Polish cuisine

Polish cuisine is very sophisticated. It requires a lot of time, patience and a good metabolism. It is also a modest cuisine that uses mainly potatoes, beets and onions, hiding its best dishes under such misleading names as Ukrainian borscht, carp po żydowsku or ruskie pierogi. And it was the example of the ruskie pierogi that prompted my grandmother to teach me to cook in Polish. So that my foreign husband could admire the culinary richness of my homeland. She sent me the prescription. Dough: flour with salt and hot water. Filling: cottage cheese, boiled potatoes and fried onions. Simple. I told my foreign husband that dinner would be on the second day. And that there would be no bratwurst or spaetzle, but real Polish-Russian dumplings. I started by boiling the potatoes. The first success encouraged me to continue. It was even worse when frying the onions. They were supposed to be golden. But I had never seen fried gold before. They came out black and brown. Difficult. Perhaps the foreign husband does not notice. The cottage cheese was gone, so I added some cheese. Since he’s never eaten Russian dumplings before, he won’t notice the difference. Finally, I started making the dough. First I burned myself on the hot water. Then it turned out that it was too much water. I had to add another kilo of flour to make it rollable. Around 5 p.m., I finally set about cutting out circles from the dough with a large glass, into which I could put a potato, cheese and a burnt onion. I laboriously glued the edges together. Around 8 p.m. I already had 10 dumplings. I threw them into a pot of water and waited for them to come out. After 30 minutes of waiting, the water looked like wallpaper paste. I was about to call my grandmother and complain when I looked up and saw that the recipe said to put the dumplings in a pot of boiling water. Through my tears, I noticed a P.S. from my grandmother that was still in the recipe: “And here is Mrs. Jadzia’s number. You can order dumplings with home delivery from her.” I picked up the phone and dialed the number resignedly.