Food Musings

A Winnipeg blog about the joy of preparing food for loved ones and the shared joy that travel & dining brings to life.

Grandma Felicia’s Polish Cake

September8

I am writing this as part of the Canadian Food Experience Project which began June 7 2013.  As we the participants, share our collective stories across the vastness of our Canadian landscape through our regional food experiences, we hope to bring global clarity to our Canadian culinary identity through the cadence of our concerted Canadian voice.

My Dad was a first generation Canadian.  He was born in Poland and raised in what is now called the Czech Republic.  He arrived in southern Saskatchewan (approximately 75 miles south of Moose Jaw) with his Mom Felicia and his little brother.  His Dad had settled a couple of years before, undoubtedly because of having seen the notice below:

Every person who is the sole head of a family and every male who has attained the age of 18 years and is a British subject or declares his intention of becoming and British subject, is entitled to apply for entry to a homestead. A quarter-section may be obtained as a homestead on payment of an entry fee of $10 and fulfillment of certain conditions of residence and cultivation. To qualify for the issuing of the patent, the settler must have resided upon his homestead for at least six months of each of three years, must have erected a habitable house thereon, and must have at least 30 acres of his holding broken, of which 20 acres must be cropped. A reduction may be made in the area of breaking where the land is difficult to cultivate on account of scrub or stone.

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They settled in the community known as Limerick.  My Grandma cleaned the homes of other families while Grandpa continued to work their land and build their little farmhouse.  At the same time, my Dad and Uncle attended a one room school house where the most difficult task was learning to speak English.  When the Second World War was declared, the brothers enlisted in the air-force, eager to defend their new country.  My Dad survived the crash of his aircraft in Europe.  My Uncle never did make it overseas, haven been killed when his training plane crashed into a hill not far from Moose Jaw.

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Her stove looked a great deal like this but is less ornate.

As time went on, my Grandma moved into a house in “town” where she grew geraniums on every window sill and white lace curtains floated in the breeze.  She had a big old stove that took up most of her kitchen.  It would be filled with coal in the morning and then sticks of wood would be added as the day went by.  The beautiful appliance included a cistern where water could be heated and held.  A pot of soup or stew could be placed on top and brought to a rapid bowl and then moved to a cooler area of the cook-top to simmer the morning away.  I can distinctly remember the amazing tastes of Grandma’s potato soup, prune dumplings served with melted butter and cinnamon sugar and freshly killed chickens fried in boiling lard- producing the crispest and juiciest chicken I have ever tasted.

Baking was more problematic as the oven had one temperature and could not be adjusted or moderated.  But she stilled managed to produce the most delectable bread, buns, apple pie, poppy seed roll, thimble cookies and this, her prized cake that we simply callPoli sh Cake.  When Sister #3 was researching the origin of the recipe for a cookbook that she is writing, she found that similar cakes had Jewish origins, so she has surmised that Grandma must have obtained the recipe from a Jewish neighbour in Poland.

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Acquiring this recipe was a task in itself as Grandma did not write any of her recipes down.  My sister-in-law observed Grandma making this cake on one visit and took notes while trying to get Grandma to be as specific as possible.  Years later, Sister #3 took those notes and started recipe writing and testing.  Here are the results:

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Grandma Felicia's Polish Cake
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: Eastern Europe
 
Ingredients
  • Filling
  • 1½ cups milk
  • ⅓ cup cream of wheat
  • 6 tbsp Icing sugar
  • ½ cup soft butter or margarine
  • 1 medium egg
  • 1 tsp rum extract
  • Raspberry jam
  • Cake
  • ¼ cup soft butter or margarine
  • 3 heaping tablespoons of soft honey
  • 1 medium sized egg
  • ½ cup white sugar
  • 1 tsp. Baking soda
  • ½ cup evaporated milk
  • Sift 2½ cups flour
Instructions
  1. Method
  2. Boil milk then add cream of wheat stir 3 – 4 minutes being sure not to burn it.
  3. Cover and set aside to cool.
  4. Line 2 round pans 8 or 9” cake pans with parchment paper cut into rounds to cover the bottom.
  5. Mix cake ingredients together until dough is smooth but sticky.
  6. Flour a surface and rolling pin and roll cake out a bit maintaining round shape.
  7. Bake in 350ºF oven for 15 minutes or until light brown.
  8. Beat cream of wheat, sugar and butter until creamy.
  9. Add egg and rum extract and beat until stiff.
  10. Cut each cake into three layers.
  11. Take first layer of cake and top with ⅙th of the cream of wheat mixture.
  12. Add a thin layer (2 tbsp) of Jam. (I melt the jam in the microwave to make it easier to spread).
  13. Take the second cake place it on top of the jam mixture.
  14. Repeat with cream of wheat mixture and jam till all layers are added.
  15. Cover and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours.
  16. Taste best if made a day ahead.

