Tonight was the night of our 3rd annual Jerusalem Dinner, held each year in conjunction with Holy Week. We try to have it on Thursday night, since that would have been the night of the Last Supper. I got the idea from the book "A Christ-Centered Easter". The authors actually have a Passover dinner including ritual foods with their family, but for our littler chldren, this simpler dinner works great and is tons of fun.

Basically, I just serve foods that might have been common during Jesus' time, and then we eat like the ancients, without utensils or plates and on the ground. Supposedly the Romans actually ate in a reclining position, but that isn't terribly comfortable (I've tried it!). My kids think that eating on the floor with no forks or spoons is a total blast!

On the menu tonight: cantaloupe, olives, grapes, grape juice, cucumbers in yogurt, flatbread, and a delicious bulgur-red onion-mint pilaf. We used the flatbread as a utensil to dip into the other foods. The kids LOVE this meal, as it has several of their favorite foods. Even Dallin told me tonight that he liked the pilaf, and he ate quite a bit of it. That's saying something for a child who hates almost all foods! Best of all, this meal is healthy, and it's really simple to put together.

Some of us DO like eating Roman-style!

Me, I'll sit up straight, thank you very much!

During the meal, we took some time to talk about the Last Supper and what happened there. So we had some nice, somewhat spiritual moments before the kids too full advantage of the fun of eating on the floor to go more than a little bit crazy. (Dallin thought a food fight was in order, we had to inform him that this was not part of traditional Hebrew or Roman culture!)