My grandfather was very fond of cheese dumplings. I also. The two of us drew on a song about a Cossack who loved a girl with cheese pies and just laughed. Grandmother did them to us often. On Sundays, probably. Much has changed when my grandfather is gone. We rarely ate dumplings, the table was not covered at certain hours, there was no clear order, places for each family member, there was no large plate of salad closer to our grandfather's table, there was not much.
When Igor came to our house, my grandmother found out that he loved dumplings with cheese and potatoes and began to cook them more often. And I totally fell in love with them.
Igor often said, as a joke, kindly laughing at the fact that his dream is to taste the dumplings that I will make. Even himself prepared several times dumplings with cherries. Several times over ten years of our life together, maybe two. Or three. Just no more. (And even in those times I'm not sure he cooked the dough himself - maybe he was secretly helped by his grandmother). But even that I did not take. Why does anyone even love dumplings? Why complicate life?
I also treated borsch with disdain. Well, until we came to live in Lodz. I cooked borscht in our first month here. And since then, I cooked it often. He started to savor me, longing for a longing for the house, but it was not the main reason: this magic of freshly cut vegetables, their scents, and variety, parsley and garlic, in the end, rich, thick purple color that won, extinguished all others, filling them with himself. Otto is a white cream spot in the middle of the plate and a soft pink that spread thinly from it to the edges. The expression on Igor's face is satisfied. A warm, even pudgy feeling inside - well, I managed to do something.
But not dumplings. Lasagna - yes. Crunches - yes. Even the honeycomb. (Not that they come out perfect every time, get me right, but it didn't scare me - after all, the lasagna failed only once). But not dumplings, no.
However, today, on the third day of Christmas in the old style, I still made them. My heart was pounding, I was not letting anyone into the kitchen, my hands were shaking, a lump of tears was going down in my throat. I was sure that nothing would work for me, but this past week Igor tried so hard to speak my language of love, and in general, we have been married for so many years, and I never fulfilled such a simple request… in short, I could not resist the old idea. I wrote to my mom 'SOS' asking her to call her grandmother urgently, to find out the dough recipe, but all her grandmother's simple and even tattered recipes know her fingers, so nothing but ingredients - flour, egg, water - I didn't know. She kneaded the dough, prepared the toppings, held back her tears, told Igor that he did not think to criticize, whatever the result.
Igor said that the dumplings are already turning out beautiful. He said that he would have to restore the Facebook page because he could not remain silent. It was a very witty joke: Igor did not believe in Facebook, he registered when he was in Ukraine, and I was here in Lodz, but he did not answer anything in the Viber, he was worried. Removed the page soon and lives a wonderful life without ticking on Facebook fields. I like it.
Dumplings did not slip, did not boil, looked like real dumplings, however, the dough was not soft enough, not airy enough. In short, the grandmother lost much - one whose recipe only her fingers know.
I thought about how unexpectedly there were ingredients. And how much work. Compared to yesterday's stewed sweet potatoes with a whole bouquet of vegetables and a salad of Beijing cabbage alone, drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice - and how delicious it tasted for Danusi. I thought that once people did not have diversity on the table, hard work was a habit, and setting aside a little time for rest did not seem important (or possible). Now there are so many ingredients, and it takes so little time and effort to prepare them. Time for rest, communication - more. But so many of us burn it, endlessly browsing through news or Facebook feeds.
I'm not a fan of dumplings, at all. But now it is especially important for me to bring back the atmosphere of foresight, tranquility, interesting conversations and laughter at my family table - that is the atmosphere my grandfather always orchestrated and embodied the grandmother at our oval wooden table in the Barbarian dining room.
It is so important for Danusha to know: I love her daddy so much that, here, she learned to cook exactly the borscht he loves and cooked him dumplings.
Although Dani is so fond of playing with the dough, for her it is such a "wonderful game" as she repeats that it seems to her that I am just having fun. Well, let them. The main thing - everyone is happy.