My Grandma Felicia lived in her sparkling little house until she was in her 90s.  She picked peas in her garden a few days before she passed away.

Kath’s quote: “Throughout history, the Poles have defended Europe. They would fight, and – between battles – they would eat and drink.”-E. de Pomiand

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Love-that is all.

posted under Desserts | 5 Comments »

Khachapuri

September6

Truth is, I didn’t know precisely where Georgia was until I got out our big atlas that resides in our living room and is pulled out frequently for my enlightenment.  You might say that I am geographically challenged. Good friends of ours invited us over for a taste of Georgian cooking as she had spent time in that country and picked up some culinary favourites.

Her husband helped me get up to speed with an excerpt from his 2006 blog post:

A Georgian Table

There are two legends that Georgians tell to explain the creation of their country, and fascinatingly, both involve food. In the first, the Georgians claim that when God was distributing land to all the peoples of the Earth, they were too busy feasting and drinking to show up at the appointed time. When they finally arrived, they were dismayed to learn that all the land had already been given away. They explained to God the reason for their delay, and God, obviously recognizing the value of a people who would rather be feasting than fighting over land, took pity on them and gave the Georgians the part of the Earth that he had been reserving for himself – naturally, the most beautiful part. In the second legend, God took a supper break while creating the world, and became so involved with his meal that he inadvertently tripped over the high peaks of the Caucasus, spilling his food onto the land below. This land blessed by heaven’s table scraps was Georgia.

We were not observing supra, which is a feast when a huge assortment of dishes are prepared, always accompanied by large amounts of wine.

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These feasts are said to go on for hours but we didn’t have hours, just a bit of time before the boys had to go to bed.
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At this meal we enjoyed a lovely salad and a delectable marinated and grilled pork.  But to be honest, what I was fascinated with and couldn’t get enough of was the Khachapuri which I understand is their version of cheese bread and is a a staple of Georgian kitchens.
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Sarah referred to her Nani’s recipe when she described to me how Khachapuri is made.  A simple dough is prepared with the inclusion of Balkan yoghurt. In a separate bowl the cheese filling is mixed together from feta, butter and eggs.  Sarah mixes and kneads her dough in her bread maker.  Then she splits the dough into eight equal parts.  She rolls out each portion and then places 1/8th of the cheese filling in the middle.  She then folds the edges up around the filling, pinches it together and flattens back into a thick disk.  These dense cakes are then heated in a dry frying pan 2-3 minutes per side.  Oh my, I couldn’t get enough of these.
The meal and the Khahapuri tasted like the perfect blend of Eastern European and Middle Eastern cooking.  When I did a little bit of research on the history of Georgian fare, these are the two primary influences of the region’s cuisine.
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A gorgeous trifle was served next.  One of the boys tried very patiently to wait for dessert.
Kath’s quote: “Anybody who believes that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach flunked geography.”-Robert Byrne
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Love-that is all.
posted under Breads, Recipes | 1 Comment »

Musings on the First Day of School

September3

Even though my gang is long out of grade school, I still I am both excited and apprehensive on this day.  The jitters that the kids would have, would always be passed along to me and I would wonder about teachers and bullies and besties.  I would hope that they didn’t mind that although their clothes were clean and they had every item on their school supply list, that they would mind (or notice) that their new lunch kit was gifted to me at a golf tournament and that their gym shoes were actually one size too large because they were the only size left on that shoe sale.

My greatest anxiety was typically about their school lunch.  I dreaded the task because no matter how much effort went into it at my end, the bags and Tupperware found in knapsacks, would tell the true tale of what had been considered delicious, let alone appealing.  There were a couple of years where J1 traveled across town to school and then would stay in EK for dance classes in the evening and so lunch and dinner would have to be sent.  I was a dreadful failure at this, believing that he didn’t mind the packaged pasta package that I would send with him, thinking to myself “he’ll need the carbs” for his workout.

Suffice it to say, I am glad that my lunch making days are behind me.  Well, not quite.  This Friday, a friend of the Frenchman moves in with us for the fall and he has requested room and board.  I am relieved because there is no way that I could make the space for his ingredients in my weenie kitchen or overstuffed fridge.  I will be responsible for providing lunch “ingredients” so that he can pack a lunch for himself.  I think that I can pull that off.

I see photos of packed lunches on the Mommy blogs of compartmentalized boxes filled with fresh, nutritious and clever food.  And I think, boy those kids must be so loved that their Mom’s would go to that much trouble.  I hope that mine know that with working outside the home and scheduling extra-curricular activities for them, as well as trying to keep a house and take care of my hard-working husband, I did the best that I could manage.  I also hope that in spite of mediocre lunch bags, they were/are loved more than words can say.

