itay + orit

they're gonna kill me for using this picture. and that's not something i say lightly since itay used to be a sniper in the israeli army. this is one of the first things i learned about him when we were in the same block at nyu stern. i also learned that itay's wife, orit, was also an mba1 at nyu stern, albeit in a different block (a stern mba block is a group of sixty to seventy students that you are slotted into before you start school. you take all of your classes with this group during your first semester, so they're kinda like your first business school friends. or that's the idea anyway). it took me awhile to actually meet orit, but her reputation preceded her. i already knew from friends in itay's study group that itay was one of those consistently blowing the curve for the rest of us. i soon heard that orit's academic performance would have been curve blowing for her husband. i had to meet her.

another thing i knew about orit before i met her was the story of how she and itay met. well...at least the story of what happened before they met. in very unromantic fashion, i kinda wholeheartedly disagree with soul mates. i'll let my mba nerdery kick in here and say that if there really was only one soul mate for each of us, then from a probability standpoint, most of us are kinda screwed (or not, as the case may be). but i do wholeheartedly believe in couples that just work...the kind of couple that makes you want to find your better half/best friend/partner in crime because they make relationships seem ideal. not the hollywood-rom-com kind of ideal, but in the this-is-real-life-and-i-have-someone-who's-trekking-it-with-me kind of ideal. i also believe that some things are meant to be and that some things happen for a reason. in both regards, that's itay and orit. because in some ways, they kinda were destined to be together.

orit was traveling in latin america in 2002 before she was to start university in israel. it was here that she met and traveled with yael, a childhood friend of itay's. as yael and orit bid goodbye to each other in latin america, yael called itay to tell him that she had met his female self and perhaps his future wife. fast forward a few months to orientation at hebrew university in jerusalem where both itay and orit were matriculating. they met early on but it wasn't kismet when they first met...this could be in part due to the fact that each was dating someone else. but as they got to know each other through study group work (they make a mean study group combo, by the way...i can personally attest to this), they started to realize that maybe yael could have been right...or at least itay did. over the summer, itay ended his relationship and when school started again in the fall, he began his pursuit of orit, who naturally was wholeheartedly disinterested until he announced that he was letting her go since she wasn't receptive to him.

i picked this photo of them from their wedding because it reminds me of one of my favorite memories of them as a couple. one day while classes were changing at school, i noticed itay and orit sharing a tender moment (much like the one pictured) in the middle of the hallway. being the obnoxious intruder that i am, i shouted out to them, 'hey! why so lovey dovey in the hallway?!' they then turned to me and explained that it was the day that itay had proposed to orit. good job, me, for ruining a lovely moment for them. over our two years at stern, itay and orit became good friends, study buddies and confidantes. since graduation, we make it a point to meet for monthly dinners and they have become friends i trust and respect deeply...to the point where i jokingly refer to them as my (tiny israeli) surrogate parents.

itay and orit were married in june 2007 and they will become (real) parents this fall.

i was particularly excited for their meat cute meal because it would be the first opportunity i could cook the meal with/for the couple. their meat cute meal is one they had in tuscany at an unmarked place called sora margherita - a simple meal of homemade fettucine with fresh ricotta and sea salt, delicious in its simplicity. when they told me their meat cute meal, i became a bit concerned because, while i'm happy to try anything once, i'm fairly certain that attempting to make homemade pasta would be a simple disaster. however, potential mishap was avoided because our meat cute meal/monthly dinner happened to fall during passover (whew!). it also happened to fall on easter, so for their (first) meat cute meal, i made a roast in honor of passover and lamb meatballs with rice/pea/mint pilaf for easter. itay and orit decided they would make charoset (a traditional passover dish). in the days leading up to our dinner, a deathmatch ensued via email over whose recipe for charoset was better - itay's grandmother's vs. orit's mothers. when they actually compared the recipes, they turned out to be almost identical.

ok, so maybe i definitely believe in fate.

roast in the background, lamb meatballs with rice/pea/mint pilaf (and cucumber yogurt sauce) in foreground