner. Armenian string cheese, or as my sisters and I called it “grandma’s cheese” thinking that only she could produce this tangy, stringy goat’s milk cheese speckled with black caraway seeds, comes wrapped in a tight knot. The seeds, sev semer in Armenian, would be wound up in this twisted cheese that with an unfathomable amount of patience, was pulled apart into hairlike threads, creating small snowy mountains tart cheesy goodness. On the tray and to the left of the Talbaner was my personal favorite, and one of the most difficult parts of my vegetarianism to date, sojuk. Like a christmas garland of garlic and spices, these hung small bags of cheese cloth were strung along the clothesline. The screened-in side porch was an extension of her kitchen, where inside those bags were thin strips of aging meat. This was not your gas station beef
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