Love-that is all.

“Pomegranate Soup” and “Rosewater and Soda Bread” by Marsha Mehran

August30

Marsha Mehran escaped the Iranian revolution and the heroines of her stories have done the same.  I was drawn to this book and it’s sequel (unfortunately I read them the wrong way around) initially because of the culinary theme but found many other connections to the narrative.  Both stories are about three sisters and their sometimes opposite reactions to the same circumstances of life.

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They run a little cafe together in a community in western Ireland, a place that I fell deeply in love with when we traveled through it a couple of springs ago.  Our most northern stop was Galway which is still south of County Mayo where the action takes place.

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But wandering the streets of Galway and experiencing their commerce and culinary scene has allowed me to create what I think is a realistic mental picture of life for the sisters.  Here are a couple of my favourite excerpts from the first of the two novels.

Chapter 4, page 62

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At only nine in the morning the kitchen was already pregnant to its capacity, every crevice and countertop overtaken by Marjan’s gourmet creations.  Marinating vegetables (torshis of mango, eggplant and the regular seven-spice variety), packed to the briny brims of five-gallon see-through canisters, sat on the kitchen island.  Large blue bowls filled with salads (angelica lentil, tomato, cucumber and mint, Persian fried chicken), dolmeh, and dips (cheese and walnut) yoghurt and cucumber, baba ganoush, and spicy hummus), which, along with feta, Stilton and cheddar cheese, were covered and stacked in the enormous glass-door refrigerator.  Opposite the refrigerator stood the colossal brick bread oven.  Baking away in its domed belly was the last of the sangak bread loaves, three feet long and counting, rising in golden crests and graced with scatterings of poppy and nigella seed.  The rest of the bread (paper-thin lavash) crusty barbari, slabs of sangak as well as the usual white sliced loaf) was already covered with comforting cheesecloth to keep the freshness in.  And simmering on the stove, under Marjan’s loving orders, was a small pot of white onion (not to be mistaken for the French variety, for this version boasts dried fenugreek leaves and pomegranate paste), the last pot of red lentil soup and a larger pt of abguhst.  An extravaganza of lamb, split peas, and potatoes, abguhst always reminded Marjan of early spring nights in Iran, when the cherry blossoms still shivered with late frosts and the piping samavors helped washed down the saffron and dried lime aftertaste with strong, black Darjeeling tea.

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And then just further along on Page 64

So this was how love was supposed to feel, Layla thought, like the ecstatic cries of a pomegranate as it realizes the knife’s thrust, the caesarean labor of juicy seeds cut from her inner womb.  Like the gleeful laugh of oil as it corrupts the watery flour, the hot grease blending the batter to its will and creating a greater sweetness from the process-zulbia, the sugary fried fritters she loved so.  Falling in love was amazing.  Why hadn’t anyone ever told her so?

Kath’s quote: “And beneath upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about: a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe round about.” –Exodus 28:33-34

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Love-that is all.

Bacon Wrapped Queso Fresca Stuffed Figs

August29

I was reading through a blog post from last week and realized that I had not posted a recipe which I had promised.  This turned out to be one of the hits at the recent baby shower that Daughter #2 hosted for the Wee One.

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I find it mighty hard to leave all this behind.

Truth is, the appetizer was a bit of a fluke.  I wanted to do some of my prep while out at the beach house to lessen my responsibilities once I got into town.  So I  snooped around the freezer and found a pound of bacon.  I discovered that I still had some California figs left when the producers graciously sent them to me.  I tried a ricotta at first with no success-too mild and impossible to stuff without a pastry bag so I rattled around a little more in the fridge and found this deliciously salty cheese that I was going to brown in a fry pan and serve with taco chips.  Best of all, it was firm enough to be cut into little sticks and then pressed into the fig with ease.

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Bacon Wrapped Queso Fesca Stuffed Figs
Author: 
Recipe type: Appetizer
Cuisine: Fusion
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
 
Ingredients
  • 1 package of bacon, cut each strip in half
  • count the number above
  • match that number with the same number of figs
  • match that number with the same number of cheese sticks
Instructions
  1. cut off the stem end of the fig
  2. use your paring knife to gently make a tunnel into the fig, making sure that you do not break through the other end
  3. gently ease the cheese stick into the fig
  4. wrap with one half strip of bacon and secure with a toothpick
  5. line a 8 x 8 square cake pan with parchment paper
  6. place the figs close together in the pan so that they will support each other making sure that the closed end is next to the pan
  7. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or until the bacon has crisped up to your desired likeness

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So quick, easy and SO delicious.

Kath’s quote: “Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.”-Doug Larson

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Love-that is all.

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