It all began with an exchange student. Her name was Gisa, and she was utterly different from everyone I knew.

I remember that she was blonde, beautiful and voluptuous. The boys loved her, but she won over all the girls as well with an “I-could-be-your-best-friend” personality.

She fell in love with our little home town, forcing the rest of us to take pride in the history and unique beauty of the familiar.

We had many international visitors over the years, always friends or colleagues of my parents. Mother invited them to our big table, and always served her specialty: a pie crust turnover filled with beef, carrots, potatoes, and onions called a “Pasty” (which rhymes with nasty, but it’s not). It’s simple, delicious and universal.

Almost two years ago on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, my husband went to look at an accordion that was advertised on Craigslist. The couple who placed the ad (the husband had been raised in Israel, and his wife was raised in Argentina) had recently immigrated from Israel. My husband didn’t buy the accordion, but invited them to Thanksgiving dinner. At first I was grumpy with him, but I just took a deep breath, kept cooking, and set two more places at the table. Our whole family had a great time with them.

As they were leaving they said that they had been warned that Americans were not very friendly. They couldn’t wait to set the record straight with their friends. And it was good for me to see our surroundings with new eyes. They cherished Northwest days of low hanging clouds, and marveled at the lack of dust. They became like little children when it snowed, basking in the damp cold as if it was Paradise.

In August our friends had their first child. I decided to take a meal to them when they were settled back home, so we set a date last week. It happened to be the day that her mother arrived from Israel.

Taking a page from my mother’s playbook, I made Pasties. We laughed a lot as we tried to tell stories that had to be translated from English to Hebrew to Spanish and back again. It must have looked like a tennis match or a ping-pong tournament as we bandied words among all three languages looking for precise translation. To top it off, when they asked Lenny to play his accordion, the grandmother sang along in perfect Italian.

This summer I have interacted with people from South Africa, Iran, India, China, England, The Netherlands, Taiwan, and of course, Israel and Argentina. Each person has widened my world view, and hopefully, I have done so for them.

And from here I intend to change the world one conversation, one invitation – and one pasty at a time. If you want to join me, I’ll send you the recipe.

Patty Luzzi has lived on the Eastside for 33 years. Readers can contact her at pattyluzzi@yahoo.com.