“Do you think she could make us kwaśnica before she leaves?” P once asked K some weeks ago.

“Of course!” And what’s not to love about kwaśnica, the tangy Highlander regional soup made of sauerkraut, stock, and magic.

I fell in love with this soup the first time I tried it. It’s a little like any regional dish: every family makes it a little differently, and every family serves it a little differently. Babcia always served it with a heaping spoon of mashed potatoes pressed into the side of the bowl, liberally sprinkled with freshly fried bacon bits. The strands of kraut are crisp and sour; the bacon is smoky and crisp; the soup is bracing and warm; a bit of pork pulled from the sliced tenderloin that’s been boiling in the soup grounds everything; the potatoes keep it all together. It’s perfection in a every single spoonful.

And so P and his wife and two sons came over for dinner this afternoon, a long, warm afternoon promising spring but with bare trees as reminders of the actual date. Still winter, technically, but only a perfect day for kwaśnica in as much as friends have gathered together. A perfect day, perfect in every measure for kwaśnica, includes copious amounts of snow, gray skies, and below-freezing temperatures with a sun that sets just as a four-o’clock dinner is put on the table. Still, friendship is more important than snow, and besides, we have more than kwaśnica on the menu — a bit of a surprise. A meaty, meaty surprise.

The translation for chleb ze smalcem hardly does it justice. After all, who would find lard spread on bread all that appetizing? But as always, a literal translation makes a farce of the actual meaning of the original. Chleb ze smalcem is a little touch of meat-lovers’ heaven, another regional favorite from the mountains of southern Poland that calls for snow and reminds us once again how often “simple” is synonymous with “perfect” when it comes to food. The recipe only hints at the alchemistic perfection of the finished product:

• finely sliced bacon fried, with the drippings remaining
• sauteed onion
• sauteed apple

Take those three simple ingredients, mix them together with the drippings (preferably in something small and ceramic), and then set it in a cool place to let the drippings solidify a bit. Smear on fresh bread — real bread that’s solid with chewy, thick crust — and then prepare yourself, because the number of neurons that will be firing that first bite will overwhelm.

It’s a dinner that I’d ask for if I were on death row…