The chocolate treats we sent L’s teachers were such a hit we decided to do the same for E’s teachers. And when I say “we” in that sentence, I mean K.
food and cooking
Eating Meatballs
We were heading out to check the mail this afternoon, L riding her scooter and E in my arms, when a old, loud pickup truck roared up the street. The Boy waved furious and shouted, "Hi Truck! We going to eat meatballs!"
In short, the Boy gets excited about the prospect of Swedish meatballs.
Pre-Party Saturday
Tomorrow is the Boy's birthday party. His actual birthday isn't until Wednesday, but who really throws a birthday party on Wednesday when we can do a double-duty birthday/Mother's-Day party on the preceding Sunday?
The upshot of this plan was simple: K kicked everyone out of the house in the early afternoon to work on the cake. It was one of those moments really to make me realize just how ineffably wonderful K is: how many would make a Black Forest cake as opposed to simply buying a cake at this or that bakery? In the end, it's not important how many would bake versus buy, it only matters that E and K are lucky enough to have a mother who bakes.
So the Boy and I headed to a park while the Girl went to a neighborhood friend who recently got a puppy. Everyone was happy. K had a quiet house in which to bake and clean; E had a playground to overwhelm him; the Girl got to play with both a friend and a puppy.
We all returned afterward for cake decoration, which doesn't go quite as planned, and fresh fruit with whipped cream -- as in heavy whipping cream that's been whipped -- and some last-minute playing in the yard.
The whole time, the Boy was thrilled.
"Who has 'happy birthday' tomorrow?" we all asked in turn.
The Boy points to himself and shouts, squeals, or barks, "Happy birthday!"
Morning Rituals
The day should begin like this. Every single day. Of course, it's April, which, according to the cliche, brings showers, indicating gray skies. Still, such an April is rare here in our part of the South.
Breakfast each day should be leisurely enough to include play.
If it's raisin bread on the menu, there should be plenty of time to load a truck with raisin bread and unload it.
Again, and again, and again.
Of course, the same goes for Cheerios, should that appear on the menu.
And there should be enough time after breakfast to play with trucks in the warm morning sun wearing your favorite shirt.
Soup, Boy, Man
We do love K’s żurek.
Kuchnia Góralska
"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...
Barszcz in the Family
What Polish family would be truly Polish if barszcz weren't a favorite? For as long as I can remember, the Girl has adored it, placed it almost at the very top of her favorite food list -- just below pizza, of course.
The Boy has been warming to the idea, and tonight, he decided it was time to get serious about beet root soup.
Somehow he managed to get two spoons, and he did make use of both of them.
That only left one family member: the cat. K, though, solved that problem today, taking a few seconds that L hadn't managed to finish, running them through a food processor to grind up the sausage (the poor old girl has lost almost all her teeth), and pouring the resulting purple mush into Bida's bowl.
And so now it's official: the Scott family, to a person/cat, loves beetroot soup.
Pickles and the Giant Slalom
The Girl is odd when it comes to food, to say the least. It's tempting to say it's due to growing up in a half-Polish household where we cook a great deal of Polish food. That explains her absolute love of beet root soup, and it might explain why she's not wild about things like hamburgers. On the other hand, pizza is another favorite, to the dgree that when asked about favorite foods, sometimes she lists pizza, sometimes barszcz.
Snacking and treats seem fairly straight forward: she likes most of the things typical American kinds like. Chocolate. Apples. Ice cream. Pickles. A whole jar. With the juice poured into a cup and savored through a straw.
The Boy sees the pickles, squeals "Pickle!" and grabs one in each hand and almost gets away with them both before K catches him and lets him know that one is enough. The three of them curl up together and watch Ted Ligety work his magic in the giant slalom.
Greedy Belly
The Boy is a good eater. To say that is perhaps the ultimate understatement of our family. Sure, the Girl is theatrical; K is dedicated; Tata plays chess -- all of these are understatements, but they are gross exaggerations in comparison to "the Boy is a good eater."
All families, I guess, have the good eaters and the bad eaters. L leans toward the latter. True, she likes things most kids her age wouldn't touch (beetroot soup comes to mind) but she detests things that most kids her age adore (hamburgers and hot dogs come to mind). The Boy, on the other hand, will eat just about anything he sees us eating, and his favorites are some of the very items that L detests, like broccoli. This is often advantageous to them both, for she'll leave her three spears of broccoli on the plate for the very last minute, and occasionally the Boy, long done with his own dinner, will hop about for a while, roll about on his little four-wheeler, then abruptly jump up, dash to the table, and steal a broccoli spear.
Tonight, though, the Girl was with Nana and Papa for dinner, and the Boy had all the broccoli he could eat. He sat, holding each spear as if it were a lollipop, munching it down to the end, then simultaneously grabbing another and pointing to K's pile of green. He ate all of his and half of hers.
For his encore later this evening, he pulled a chair over to the counter by the stove and clamored up to grab one of the remaining crab cakes we'd had for dinner. It took him half an hour of playing then eating, playing then eating, but he ate almost the whole thing. When offered the final bite, he stood thoughtfully for a moment, then shook his head. "Nah," he squeaked and ran to the living room to look for a mess to make.
Cheese Cake
The Boy has discovered sernik, Polish-style cheese cake. And now we’re listening to Dexter Gordon’s “Cheese Cake” as accompaniment.