Chores, Practice, and Dinner for Tomorrow
food and cooking
Perspective
What you see depends on where you stand. It’s true physically and culturally, and there is even some truth in it artistically. Take a novel like William Faulkner’s Absalom! Absalom! in which the story of Thomas Sutpen takes on mythic proportions among the various narrators, each seeing what they want to see, each perspective determined by time and place of birth as well as proximity to Sutpen. We come away from the novel wondering which of the narrators we can really trust, if any of them.
In class today, we began such an examination. Various students took various positions, each of which was determined by their birth date, and the described what they saw. What came out of it was predictable but poignant: everyone was in the same room but everyone’s notes of what they saw were different. No two people made the same notes, or even close to it.
Back at home, K was getting ready for the international festival at our former parish, which still hosts the monthly Polish Mass and so still has a certain draw for us. The Polish community was to have their own booth, selling pierogi and bigos and sausage to raise money for the church.
K and some other Polish women spent last Saturday morning making and freezing pierogi, and today there was an unbelievably long line of people interested enough in Polish food to plop down a couple of $1 tickets for a bit of the old country. The bigos was not completely consumed by the end of the evening. “You know Americans and their wariness of sauerkraut,” K justified.
Still, all the pierogi disappeared, and the Poles got to show off their polka skills, and the Polish community even managed to get the pastor to take a quick shot of vodka as the evening drew to a close.
In some ways, then, the perspective of Poland didn’t really change for the visitors. Its cuisine is heavy on the cabbage and potatoes, and there’s usually alcohol involved — that would probably be the average take on Polish culture. And it’s not entirely wrong. But it is of course only one side of the culture. It would have been hard to show that in a three-hour festival along with all the other communities. People visiting a Polish booth expect pierogi, and so that’s what the community provides. A bit of a self-fullfilling prophecy, but when the food is that tasty, who really cares.
From the Boy’s perspective, it was a bit of a flop. Sure, there were hay bales to jump on and lots to see, but the music was loud, and most of the food was not to his liking.
As the sun set, a group of Latin American parishioners performed a dance that they use every year to pay homage to Our Lady of Guadalupe. One look at the costumes and it’s clear where it all came from. Indeed, G, the de facto leader of the Polish community, came running to the Polish booth urging everyone to come watch. “The Aztecs are coming!”
How strange from a modern perspective. The pre-Columbian Aztecs practiced human sacrifice on an unbelievable scale. And yet here are people dancing in Aztec garb some centuries later and imbuing it with a decidedly Catholic interpretation. Some Christians would naturally argue that it’s still pagan and quite profane: once pagan, always pagan. These are the folks likely not to have Christmas trees or hide Easter eggs.
But what you see depends on where you stand, it from where they stand, this is Christian worship. Far be it from me to say it isn’t.
Pierogi Party
Part of being Polish in America is sharing that culture -- with your family, with friends, and even with strangers, which is why you might spend the afternoon making literally hundreds of pierogi.
The Boy, ever willing and thrilled to help, makes a mess in the interest of helping. Afterward, he will come outside and help me in the yard.
Barszcz Bowl
Cooking Lesson
The Boy wants to learn how to cook.
Breakfast
We’ve been living without a kitchen for about a month now, and we’ve gotten accustomed to it to a degree. Every day we cook on the grill (including baking biscuits this morning), so every day seems like we’re camping out. If you look at things from a certain perspective, that sense of camping is highlighted even more.
Priorities
The Boy woke up this morning already discussing the obstacle course we could create that day. "First I'll go to school. Then I'll come home. And when you come home from school, we'll build the obstacle course!" It was the highlight of his morning, this little future utopia that was only hours away.
When I arrived home, though, he was asleep. It happens some times -- he's about to outgrow that nap, but every now and then, he falls asleep. Perhaps it's when he and K are in the car line to pick up L. Maybe it's watching a little TV with L after she's done her homework. Perhaps it just a random "Mommy, I'm tired" situation. Whatever the cause today, he was asleep.
"Good," I thought. "Just enough time to have a bit of coffee and relax for a few moments." Just as the Boy looked forward to his afternoon obstacle course, I always look forward to that afternoon coffee. I put some water on and chatted with K about the day when suddenly from upstairs came an excited call: "Daddy!" That in itself was surprising: it's always K whom he calls for. Not today. "Daddy, we can build the obstacle course!"
I went up to his room and started negotiating. "Well, first we have to do a little cooking."
"Yeah, sure, sure!" he said. The Boy loves cooking, and I knew this wouldn't be a problem. The next item, though, might be a little troublesome.
"Also, I have a little school work to do. How about you watch a Might Machines episode while I drink my coffee and finish up my work?" I suggested.
"Okay. I love Might Machines." And who wouldn't?
After coffee and Machines, it was time for kiełbasa. We had to cut up a link of sausage (read: I had to cut it up) and fry it. The Boy helped with the latter. He's our professional stirrer. If anything needs stirring, providing it's not spitting and bubbling too violently, he's the man for the job.
It's sometimes more trouble than help: he hasn't mastered the gentle stir, and he tends to get a little excited and send various foods flying onto the cook top. Such was the case tonight.
"Daddy, some fell out." I'd pick up the sausage piece, toss it back in, and wait for the next one. "Daddy, some more fell out." One piece, two pieces. He tried putting it back in himself, but by the time he got the nerve up to try it, the sausage was quite hot.
Finally, we were all done.
"Obstacle course?!"
"Obstacle course."
"Hurrah!"
Up the stairs we went, discussing our options.
"I want one just like the one yesterday."
"I'm not sure I can make it like that again." I didn't mention the picture I had taken of it, nor the fact that I could in theory use the picture to recreate it almost perfectly. I wanted to try something else.
"It's more of a maze than an obstacle course," L observed when she got home from dance classes.
It got me to thinking about two different metaphors for life: mazes and obstacle courses. Which would be a more optimistic view? And how much more optimistic? A maze seems almost hopelessly impossible when it's life-size and you're stuck in it, I would imagine. At least with an obstacle course, one can theoretically see the end. But in the end, they both seem just a touch too negative. For most of us, life isn't a game. Indeed, games and play in general, most child psychologists would argue, I think, are really only dress rehearsals for "real" life. Life is like a maze -- at times. It's like an obstacle course -- at times. And sometimes it's a couple of pieces of sausage tumbling from the frying pan.
Cooking
Halušky
Peeling Eggs
The Boy is always eager to help, especially when it comes to cooking. Any time K is standing at the stove, E bounds over to the dining table, grabs a chair, and slides it across the whole room to the stove.
"I want to help!"
Most often, that's just stirring. It's simple, difficult to mess up, and difficult to make a mess doing. Today, though, as I was rinsing the boiled eggs we'd be putting in our żurek later, he decided he wanted to learn how to peel the eggs. Rather, having just woke up from a nap, he was encouraged to learn. Bribed, for he's awfully fussy when he's awakened prematurely.
"Want to help me cook?" I began.
He was reluctant at first, but the words "learn" and "something new" seemed to pique his interest, and soon enough, he was peeling an egg.
When it came time for dinner, he was quite insistent that he got the egg that he had peeled.
"Bardzo słuszna koncepcja."