Nature Nurture Making Pirogis

Nature Nurture Making Pirogis

Nature/Nurture?
Who knows...
I know I love baking
I know my first attempts at creating food
always yielded failure when protein and a stove were involved
but when an oven and flour came into play?
I seemed to have some sort of magic touch
okay, that's an exaggeration
I created things that were edible, on the first try
and it was such a different experience, it felt like I had a magic touch

So, when I explained to my Grandmother that I could bake but I could not cook
she told me it was genetic
within my DNA there was a baking gene but not a cooking gene
My Great Grandmother supported the family during lean times
through making pies and cakes for Howard Johnson restaurants
which makes me smile to know
to imagine someone sitting down on a teal and stainless bar stool
round, backless and mounted into the ground,
ordering a cup of coffee and a slice of pie
knowing that pie, the "what flavor you got today, Joyce?"
was my Great Grandmother's, from her home oven?
Her baking skills brought people in daily
but she couldn't cook herself out of a paper bag?
Yes, this baking thing, there must be a gene. Because as a 20-21 year-old
while I was trying not to burn down my kitchen making spaghetti from a jar and box
I could make the most amazing sugar cookies and the most delightful icing
as if I'd been doing it all my life

I've become a better cook
and I'm learning to enjoy it more
but, Chris is for certain, the better cook out of the two
I am pretty good with a slow cooker
I can cook a bird in the oven
and I can make sauce and soups from scratch
but if you are at my house and a really good meal is served
it is likely Chris made it

But, I'm not sure if this is the result of my mythical baking gene
or if it has to do with some of my memories around food
the ones that are trapped so deep, you don't even know that they're there for certain?
I never tried a pirogi until I was in my 20's. You know the frozen boxes from the grocery store?
at least that's what I always thought
something about Chris, triggered a memory
I was five, I remember my Mother telling me my babysitter was polish
really from Poland
I remember my favorite days were when she made these things out of dough
she always let me help and it was really, really fun. We didn't bake from scratch at my house. My Mom worked full time and ran 3 children to multiple activities and appointments. I'm surprised, knowing what I know now, she didn't feed us fast food every day of the week.
Once they were cooked, they were so yummy and unlike anything I'd ever tried before
Well Chris is also polish
and I kept wondering if I could figure out what I made with her and make them for him
because I think the reason my Mother told me she was polish is because I wanted to make them at home too
but my Mom didn't know how because my Mom is not polish
it was a polish recipe
and it hit me...maybe we were making pirogi's, from scratch, from my babysitter's family recipe book?
it certainly never reminded me of the frozen things from the grocery store
but, frozen pizza is probably nothing like real Italian pizza either
so, Chris and I found a recipe and gave it a try
and yes, as a little tiny thing, just five years old
my favorite activity was baking pirogis with my babysitter
hands down. I loved it. I got to help! Flour was a messy, messy thing but nobody worried about the mess
and they tasted really good. Something I made was good. Really good. Unlike my sad but valiant attempts to create the art, pottery, and pot holders from the activity kits of my older siblings, I was actually good at it. It was, uniquely mine.
I also carry, somewhere locked away, the happy memory of something baking in the oven
at my Grandmother's house
and I wonder if the appeal of getting messy, the happy outcome, and the positive recollection from deep within my mind of the smell of things baking
led me to become a baker but not a cook?



Who knows? The nature/nurture debate continues. But, if you asked my Grandmother she'd tell you all women in my family are encoded with special DNA. The kind that can burn down a kitchen with a Lean Cuisine but can somehow, without effort, create the most delicate cream puffs, completely from scratch.

The other interesting thing around my baking gene...the same family from which I inherited said gene is also full of poets. Poets and writers I never met or never knew, until the advent of social media. I have a great aunt who published books of poetry and was a professor. Her daughter is a hobby author like me. I have a writer cousin in Mexico, and right in the very same, very small town, another cousin who enjoys doing poetry slams. Genetic? Or learned?