"Pierogi"

Pierogi are a butter soaked, raviolli-like food that my polish Babcia makes. Babcia is polish for Grandma, and her pierogi recipe comes straight from her homeland. My Babcia and Dziadzio are polish immigrants who now reside in Connecticut, making our visits short and rare. When we are together though, my Babcia always makes us pierogi. Made out of a soft dough and filled with anything from potato, cheese, meat, or even blueberries, pierogi are hand shaped to look like little rising suns. You have to let them sit awhile, like my Babcia says; "He need to rest". From there they are drenched with butter and onions and tossed into the oven together where the butter boils the noodle and caramelizes the onions. When it's done, they look and smell delectable.

Another Polish tradition is to empty your fridge of food and place it in front of your guest. My Babcia will offer us anything with our pierogi including whip-cream and strawberry ice-cream which obviously don't go well with butter and potato. Polish hospitality can be deadly when we visit our family in Connecticut, breakfast will be laid out for us long before we wake, and we can have anything from bagels to lasagna. No one has ever weighed the same after a visit to Babcia's house. Even if you deny her offerings, she will continue to pile things onto the table for you and even beg you to eat something. It's a painful sort of love that Babcia shares.

However, one cannot deny the way we miss both Babcia and her pierogi when we leave Connecticut. In a way, pierogi are something to look forward to every time we go back east. Food is the last incentive to visit them again, for the love our large family has for one another is enough to keep us coming back for years. I often think about moving out there with them, but I know I would never fit into the same size jeans again.