POLAND WHERE: Homecooked! My mother was 100% Polish and never let anyone forget that. As such, we called my grandparents on that side Babcia and Dzia-Dzia, and our aunt was our Ciocia (which I actually thought was her real name until I was in my twenties, not knowing it's the Polish word for 'aunt'). My mother had my sister’s kids called her Babcia too when they were born to carry on that tradition. We went went to the Polish Town Fair and Festival 2021 in Riverhead, NY (we actually have quite an extensive collection of the beer steins they had for each year). There are pictures of many of my family in their stroje ludowe, the national costumes of Poland, all girls with their streamer filled skirts. My grandparents spoke some Polish around the house, being second generation immigrants. The only phrase I ever picked up was “pluć i łapać“ which means ‘go spit and catch it’-- a familiar phrase my Babcia would use whenever one of us kids would complain about being bored. My mother cooked all the polish delicacies her mother had taught her including pierogis (potato dumplings), kielbasa (sausage), boulka (what we called fried bread of breadcrumbs mixed with egg -- the leftovers of breaded chickens), potato pancakes, ect. Not being a meat and potatoes type of girl though (and hating most sausages), I didn't really like the food that came from that side of my family. Except for the naleśniki! These thin, crepe-like (probably where I got my love of crepes from) pancakes full of jelly, sugar or cheese filling. I loved the jelly and sugar ones. The had to be made fresh, so I have a lot of memories of my mother cooking them and feeding them to me one by one, like I was a king at the head of the table. I would put sugar in them, rolling them up one by one and she would stand there, cooking them for me until I was absolutely stuffed! I even remember getting her approval for "naleśniki night" to be the next day once, so this being a very big occasion for me, I stood up at in my chair at the dinner table the night before and announced, "Hereye, hereye, big news! Wednesday is Naleśniki Night and mommy will be cooking them for us all tomorrow!" And... everyone else, not being as in love with naleśniki as I was, groaned and basically said 'whatever'. Pfft.. heathens, they just didn't understand good eats. When my mother died though, those days of cooking in the kitchen faded with her and to top it off, I lost the family recipe that she had written down somewhere. My then-fiance decided to try his hand at cooking them a few times for me and it was truly one of the sweetest things he's ever done for me. We found a similar recipe, but they don't taste exactly like my mom's naleśniki-- perhaps only because they weren't made for little kid me, in my childhood kitchen being cooked over by my mother. Anyway, when I moved out of our house, it not having worked out, I found myself on the phone with my ex-fiance and nearly squealed when I said to him, "Guess what I'm cooking right now? Or at least attempting to cook for the very first time by myself?" Without a beat, he said, "Naleśniki." "...how did you know?" I asked, confused. Could he see through the phone or something?! "Nothing else would make you that happy." I grinned. He was right. Naleśniki makes me exceptionally happy. And I can now (vaguely) cook them by myself! Not as good as my mother's obviously, but enough for the nostalgia to fill in the gaps. Naleśniki Recipe: Here! Also props to the many Universal Yum Yums Subscription Boxes they’ve sent out over the years.
And the holiday box for usually have Polish gingerbread in it!