Polish Obiad?

In Poland, the biggest meal of the day is lunch.

Lunch, however, comes after sniadania and drugi sniadania—which means first and second breakfast.  Yes.  It’s true.

And, of course, after a spot of tea, as well 😉

You would think that in a country where all they do is eat that they would be rolling everywhere.

But no.  They are thin.  Don’t be jealous.  I’ll host those feelings for you (smile and wink).

After their two breakfasts and tea, Obiad finally comes into play…

It looks something like this:  soup, potatoes, meat, and coleslaw.

If you’re lucky, you also get dessert—homemade cake.

No.  I have never conformed to this culture.  Except for eating it all.

When I was at the grocery store yesterday, I thought “You know—these items are quite different than the American grocery shelf—perhaps I’ll take a few photos and invite you over for lunch.”

The question is, “Do you want to come?”

Wait to see what I have to offer, and then you can let me know 🙂

First up:  my favorite pet—the bunny!

Although it doesn’t look as fluffy skinned, does it?

Next:  The bloody liver sausage!  And, yes.  I’ve eaten it.  My students served it to me after I served them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Sounds like a fair trade, eh?

Yum yum?

What’s my opinion?

It’s salty.

But this was nothing compared to that Scottish haggis I ate once.

Last on the menu today—just for you—smoked trout.  Whole.  Eyes and all.  I am sure you will love it!

How do you eat it?  Why just punch, pull, and pop it into your mouth.

What does it taste like?

In my desert rat opinion—it tastes like it looks.  But Europeans love their fish served 1001 ways, so don’t tell them it’s not my favorite.

Don’t fret.  Although their main meal of the day is in the middle of the afternoon, they still have something like a snack time around 4-5 and then kolacja (supper/dinner) later.

No, I’m not joking.

And it usually consists of either Belgian  waffles that they call gofry, crepes (nalesniki), soup, pierogi, or simply kanapki (sandwiches).

Do I cook like a Polish mom or babcia (grandma)?

This should answer your question:

“Mom, what’s for dinner tonight?”

“Dry cereal.  Eat as much as you want. Wash it down with some water.  Smacznego, my darlings!”

***

How about you?  How does the community around you eat?  

Cooking for Max

When you have a child with life-threatening allergies, you learn to live differently.

And it is not easy.

My son is deathly allergic to peanuts.  But we have found that he reacts to even the touch of other nuts.  Very unfortunately, he also reacts strongly to sunflower seeds.  Not because of an allergy.  Just, most likely, because of the factory where they are processed.

Max is deathly allergic to the smell of peanuts in the air.

On our last airplane journey with him—returning home from Norway back to Poland—we were taking an airline where they offer no service except for paid service.  In other words, a really cheap airline.

The foods that they sell include foods with peanuts.

On the way to Norway, we did not notice anyone purchasing peanuts.  The flight was very uneventful.  And, believe it or not, when you live in Poland, a flight to Norway is also very short.

So our journey to Norway on the plane was great.

Upon return, however, immediately after the customers’ purchases, Max became swollen and red and leaned over to me as if to say, “I CAN’T BREATHE, MOMMA!”

My husband looked at him.  I looked at him.  We had no idea what was taking place when my husband sniffed the air and said, “I smell it.  Peanuts.”

I grabbed Max’s life-saving bag and ran him into the restroom where I basically spent the rest of the flight giving him medicine, watching his breathing counting down the seconds on the clock to the number 20===where I read once that if you make it 20 minutes after an allergy attack, then you can start to breathe easier.  Is this true?  I don’t know.  But when you are a mother to a child that may die due to food or air—it is really nice to have something to grasp.  ANYTHING to grasp.  Hope to grasp.

Poor airline.  Poor customers.  We felt horrible.  Here they just paid for their food and had to close their purchased items and wait to eat them until after the flight.

And, of course, we were scolded.  “We need to tell them AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FLIGHT!”

“Yes.  Of course.  We understand…”

Sigh.  Hanging our heads.  Hiding our son from the general crowd and air filtration system.  Living in the airplane bathroom with shame and fear and all of it wrapped up sometimes into frustration.  Frustration that you have to constantly helicopter your child.  Especially when air or touch can send him spiraling out of control.

And yet you love your child more than you love your very life—and so you hover on.

No one ever said parenting was easy.  Oh, and I should mention that Maxwell is treated as an asthmatic.  Hence breathing problems super serious to start (he is on 3 daily meds as it is).

But that’s not all.  Oh no.

Maxwell is also allergic to milk.  Not in quite the same death-way.  But in a way that also makes it very difficult to maneuver.

