Feeling pretty Polish

I’m feeling pretty Polish today. I went shopping for Lizzie’s pre-school wyprawka / supplies. She needs more stuff for pre-school than I needed for university. Our closest supermarket, Carrefour, was out of half the stuff I needed which led me to believe that the other moms have already done their shopping. Of course, they have. It is almost November and all the other schools have already started their school year. We haven’t started yet because our school was still being built.

Lizzie’s school supply list:

• crayons
• safety scissors
• poster paint (12 colors) and paint brushes
• paper – a drawing pad, a “technical” pad, a pack of colored construction paper, 6 different colors of tissue paper, a pack of copy paper
• a box of tissues
• a glue stick and a tube of glue
• a sack for extra clothes called worek
• slippers (a must in Polish schools)
• a pillow, pillowcase and sheets and pajamas

I bought only the sack/worek and the pajamas, got fed up and came home to cook dinner.

I continued to feel pretty Polish as I talked to my neighbor and complained about the cost of the wyprawka. Complaining is kind of a Polish specialty but that doesn’t make what I was complaining about any less true.

Then I cooked dinner, one dish being smażona kapusta, fried cabbage which has completed my Polishness for today. Oh, and one more thing, we are going to watch our Bolek and Lolek DVD in a minute.

RECIPE Kapusta smażona / Fried cabbage

This is how to make smażona kapusta according to my mother-in-law, hence the lack of exact amounts. Finely chop a head of cabbage. Keep in mind that a head of cabbage in Poland is about the size of an inflatable beach ball so that is a lot. My mother-in-law suggests steaming or even boiling it a bit especially if it is not young cabbage. Fry a chopped onion and add it to the steamed/boiled cabbage (drained too). Add butter (my m-i-l adds about a cup or more, she’s not on a diet), salt, pepper, a tablespoon of good vinegar, a couple of tablespoons of sugar and some dill (optional). Sometimes she also makes it with fried bacon or sausage. Cook/fry it until the cabbage is soft and your house totally stinks ;)

Smacznego!