Okay children, it’s time for us to use our imaginations. What comes to mind when you think of belly dancing?

The timeless art of seduction? A scantily clad woman tempting a sultan? Exotic dancers employed for some dude’s bachelor party? My guess is that these misconceptions, or ones like them, are what you associate with this form of dance.

Shortly after Jason and I got married, nearly 8 years ago, I decided to take a belly dancing class through UVU’s continuing education program. I loved the class so much that I signed up for others and through the years I’ve had a blast performing this graceful folk dance. That’s why I feel compelled to straighten out all those crazy ideas everyone seems to have about this art.

Belly dancing, more correctly termed Oriental dancing, has been a part of Middle Eastern society for centuries. With the rise of Islam, households were segregated into women’s and men’s quarters. Women would hold their own festivities on special occasions, apart from the men. They would celebrate by dancing together and for each other. They didn’t dance to seduce or tantalize, obviously there weren’t even men present. And they didn’t dance wearing skimpy outfits either. Belly dancing was a dance of celebration and sisterhood, done by women for women.

So where did we get this idea of hussies, sporting coin braziers and leading men to sin? One word: Hollywood. We westerners skewed belly dancing, turned it into something sensational and sinful, something it never was.

It’s time to dispel those Hollywood fantasies. Since I’ve been belly dancing for years now, I can assure all of you that belly dancing is nothing like you think. It truly is an art and an expression of sisterhood and femininity. It is surprisingly difficult and requires an enormous amount of practice to perfect. You have to train your body to move in ways that seem completely alien at first. But the dancers are all extremely supportive of one another and the environment is relaxed, no one laughs at you when you mess up and creativity is encouraged. So it’s easy to see why, despite the complexity of the dance, ladies like me keep coming back for more. Incidentally, belly dancing is also a fantastic abs, butt, and thigh workout. It’s much harder than crunches and so much more enjoyable!

And, in case you are wondering, we don’t perform to swarms of men stuffing dollar bills down our skirts. In fact, we prefer to forget about you men altogether. While Jason does very much like watching me dance, I don’t dance for him, I dance for me. I dance because I love music and rhythm, I dance because I love expressing myself, I dance to forget about everything else for a while and just chill with my chicks, I dance to get a workout-I dance for me.

If you have grasped nothing else from this entry, please remember that belly dancing does not equal seduction. Instead, the words I would use to describe it are: graceful, feminine, art, traditional, creative, folk, and expression.

So next time someone tells you that they belly dance, don’t ask if they are an exotic dancer or offer them a wad of ones; you’ll just make yourself look like an idiot and are more likely to get a slap in the face than a free performance.

Since I am a food scientist and immensely enjoy playing with my food, it should be no great surprise that I love to cook.

While my years of working with food on a commercial level have transformed me into one of the most sanitary cooks you will ever come across, oddly enough I am also one of the messiest. Somehow, while I’m cooking, my kitchen counters become covered with bits of veggies or sprinklings of flour, pieces of food inevitably find their way to the floor where they wait for a chance to stick to my feet, an enormous number of dishes miraculously pile up in the sink and on the counters, and sticky substances become splattered on the backsplashes and stovetop.

How do I manage to leave such a wake of destruction in my kitchen when I work with food daily in a spotless product development lab equipped with sensitive scales and all sorts of scientific gadgetry? I really have no idea; it’s one of life’s great unexplained mysteries.

So, although you will never find me licking my fingers or a spoon while I’m cooking (that truly is disgusting, all of you who do that should really consider being considerate) and disposable gloves are regularly used in my kitchen, the chaos that results from my meal preparations is really quite impressive. Jason has come to accept my cooking disarray and is only surprised if I don’t make a mess. But, despite the temporary disorder that ensues when I cook, somehow my kitchen always survives to see me cook another day.