He welts at the touch of milk to his skin.  His swells if ingested.  He vomits.  And he has great difficulty breathing, too.

I guess one of the only big differences is that the smell of milk does not bother him.

My coffee is so grateful for that one!

And my husband—because my husband LOVES butter!  So do I.  And freshly whipped cream.  YUM!  And my daughter loves mint-chocolate chip ice cream.

Therefore, I think we are all a bit happy that Max can be air-exposed to milk.

Peanut butter was a hard one for our family to bid farewell.  You may judge and say, “Your child is more important.”

Listen, Peeps.  We laid peanut butter to rest—but it doesn’t mean that we still don’t crave it, okay?!

But having peanut butter in our home made us all live in constant fear.  And, thus, we banned our favorite food friend from our presence.  It was not an easy thing to do.

Anyhow…Cooking for Maxwell is a daily—multiple times a day—chore.  Every food prepared or every item purchased is scrutinized.  Foods are kept separated in the refrigerator.  And we have our 2-year-old son deathly afraid of new food.

And when people offer him food, he has known forever to say, “NO!”

Kids his age don’t understand and cheerfully try and try and try to give it to him.  This eventually sends him running into my arms.  And for that, I am simultaneously sad and grateful.  Sad that he must run.  Grateful that God has given him the fortitude to understand that his very life may depend on his actions.

And, as Maxwell nears 3, we all are getting better at Cooking For Max.

In fact, today, I was a Maxwell cooking machine.

Belgian Waffles for breakfast?  Yes, please and CHECK!

Coconut milk, rice milk, orange juice, banana, apple, and frozen strawberry smoothie to compliment breakfast?  Yes, please!  And check!  (No picture—it was devoured too quickly.  Oops.)

Depression chocolate cake for snack?

  

With freshly whipped chocolate-coconut whipped cream?  Yes, please and CHECK!

Fresh sopapillas for lunch?  And fresh toppings for it (beans, corn, salsa, and more)?  Yes, please.  And check!

And dinner?  Well, something Max friendly will come about—I am just not sure what.  Yet.

How do we do it?

We found the following items to be musts in our home:

Good olive oil.

Good coconut oil.

Fresh popping corn kernels as it is a very Max-friendly snack.

Rice milk.  Coconut milk.  Oat milk.  Max does not like soy milk.

A completely 100% milk free margarine.

Good chocolate that is 100% milk free.

And a huge separation of anything that may touch something he cannot eat.

We use more plates, spoons, and bowls than a small army—as we have to keep all things separated.  He cannot touch his sister’s milk or straw.

He can’t have her chocolate—he has his own.

He MUST ask before he eats anything.

Should I remind you all that he is only 2?  Two.

“It’s a hard-enough life for us kids!” Or is it hard-knocks life?

In any case, as Annie and the gang sing it—It is a hard life.  For all of us.

But we are slowly getting into a Maxwell-friendly system in our home.  We normally have 2 different meals at every 1 meal.  One meal that all 3 kids typically eat.  And one that Rich and I eat.

Jo and Max usually get the exact same foods and probably always will.  Josephine does not even know what cows milk tastes like.

Ada is 9.  So she gets to choose what she wants.  And she even made the choice herself to give up peanut butter—her favorite food ever.

And the internet gets used a lot to help us get creative as we try and cook and feed a kid that has had to grow up a picky eater.

We like cooking.  We like creativity.  We like desserts.

We are just all learning to like it the Max way.

That way we can enjoy life together.  The way it is meant to be.

Together.  Even at the dinner table.

***

Here are where I found today’s recipes.  And if it calls for non-Max friendly items, I just substitute them with his butter or his milk.  Usually you can’t even taste the difference.

Real Sopapillas:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/real-sopapillas/

Coconut whipped cream:  http://tasty-yummies.com/2014/03/04/make-whipped-coconut-cream/

Depression-era chocolate cake:  http://www.sweetlittlebluebird.com/2013/03/tried-true-tuesday-crazy-cake-no-eggs.html

Best Belgian Waffle Recipe I have found yet:  http://www.food.com/recipe/the-bestest-belgian-waffles-63071

The Way a Toddler Prays. Don’t Hinder It. Learn from It!

My son does not start his prayers reverently with, “Dear Heavenly Father…”
Or even, “Dear Lord God…”
Not even, “Dear…”
He starts them by folding his hands in front of his body.
He hovers over his food.
He looks at his plate of food.
He looks all around him.
And then he prays.
“Mommy, Daddy, Sissy Adelyne, GoGo (our family’s affectionate name for Josephine), Nana, Papa…”
This is where he pauses and looks around,
“Apple juice, nana (for banana this time), Minnie plate, ah, (short pause and then he points his finger up in the air as if he thought of it) Ruby Max (as in the television show), fork…”  And the list goes on.

