Blogging hiatus

My parents are visiting, and I'm taking the opportunity (grandparent childcare!) to tackle projects in the house and yard-- and over the weekend, to have a mini-reunion with my college friends.  I'll let you know when I'm back...

In the meantime, best wishes for a smooth week!  Thanks for visiting my blog.

Sunday Snippets-- October 14

RAnn of This, That, and the Other Thing hosts "Sunday Snippets-- A Catholic Carnival," wherein Catholic bloggers each share a brief digest of their posts from the preceding week.

It's supposed to represent our best work, but, since I've only two posts (which is about my average), I'm begging everyone's indulgence...!  Last week I only produced some Quick Takes and a short post entitled "Everyday Sacramentality," which was inspired by my Hungarian cookbook, of all things.  (I'm on an ethnic kick.)

Thanks, RAnn, for hosting!

Ok... some really quick "quick takes"

And what have I been up to this week? (You're just dying to know, right?)

1. Storytime at the library.  Unfortunately, today's Halloween craft project-- a spider mobile made of construction paper "legs" taped to a paper plate-- seemed to upset my toddler...  But then, so did the sight of her baby sister wearing a hand-me-down sweater.  ("Mine!")  We're just at that stage.

If only this could be the motto of our membership drive!

2. Helping my husband to set up a not-for-profit organization supporting scholarship in U.S. military history.  The legal part's done, but-- what with web pages, blogs, Facebook, and anticipating the administration thereof-- this project already feels overwhelming!  And we haven't even officially "announced" it yet.

3. Avoiding all work, conversation, and thought that touches on my book manuscript.

4. Fall cleaning.... because I haven't deep cleaned since before my almost-two-year-old was born!  Now, hand her a (dry) dust cloth and she'll "polish" furniture right along side me, at least for a few minutes...  By the way, this is a great procrastination technique!  One of my go-to's.

5. Trying to remember to pray together as a family!  My husband and I would like to make this a part of the evening routine (realizing, of course, that we can't expect the toddler and baby to actually pay attention), but we're just not in the habit...  For the past few nights it's slipped my mind until the children were long in bed.

6. Before bedtime, reading Jane Eyre yet again.

7. Experimenting with slow-cooker oatmeal.  It's wonderful to wake up to a ready-made breakfast, but the oatmeal's been forming an annoying (and wasteful) crust on the inside of the crock.  Tonight I may try this method, which I hope will help.

Enjoy the weekend!

Everyday Sacramentality

"Bread is revered in Hungary... and country folks still call it 'life.' As a child, if I dropped a slice of bread, I had to kiss it before eating it."

                ~George Lang, The Cuisine of Hungary (1971) p. 345

How simple and natural an extension from this, to love of the Blessed Sacrament-- and vice versa!   (Yet Lang himself was Jewish.)   Faith seems so intertwined with a grateful awareness of basic needs; of dependence; of survival...

Does a society lose its faith when its loses its concept of a "staff of life"?  (Here I'm probably trailing into the ideology of the Back-to-the-Land Movement...!) Of course, it isn't as simple as this: if it were, then we'd be done with the matter in one exhaustive historical study.

Still, today in the kitchen I'm taking a fresh look at my pantry staples. Potatoes.  Bread.  Barley.  Rice.  Building blocks of Life in more than one way?

Milk soup: a grand tradition...?!

"Milk soup"-- have you heard of this?  Tasted it?  While flipping through my Hungarian cookbook (George Lang's classic, recommended by a Facebook friend), I was astonished to find a recipe for it; and still more astonished to find other versions online...

The personal significance:  My Polish grandfather, may he rest in peace, ate a bowl of this every day for more than 50 years-- but I'd always assumed that the mixture was his own quirky invention, because who else would eat what was essentially a white sauce with noodles, and nothing more?  My mother told me that this "milk soup" regimen began after his wartime imprisonment, when a doctor (either in the DP camp, or upon the family's arrival in the US) told him that he was malnourished and needed to "build himself up," so to speak.  This soup was his solution.  And he made the entire family eat it, every day...

