"Armenian Pizza" (Lahmajoon); Chinese boxes

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   The best "Armenian food" web site (about the third hit on Google) appears to be www.cilicia.com/armo.cookbook.html#abbrevglos.  It has 200 recipes from ADVENTURES IN ARMENIAN COOKING (1973), by St. Gregory's Apostolic Church, Indian Orchard, Massachusetts.
   "Lahmajoon"--"Turkish pizza" everywhere else and very popular at a Lebanese restaurant a block away from the central square here (see ADS-L archives for "Turkish pizza")--is given as "Armenian pizza" on this web site.

MANDAG--a dish of green grass-type stuff and egg, just served for lunch.
MATNAKASH--the other bread, served with the popular "lavash" bread for lunch today.  It literally means "finger draw."
KOCHARI--"circle dance" that my guide said I'll see tonight, on my last night in Armenia.
BERD--"castle dance."  None of these four terms is in the OED.

   I bought the FINANCIAL TIMES, May 25-May 26, 2002.

AM-DRAM--From the FT, Weekend, pg. VIII, col. 8:
   ..._The Uncertainty Principle_ (am-dram posing and speechifiying in a stagey period piece from the Portuguese veteran)...
("Am-dram," or "amateur dramatics," is not in the OED but is a quite popular term--ed.)

MERRIL REFORMS--Merrill Lynch recently paid $100 million in an agreement with NYS Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, but _admitted no wrong_!  I don't know if there's a name for this process, but the financial community is referring to recent brokerage changes as "Merrill reforms" (forgot page number)...If I'm a Merrill Lynch stockholder, I've gotta be wondering why we paid one hundred million dollars and didn't do _anything_ wrong.  Obviously, Merrill is a charity organization.

CHINESE BOXES--From the FT, Weekend, page XX, col. 3:
   The dual-share system is not the only way in which shareholder democracy is circumvented.  Another, popular in Italy, is "Chinese boxes", where a company is controlled by another above it, which in turn is controlled by a third, and so on.  A third is the "golden share", where the government retains a token share that nevertheless carries the power of total veto over company actions.