Heading over to Marty's

This past Sunday, I headed over to Marty Weber's house in Goshen and I can easily say I have never had a interview be more fulfilling in my life, at least so far. In our emails before I arrived, she mentioned that she was excited to hear stories that I had while in Budapest. I told her in the email back that I sadly could not attend because of personal finance issues.

When I pulled up to her home, she and her dog meet me at my car, and we walked in to her lovely home. Her home had lots of windows, which equaled a lot of natural light which meant as a photographer I was one happy camper.

I followed her into the kitchen where I found food on the stove, bread made and a bowl of dough. She said, "Well, i figured since you weren't able to go, you could experience a little bit of the food here."

While taking pictures of her and talking about food she grew up with, Marty prepared everything for me to help out with cooking a Hungarian dish.

The contraption that she brought into class that looked like a cheese grater was what I used to help make and cook the little Hungarian dumplings. Throughout this whole process, I think I said "thank you for doing this" at least 20 times.

After chowing down on a few Hungarian dishes, we began looking through her old family pictures. Being a photographer and loving photos, these pictures were wonderful to look at. They told a story and they all went along with what she was telling me. Her mom and dad's papers from Germany were in the pile, and there were photos of her old house where they had all the grape vines from which they took the grapes and turned them into Hungarian wine.

The Hungarian artifacts she collected over the years off of eBay and traveling decorated the house. Blue crystal was dominate. Things her friends and loved ones picked up for her over the years were also in a cabinet that she called her, 'Hungarian corner'.

After learning more about her family, I went around and took pictures of things I found to be important to the story, and she put food in a container for me to take along and share with my boyfriend back in Muncie.

I hope to have this photo essay be great in the end so I can send her something amazing because of the wonderful experience she shared with me.