My Polish Easter

I enjoy keeping food traditions for holidays. My heritage is a mix of Polish, Hungarian and Puerto Rican. Easter always means Polish for me. Having lived with my Polish grandma for a good part of my life I can't imagine the Easter meal any other way. There is something about the experience of food that brings back memories very deeply. I love thinking that the traditions I create now will live through my children and their future children. 

My New Years Eve meal is always Latino. It can't get more festive for ringing in the new year than that! I make some of my own concoctions as well as my husband's favorites that he grew up with. He is 100% NY Puerto Rican, his family is steeped in food tradition. His mom has taught me how to make the family favorites. Our Thanksgiving is all American, we like to eat what we suspect the Pilgrims might have. For Christmas it's Victorian England for us, we have no familial ties there. Both my husband and I are literature fiends, we wish to experience a Dicken's fantasy Christmas. Let's get back to Easter!...

I used buttery babka dough this year to make buns for Good Friday.

Of course, the lamb cake made its appearance. You can see one of my "dressed" lambs here.

Days before Easter my daughter was busy planning out her egg dying designs as I was busy planning my meal. I will probably save this paper forever.

Easter

Through all the fogs through

all earth's wintry skies

I scent the spring, I feel

the eternal air

Warm soft & dewy, filled with

flowery eyes

And gentle murmuring motions

everywhere

Of life in bird & tree & brook

and moss-

Thy breath wakes beauty, faith &

bliss & prayer

And strength to hang with nails

upon Thy Cross.

-Lilias Trotter (from A Passion for the Impossible)

*the photo: We were at The NY Botanical Garden. My daughter inched closer and closer to a little brown rabbit who just stood there for the longest time nibbling on a plant. He seemed oblivious to us. He was straight out of a Beatrix Potter story, all that was missing was his little blue jacket.

Making Mushrooms

This has been a week for mushrooms. I was feeling a bit lousy with a cold on Easter morning. Puffy head, runny nose, I sat in church trying to ignore it. My daughter knew just the perfect moment to pull this out of her bag. "Your Easter present", she said and she handed me this adorable crocheted mushroom. Yay! That cheered me on to listen to the Easter message and feed a bunch of people afterwards. It continues to work it's magic whenever I see it. When my daughter was little she was always giving me cute things that she made. Something made out of clay with too many eyes, a scribble drawing that said "I mad thi3 for you" (translation: I made this for you.). But, lately when she writes me a note or makes me something it is worth more to me than all those sweet little scraps from when she was younger. She is 13 now and she knows me more as an equal human being than the "mom" person I was to her when she was small. When the girls were very little sometimes the days were hectic and I longed for them to end so we could all just get some sleep. Now, the days are never long enough to do all the things we want to do. If you have little ones and feel sad thinking about them growing up remember they are still the same people, only much much more interesting. 

A friend forwarded me an email about a homeschool class about growing mushrooms, "Thought this was right up your alley", she said. She was so right. Even though I was on the tail end of my stinky cold we went. We "planted" shitake mushrooms. The first step was to go into the woods where we each got to pick our own host logs. They had a lot of downed trees due to hurricane Sandy, the Red Oak logs were pre-cut for us in manageable sizes. We carried them back and drilled holes into them where the shitake spawn was to be put. Here's my gal doing the drilling.

Next was the inoculation process. Shooting the spawn (which is mixed with sawdust) into the holes.

Next , melted wax is brushed over each hole to seal in the spawn to keep it from drying out.

There they are, logs filled with shitake spawn waiting to grow yummy mushrooms. I can't help but think of the perfect timing of this experience for us, it being Easter week. With thoughts fresh in my mind about Jesus and his resurrection, about how he always makes a way for seemingly dead things to become new. You know these mushrooms cannot even grow on a living log? It has to be decaying. Without the death of theses trees the new amazingly useful "fruit" could never be born.

Good Friday/Baking Day

I started baking for Easter on Good Friday (Bad Friday as my girls refer to it). I planned to do some on Friday and some on Saturday, but one thing led to another and I went and did it all. Here are my traditional hot cross buns that we have every Good Friday for tea.

Another tradition for me and my Polish Easter meal, the Babka. Babka baking is one of the best smells.

Hot Dog Buns, not exactly the usual Easter fare at my house, but I wanted to have something to take to church on Friday night. Something to share that's easy to eat. I don't have TV but I do have a couple of Youtube channels I watch faithfully. One of the is Kumigar, The Dancing Chef. I recently saw her make these. She calls them "Sexy Buns", for me they are just hot dog buns. Anyway, they're a handy portable snack. 

I make chick and bunny shortbread cookies each year, but this is the first year I am really happy with them. They are always good (butter, sugar and flour-what's not to like?), but never that perfect shortbread I've always been looking for. Until now. I think I have it. Everyone in my house has dubbed these the best so far. They are from my newest favorite tea book, Vintage Tea Party. It's really good if you want traditional tried and true British tea recipes.  It's visually inspiring as well. All of the ingredients are measured out on a scale, the European way instead of using measuring cups. Maybe that's why they came out better. I like the easy cleanup of using a scale, one bowl and no cups to wash. I'm considering converting my American recipes to ounces after spending years converting the other way around!

I love Easter.

I love Easter and Springtime. Flowers that I planted years ago come back to surprise me. I seem to have forgotten them. Now they amaze me with their colors and scents. New life is everywhere.

I look forward to baking my Easter babkas.

And eating them.

The lamb cake is always fun.

I make ready the clothing for little girls to be in their ‘Easter best’.

I collect treats and hide them so they can find them.

I love Easter because Easter is “real” to me. Because my Savior rose from the dead to show me that one day I can too. I will follow him. If I didn’t believe this these little things I do would be futile. I prepare good things for my family- I plant, bake, sew, arrange. Things to delight them, to make them happy. I create with the intent to bring joy. Why do I do this? Because this is what I was made to do. Because I was created in God’s image and this is what he does. As I prepare my surprises I am reminded how Jesus after his resurrection went on ahead to prepare surprises for us. Things that I cannot begin to imagine.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

John 14:1-4

Bad Friday, buns and a new shirt

Each year when my daughter sees Good Friday come up on the calendar she says grumpily “I don’t know why they call it Good, it should be called Bad Friday”. I say something like “Yes, you are right what happened to Jesus was bad, but in the long run it was good for us. That’s why he did it”.  She knows this but she remains sulky about it. Today is Good/Bad Friday so we have hot cross buns for tea and this evening we will join with friends and family to hear our Pastor read through the trial and unfair execution of Christ. Yes it is bad, a very solemn day. But we know the next part of this story don’t we? We eagerly look forward to Easter Sunday when we will rejoice.

This is our hot cross bun dough being deflated. My little one loves to punch down the dough. A year ago I made this shirt for her. Her reaction was, “Well... I don’t really like it.” I could tell by her tone that she was trying to be very delicate and not hurt my feelings. I asked what exactly was it that she didn’t like about it. “It’s not pretty enough” she said. That from a five year old means that it is brown. Not the favored pink, purple or yellow...brown. So, it hung in the closet for a year and now she actually likes it. I don’t know why, I’m just glad it still fits.

Hot cross buns,

Hot cross buns,

one ha' penny,

two ha' penny,

hot cross buns.

If you have no daughters,

give them to your sons,

one ha' penny,

two ha' penny,

Hot Cross Buns