On Friday a group of adult students invited their Polish teacher and me to an end of the year celebration dinner... Polski style.
Wow.
We went to a restaurant near Kozienice called Texas. It's a big wooden building with a fabulous covered porch where we ate in the air freshened by an afternoon thunderstorm. (There's also a kids playground which actually appears in the story a little later.) Through a backdoor near the bathrooms I saw a big woodpile -- and coming from NC I know a real wood fire means good cookin' and good eatin'.
They started by bringing out lots of water infused with lemons, strawberries and mint - both still and bubbly. And they kept this water coming all night. Though I really wanted one, I didn't order a kickass Polish beer because I'd been told I was expected to drink vodka with the guys and, though no professional, I know from experience it's better to not mix.
Two waitresses came through the door laboring to carry a wooden trencher -- 3 to 4 feet long and 1 foot wide -- piled high with dinner. We scurried out of the way and they hoisted it onto our table.
Looking at the trencher left to right, we had fresh slaw, purple cabbage, marinated carrots, and mustard and horseradish. Next was a heap of oven roasted potatoes nestled up against the largest pile of pierogi I've ever seen - big and browned. Then was the ginormous pile of pork - ribs, knuckles, and kielbasa. And finally we had pickled mushrooms, cucumber, sweet red peppers. Jeesh!
We served ourselves family style, and after taking a few bites of kielbasa I was introduced to the expectation that we would be taking shots all throughout dinner. Amateur Polski me, I had (naturally?) assumed that shots of vodka came after dinner... and that I'd take one and gracefully bow out. But nooooooooooo.
Vodka is actually slammed every 10 minutes or so throughout dinner, complete with a hearty toast of “Na zdrowie!!” and followed by a large slug of lemon water. And though I tried several times to explain the biology of how people who weigh more can handle more alcohol and therefore my relative size indicates I should have smaller shots than the men, my words fell on deaf ears... Funny how language learners have listening comprehension for the things they want to understand!
All told I had six shots over 2 hours of eating. (I like a nice mellow vodka buzz.)
The meat from the ribs and knuckles just fell off the bones, the pickles were fantastic. The pierogi - ah, the pierogi Most were "ruskie" - potatoes, onions and cheese - but I also got a mushroom and sauerkraut, and Agniezska told me I was the lucky one. I don't know if there really is a tradition of someone finding a mushroom and sauerkraut pierogi being lucky or if this was just her bottle of wine talking (and the fact that this stuffing is the hands down fave of most Polski).
At one point, while we were discussing the merits of this playground in specific and all playgrounds in general, and that I really love swinging but how an adult with no kids can't swing when people are on the playground because others assume you're a perv, I noticed that the playground was totally empty. So, I went to swing. And emboldened by the warm vodka buzz I swung really high into the night air in my dress and Italian sandals, and then jumped, like I was 10 again, gliding like a Russian gymnast in a flawless dismount. Complete with arms in the air. Score!
And my students cheered me.
Thank you again guys for such a lovely evening. Everything was perfect. I'll remember it forever!
