Upcoming topics!

Got home internet back.  Soon-to-come ramblings/musings will include:

The radiator in the living room and back bedroom
The electric space heaters in the bathroom
Old Spice
Hot water heater
etc.  : )

Being Polish in Texas back when

Insert "If I understand correctly" caveat here.  Polish was the first language for both Grandma (b. 1910) and Grandad (b. 1904), descendants of Polish settlers who arrived at Galveston first in 1854 and in a few boats afterwards.  Grandad grew up near Panna Maria in South Texas and may not have learned English until he was about 10 in school.  Grandma's dad and uncle had come north to the Panhandle to seek more land (and I guess convinced her mother to come), and she was born in Rhineland.  I know her parents lived at least a short time in a dug-out when they were first up north.  Yes - underground!  Perhaps part of her babyhood was spent there.  At any rate, German farmers had arrived first in both South, Central, and Northern Texas, so they had a better lay of the land and spoke better English.  They made fun of the Polish (and Catholic) kids, so the Poles pretty much were friends with other Poles.  Grandma had hardly any accent and better English than Grandad, who said "teet" instead of teeth, etc.  He had good Spanish, though!  I wonder if that was his second language, due to the fellow Mexican Catholics and farmers in South Texas, who were nicer to them than the Germans. Ahem.

"German woman's noodles!"

Am I making Grandma sound grumpy?  She wasn't! She was very loving. She made me feel so cherished.  (Thanks, Grandma!)  But one time, she rolled out, floured, and cut the noodles below, on her enormous thick white cotton? noodle-making cloth, on the huge, dark wooden scroll-footed dining room table.  Guess they didn't turn out well, and she exclaimed out loud that's how they looked. (more in next post)

MOTHER'S HOMEMADE POLISH NOODLES (KLUSKI)

from COOKS.COM

---

3 c. flour
3 eggs
2 to 3 tbsp. water
1 tsp. salt

Sift flour onto a board. Make a well in center. Place eggs, water, and salt in well. Work ingredients into a dough and knead until smooth, about 1 minute. Divide into 2 parts. Roll on floured board until very thin. Let dry about an hour.

Golabki ("golumpki") - cabbage rolls

Mixture of cooked rice, fried ground beef, bell peppers, and onions, and Grandma maybe used cumin, too, rolled into a ball a little smaller than a hard baseball and surrounded tightly by one to two boiled cabbage leaves (hard stem edges cut off).  Place leftover/unused cabbage leaves in oiled baking pan, place golabki on them, then cover golabki only with favorite tomato sauce.  Bake at maybe 350 for 30-40 minutes.  Haven't made these in maybe 20 years, but realizing I loved Grandma's, and my daughter Angie could eat this.  Wikipedia has "golabki," and one recipe says pour beef broth instead of tomato sauce.  I personally liked how the tomato sauce thickened on the rolls.  Maybe use both?

Smizhweh sinnec, johah, mawupa (all spelled wrong), and pillow

Ornery boy, girl, and monkey, respectively.  Jerry and I got called these (by Grandma and Grandad) occasionally.  Couldn't tell you anything else they said to/at each other in Polish, so we couldn't understand.  <smile>  It was, as all know, their first language.  Grandma, once, standing at her kitchen stove stirring, responded to something he said in a grumpy voice, "I'm gonna put a pillow over your face and tell God you died!" to which Grandad chortled and then came up behind her and hugged her waist, hee-hee-heeing in her ear, whereupon she elbowed him away.

The pig barn

Grayed 1940's wood.  One large round stone step at its side entrance, a person-sized small wooden door with dark green roofing-type material affixed to it (or maybe that green siding was only on the shop - hmmm).  The handles were a six-inch-ish long piece of wood, maybe a few inches across and thick, hammered onto the door itself, but with space so you could rotate/use as a latch.  And maybe baling wire strung in and out of holes in the door and the wall next to it, then twisted and untwisted to open.  It opened into a dark warehouse of sorts with a very low slanted roof, where you stepped onto a narrow cement floor, with on your left, a waist-height loose grain bin, a couple of feet long, built up against the wall, and at your right elbow, the waist-high top rail of a pig pen.  There were maybe four inside/outside pig pens, one after the other as you walked in, your walk area widening to maybe ten feet after passing the grain bin, with usually a huge mother/sow inside her 8' x 8' square space, maybe nursing her babies, and there was a low pig-used opening on the south side of each indoor pen leading out into another square fenced-in area set aside for that pen.  Grandad had as many as four nursing sows at a time with their offspring, and he always admonished, "Quiet - I don't want you to make noise and scare them and make them crush the babies."

Hollyhocks and snapdragons

Up against the east and south sides of the house, within the circle sidewalk, and under the south living room picture window and again under the south window looking out from the laundry room - that's where Grandma grew her flowers.  Tall hollyhocks, lilies, irises, gladiolas, short snapdragons that I would torture by squeezing repeatedly to watch them open their "mouths," morning glories, and four o'clocks that yes, I was nerdy enough to time to see if they knew it was late afternoon.  I heard tell Grandma's flowers were sometimes used to decorate the altars for Mass at St. Anthony's.