Belly Dancing

As I’ve mentioned, this is the time of year in my textbook publishing days when we’d be prepping for our National Sales Meeting. I’ve probably been to at least a couple dozen of these, scattered throughout the country, and got to hang with tons of very interesting people.

My favorite part of NSMs past is the evening, when groups would spontaneously congeal and descend on random restaurants. The conversations were fun, and the dining experiences always worth remembering.

One year we were in Washington DC, and I got caught up in a group heading for an Ethiopian restaurant. Now, the Ethiopian famine was very much in the news those days, so there was a good deal of jocularity about the type (or lack) of food we’d be experiencing. Personally, I had no idea what to expect.

There ended up about a dozen or so of us, and the cuisine was impressive. First, a large pizza pie plate was placed on the table and a piece of flatbread called Injera was placed thereon. (Injera is a sourdough-risen flatbread that is a national dish of Ethiopia and Eritrea.) They then brought out a series of small bowls filled with stewed or steamed meats and vegetables, which they piled in little mounds on the Injera, like food meteorites littering a lunar landscape. (Photo above.)

We were then given a stack of smaller Injera, which we had to rip apart and use to grab the bits of meat and veggies and pop in our mouths. It sounds messy, because it was. But, the different bits were tasty, and the Injera wonderfully different, and on the whole the meal was quite enjoyable and social – everybody was eating from the same Injera pile. Plus, once all the bits were gone, we ripped apart the food-stained big Injera and ate that too. It was very tasty.

The following night I found an ad in the hotel magazine for a Moroccan restaurant, so once again we grabbed random people in the lobby and headed for it. The cabs dropped us off at a muffler shop, next to which was a narrow storefront with a tiny sign that we might have missed had we not known where we were going.

We went inside and found a small room with rugs on the walls and a podium, and that was it. (Was this the place?) Presently, a rug moved revealing our maitre d’ who led us through the rug into a very large dining area. It was as you’d expect – thematic decor with low tables and cushions for seats and pretty rugs everywhere.

They left us with a beer menu to start, and in typical publishing fashion we collectively spent the next ten minutes finding typos. Then they gave us a choice of several entrees, which was one of seven courses for the dinner. An ornately dressed man came out with a large tureen and towels, which he used to let each of us wash our hands.

Suddenly the music started in earnest, and a belly dancer strolled out onto the stage and started doing her thing. We watched politely, until the first course came out and everyone, in synch, turned to their food. The next courses followed in turn, each of them tasty and none of them accompanied by utensils – yes, once again we were eating with our hands. The fun part came when they brought out a large whole roasted chicken on a platter and put it on the table in front of us. We all stared at it for a moment, until someone (I think it was Martha) said,”Come on, you’ve all done this in the fridge – just grab it with your hands.”

As we settled into the final course, it started to dawn on us that we’d never seen a price tag on anything. That, and I recalled the “no credit cards” sign in the lobby. “What happens if we don’t have enough cash?” I wondered aloud. “They can’t make us wash dishes, because there aren’t any. Maybe make us wash towels?” It turned out the bill was high, but not too high.

The following night, I think we went out for Italian food with some of the same folks. I remember picking up a fork and asking what it was for.

Yes, the dining experiences at NSMs were fun, but I always seemed to crave a plain PB&J by the end of the trip.