Lunch at a restaurant — a break for Babcia cooking. She won’t come with us, either.

“I’ll eat something or other. For me, a crumb of bread with some milk is just perfect.” She laughs, “After forty years of cooking, you’d be satisfied with it, too.”

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We go to the first real restaurant opened in Jablonka. This of course doesn’t count the GS-owski restaurant that was often in even the smallest of villages, nor the bars that offered only microwaved frozen food.

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K and I came here on dates back in the early 2000s. Wednesday nights, if I remember correctly. I took the 9:30 bus back to Lipnica and waited anxiously until next meeting. In the dead of winter, those minutes waiting for the bus were torturously cold.

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And so ten years later, I sit at this restaurant in shorts and sandles, my daughter across from me and nieces and nephews all about, K and E still in the States.

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It’s almost perfect. We’re just missing a few people, and non-blistered feet that require a bit of kombinowanie.

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Dessert: a bowl of fresh cherries.

Like I said, almost perfect.