Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Warsaw old town and good food again

Once again I am staying up WAY too late at night... must sleep or I will be an evil Mommy. Drove into Warsaw with my Mom and the kids from my sisters house. TRAFFIC from HELL! The kids were horrific. They have got to be the worst people on the planet to do road trips with.

That said we had a lovely time. Lots of lovely Polish food for lunch, latka type jobs, and guwomkis (phonetic english spelling...) commonly known as cabbage roles and borsht....heavenly borsht! LOVE borsht.

Went to the palace, that is one wildy decorated joint I must say. What impresses the hell out of me though is that by the time the Germans and the Russians were done with Warsaw only about two buildings were left standing. These people who were literally starving, desperately impoverished and totally destroyed by their losses, both in people killed and maimed and crops and, well , every damn thing.

Nontheless, the citizens of Warsaw reconstructed the old town, literally brick by brick and painting by painting, so that you would never know. They recobbled the streets, repainted the walls, they built it from scratch, living in God only knows what kind of conditions. My hat's off to this display of human courage and perseverence...The place is AMAZING. The inlay work on the wood floors alone must have taken tremendous amounts of money and work and labour and love.


We went off to the cartoon museum as well, it was rather more satyrical, more like caricature and satire. The kids are drawing like crazy, and if their adoring mother does say so herself, they are VERY good. So it was neat for them to see what can be done with pen and paper. Of course many of the comments/jokes went over the girl's heads, hell a lot of them went over mine. I am not up to speed on Polish political commentary, but it was very cool. A fair amount was rather sexual, but they coped.

Drive back, also from hell......

Dinner however. My brother-in-law is an AMAZING cook. And he is working hard to show us how beautiful Polish food can be. I am here to tell the world that it is spectacular outstanding gorge yourself till you burst because you just cannot stop eating it. It tastes so damn goooooooooooood

He made two types of, well I don't know what to call them, and I cannot remember the name in Polish. One was a pancake type job, rolled around green stuff, I think broccoli, with a sauce then cheese is melted over it. So good. The other was a thicker pancake, rolled and folded like a bliny around a mushroom stuffing which was simply to DIE for and then fried in butter till the outside was browned and crispy. Lots of butter. MMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
He also had a side of mushrooms sauted that were amazing. The Catalans and the Polish share a passion for mushrooms which I am more than happy to support.

Only sad news, the little one from the previous post was miserable all day today and appears to have come down with an ear infection. You know that hair tugging ear pulling moaning whining I am so miserable kind. Please-dope me-up-with-painkiller-baby-tylenol-so-I-can-sleep. Poor Darling.

5 comments:

Beth said...

Warsaw reconstruction story - fascinating. I studied history in university but (of course) we never got to the part about restoring the city.
I get hungry when you describe the food you're eating "over there." And then I eat some chocolate. I'm getting fat reading your blog.
And, oh, those years of ear infections...poor little guy.

Unknown said...

Ear infection! OW!

I did not know that about Warsaw, by the way. Interesting story ...

oreneta said...

Beth and DD: Unfortunately I am also getting fat over here writing the bog. Think I'll gor for a long walk today..

I didn't find out about the warsaw rebuild till i was here the first time. Why don't they tell you these parts of history that would bring it to life and make it fascinating.

The little guy is whining in the distance now, poor thing, although he seems to have slept well overnight.

Angel said...

okay, an ear infection can totally ruin the whole trip, so drug that kid up now!

That food sounds so good, and my cupboards are bare until tomorrow!! God, I love mushrooms cooked any kinda way at all. Send some to me will ya?

Nomad said...

Hot water bottle on the ear, and lots of Baby Advil...poor little guy.

I am most curios anbout the BIL, (T?) having met J...

Still have the memory of the "When-they-met-story", something about alot of sweaty muscles and a tank top...No?