Maxwell takes his time when he prays.  He prays for those dearest to his heart first.

After that, he begins thanking God for what he loves (not people related).

Following that, he takes time to look around him and thank God for what is in his surrounding, appreciating even the fork that he uses to eat his food.

Sometimes we hold our hands forever while we wait for this little boy to finish his lengthy prayer…I may even sigh.  Or try to hurry him along.

But, and perhaps it’s because it’s the 2-yr-old age of stubbornness, he does not allow our influence to affect his prayer.  When he is done sharing with God what he is grateful for—when he is finished sharing his heart of gratitude, THEN and only then does he shout excitedly, throwing his hands into the air, “AMEN!”

And his small sister next to him, Josephine, gets a HUGE grin on her face and wildly air slaps her hands (because the coordination of clapping them together is still to be learned—she is 10 months).

Maxwell and Josephine rejoice in prayer time.

And by the end of his prayers, no matter how cold our food is getting, his heart of gratitude and devotion to express praise for it all, rubs off on us, too.  Where we may have found ourselves sighing moments earlier in hopes that his gratitude would run out, seeing his excitement and rejoicing about those he loves and the gifts of life around him rekindles sparks in our hearts that serve to remind us that our time with God, no matter the circumstances, should never be rushed.

Even at the dinner table.

30 Tons of Food Given by the Homeless to the Not Homeless. Confused much?

If you read my title you would see that it says, “30 tons of food given by the homeless to the not homeless.  Confused much?”

Let me explain. We have a beautiful center that is a transitional home for men from the streets of homelessness, men out of prison but would be on the streets of homelessness if not for our center, or men out of rehabilitation but still without a home.

It is a beautiful home. It is blue. It lies on property in a very small village and has a trickle of a creek that runs at the base of the property.

We love this center. We love this home. We love the men that come and go. And the new men that come. Then go. And then the new men that come. Then go.

Let me emphasize this again.  It is beautiful.

You see, the New Life Center is not meant to be a shelter. It is meant to be a rescue. But a rescue that teaches. It teaches the men that enter the door to become men of great pride, education, skill, talent, and worth.

And it teaches these men that although they were raised in homes of abuse. Although they spent too much of their lives in and out trouble. Although they once thought their only love was a substance that tried to take their very life…The New Life center teaches these men that they are worth far more than their pasts.

They are beautiful.  And they are worth much.

And because of these things, by the grace of God, they learn that this beauty that they behold should also be used for the sake of others.

You see, the men at the New Life Center help distribute over 30 tons of food to the surrounding village and communities every year.  That over 66,000 pounds of food a year (long ton).  These men that were formerly homeless, formerly prisoners, and formerly addicts are learning while at the center how to give and serve and help others around them in need.

They go every week and pick up food donations.  They bring these donations back to the Center.  And then they distribute the food accordingly all over the village and surrounding communities.  To the poor.  To the elderly.  To the children.

Do you want to know what is especially ironic in this situation?

When we first bought the New Life Center, the community was very upfront about how they DID NOT want us there.  They DID NOT want the center to open.  They DID NOT want any of it.

And today?

Today the very men that they battled to keep away are humbly serving them.  Their families.  Their children.  Their parents in need.

Now we have become a community of blended love.  Men from streets of homelessness and families of villagers.  Everyone working hard to survive.

Together.

There’s nothing confusing about that.

***

Check out our Facebook page and become a friend.  We would really love it if you did!

Facebook:  Bread of Life Ministries

And here’s an amazing YouTube video that will touch your hearts of these men serving tea and cakes at the local train station to break down barriers and begin conversations so neither will be afraid!

“Do Not Disterb!” Instead give Elmo a hair cut.

I saw this sign lying on the floor in my daughter’s room. Apparently, she could not find tape. It’s no wonder. My house remains an utter disaster. It’s not dirty…it’s just boxes of stuff. Stuff to keep and find a place for. Stuff to give to anyone that would like it (not junk—no one needs more junk-stuff like nice blankets or jeans that I haven’t slipped into for, um, 8 years or so). And designated stuff to pass on to other ladies having girl or boy babies.

I gotta get rid of this stuff. It resides in my hallway that is approximately 2 and 1/2 to 3 feet wide.