My mom detested milk soup, or came to detest it.  While I often saw my grandfather eating it, I don't remember trying it myself; and he never pressured me.

Here's a whole online conversation about it.  And another.  Again, I'd never realized that milk soup was not just my Dziadzio's quirk, but a well-known recipe with many variations!

Adoption Tax Credit to sunset Dec. 31

Sorry to trouble you with yet another political cause (in this election year, we're all approaching burnout!), but... our family was formed through adoption, so this issue hits home for me.  Literally.  Both of our babies-- two in two years' time, born right here in the USA-- came to us by means of adoption, for which my husband and I are more grateful than we can possibly express!!  And the process was expensive...  The Adoption Tax Credit, now set to expire, has been a welcome relief to us and other new adoptive parents.

In 2010 and 2011, the federal government offered an adoption tax credit that was fully refundable, meaning that the government would help adoptive parents with their adoption-related expenses regardless of tax liability. In 2012, however, the "refundability" expired; and the tax credit itself will sunset on Dec. 31.  Unless another law is passed, by 2013 only special-needs adoptions will qualify for a (greatly reduced!) measure of tax assistance.

"There are now bills in both the House (HR 4373) and the Senate (S 3616) that would accomplish the goal of an adoption tax credit that is inclusive, flat for special needs adoptions, refundable and permanent. We encourage you to ask your Representative to co-sponsor HR 4373 and both your Senators to co-sponsor S 3616."

If you have a few minutes, please help to Save the Adoption Tax Credit.  (Missouri residents:  Representatives Clay and Emerson are co-sponsoring HR 4373; and Senator Blunt introduced S 3616.  I'm not sure of where the others stand.)  Thank you, thank you, thank you!




A final, admittedly bitter thought:  We as a society will soon finance abortion and contraception-- while the adoption credit goes away?

Rakott krumpli

As we sometimes joke to each other, my husband and I are both very much "ethnic wannabes."  We each have one immigrant Polish parent-- in his case, born in a Siberian gulag during the war; and in mine, born in a DP camp in Germany, where my grandparents had been deported for forced labor.  My husband's mother is half Polish and half German; and my father is half Polish and half Hungarian.  On either side, no ancestor arrived in this country before the twentieth century... Although my husband and I don't speak Polish, have never been to Poland (or Hungary, or Germany), and are decidedly "American" in our attitudes (as we always discover when speaking with actual Europeans!), still we cling to the idea of ethnic identity-- and admit that the attempt is, well, half pathetic.

Now, inevitably, our immigrant parents are aging; and our immigrant grandparents are dying.  Someday that direct link to the past will be severed...

While we've always been eager to claim our heritage in small ways (i.e. the framed Polish eagles on our walls), lately I've grown a little desperate!  Along with a great uncle on my father's side, I've been dabbling in Hungarian genealogy.*   I've also been reprinting family photos, displaying deceased family members' cherished personal effects, and-- the true topic of this post-- experimenting with Eastern European recipes.

For dinner last night I made a version of Hungarian rakott krumpli, which is an extremely simple-- but incredibly rich!-- potato casserole.  Basically, it consists of sliced boiled potatoes layered with lots of melted butter; sliced hardboiled eggs; meat (ham and/or bacon and/or sausage); and finally, sour cream, or a sour cream sauce, topped with a sprinkle of paprika.  Then, bake in a medium oven for about 30 minutes... The dish can be varied in many ways, including omitting the meat for a Lenten dish.  I used diced ham and added a layer of chopped cabbage for extra nutrition.

Here's one recipe; and here's another; and another.

The hardboiled egg and sour cream give rakott krumpli a very distinctive, old-world flavor (and I never would have considered using hardboiled egg in a baked casserole!  But try it-- it's delicious.).  I found that sliced cucumber and a glass of wine provided a fresh, pleasant contrast to the casserole's richness.

As I continue to mine my Hungarian and Polish cookbooks, I'll post about the results.  In the meantime, my husband agrees-- we're definitely making rakott krumpli again!


*Ironic, considering that my children are not genetically related to me!  But I'll save that reflection for another day.