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.”

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.

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.

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.

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

Dessert: a bowl of fresh cherries.

Like I said, almost perfect.