These boxes rule our roost right now. How I wish they could sprout legs—because I definitely feel like showing them Adelyne’s sign, “Do not disterb”! By the way, isn’t that the cutest thing. E is the appropriate sound for the word. Tricky English. Or do you hear the “ur” sound? Tricky ears!

In the meantime, besides the boxes, Maxwell has taken to smearing his poop all over his walls, mattress, bed, and stuffed animals in bed with him.

Elmo, his favorite, is electronic and really fun and educational. Well, of course he is, he is Elmo after all. And since he is all fancy, I had to give Elmo a bath with a washcloth. But there was some stubborn poop in there, so Elmo also ended up with a hair cut.

Speaking of Maxwell, we also got this awesome and bright shagadelic turquoise carpet. Yep. Total 70s love, Baby. And Maxwell. Ah, Maxwell, my 2-year-old love…Maxwell has fallen in love with our game closet. And Hi Ho Cheery-O! Let me just say, flower power to our carpet—but headache to the momma that chose it. What was I thinking? I have combed the carpet all day and still haven’t found all of the cherries. Thankfully at random times I step on something and try to keep my foot perfectly still, bending down, and start combing through 1 inch of shag to try and find that darn cherry game piece! See, this is why I have always tried to avoid trendy. I get what I deserve, I suppose. The good news is that Josephine can’t find them either. So no choking hazard in our home (for the moment).

Speaking of pooping.

Oh, you weren’t?  Well, I have two in diapers 😉

Anyhow, Josephine has started eating solid foods more and more.  This is a big deal in our home.  She eats her cream of wheat in the mornings and then has some sort of typical Polish obiad in the afternoon—she is going to turn into a posh lil’ ol’ baby.  Her choices for lunch yesterday and today:  Salmon yesterday; Veal today.  Oooh, lala, JoJo.  The rest of us were eating sandwiches.

But can I honestly say—baby salmon?!  Gag!  Stinky, stinky, stinky!  I hope she grows up smart because we are all gagging over here while she eats (smile and wink). #omegafoods

Now, back to speaking about Josephine (don’t worry, I won’t get into the fact that she’s turning into a solid pooping machine with all of this new food), instead I will tell you that people at the lake love her.  She is this big, smiling thing that just radiates joy.  And she is always waving her arms up and down and cooing at everyone.  So, I guess this means that complete strangers have the right to come and touch her?  I don’t know—I don’t seem to touch random people’s kids.  I mean, I may stop and talk to your kid with smiles, etc., but I don’t touch their faces and hands, and stuff.  Josephine never minds.  It’s mostly mommy and daddy that have the problem with it.  #welcometoadifferentculture

Speaking of random people touching your kid, there have been two incidences, count them 1-2, at the lake when random strangers have literally PICKED Maxwell up.  Let me explain.  You see, one of us will be swimming with Adelyne in the lake while the other is manning the two babies.  Which means that Max is usually getting water by the bucket for sand play and JoJo is either splashing in the water or also playing in the sand.  And when I say Josephine is playing in the sand, that means Josephine is eating the sand.  In any case, there is always one parent watching Max and Josephine.  But I guess that doesn’t count.  Because on two separate occasions, someone has literally gone out into the lake and picked Maxwell up.

“Ummm…excuse me?  Parent of Maxwell here.  You know, the kid you are randomly picking up because you fear for his safety.  Yep, pretty sure we are watching him closely.  You know, it’s this bad habit we have called parenting.  But it doesn’t mean that we have to touch him on every occasion or hold his hand while he scoops water into his bucket.” #mykidnotyours

Speaking of Adelyne (kind-of, more in reference to her at the lake), Richard and I worried so much before we left America for her return to Poland.  Adelyne had the most amazing year and a half in the States.  We were literally sick to our stomachs to take her away from her family and school and friends and return her to Poland.  Sometimes I think we as parents worry more about our kids…But she did have one day about a week into moving back to Poland where she sat on my lap and said, “I don’t know why I am crying.  I am just so sad.”

And my heart broke for her.  #iunderstandadelynemetoo

But, alas, one month in, she is very happy to be back in Poland.  My heart…and her daddy’s heart…are more settled for her.  She has her best friend, Wiki, back, and she has started both French and Polish lessons.  French lessons are with her brother.  She is so happy and even lets him call it “Max’s school”.  #threelanguages #mommyneedstostilllearnpolish

Oh, my dear friends, there is still so much more to say…But for now I will sign off and save the rest for another time.

So much fun moving back to a different culture!

Pa for now…I’ve got pickles to go and make (I’ll let you know how they turn out).

xoxo

b