Three Men Making Kovbasa

rk2013 - note the sunflower plate and lovely
 furniture on the deck, the broom handle
in red to display the lovely rk homemade kovbasa

So I mentioned a while back that my husband was bound and determined to make his own Ukrainian sausages - kovbasa, for Easter.  I was very skeptical, because the idea of meat grinding, casings, random spices and tons of garlic, all combined with men drinking beer in my lovely clean kitchen, really didn't make me happy.  But then again, I can be surprised from time to time.

So he bought a smoker.  The box came into the house where he proudly picked up the instruction manual first - I was impressed.  Then he bought the meat grinder for my Kitchen Aid stand mixer.  And he read the instructions again, double impressed!  Then he found a video online and watched the expert about 3 times - again, triple impressed.  He went to the butcher and bought twelve pounds of pork shoulder which needed to be marinated overnight in salt, pepper, marjoram, garlic and other stuff.  He bought hog casings too.  Then it was time to invite the boys over - I got scared again.  But when he showed me the instruction video they were following, I almost believed again.

He insisted it was a "boys night" to make the kovbasa - you can see why I was beginning to worry.  Then he chose a night when I wasn't going to be home, and had to leave them unsupervised.  Leaving them to stuff meat through a grinder, and then into casings, but again, I can be surprised, it seems. Bob and Andrij, the boys,  arrived, drank beer, had an entertaining time.  I returned home to find the kitchen actually looked quite presentable.  And so did the kovbasa! They looked like the real thing to me!  All that remained was smoking, storing and tasting at Easter Breakfast. 

Well, Easter is over and though I had little confidence in his first kovbasa project, it was a success!  In fact, at the Easter breakfast table there were rave reviews for his home made, home smoked kovbasa.  Gotta get him to try it again!

Maybe you can try it too!  How to Make Homemade Sausage - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPQP4TC3E1w.
 

Paska, A Break-the-Fast Feast

Paska, Babka, Cheese and Butter, Ham, and Horseradish, and Kovbasa, Green Onions, and Beet-Horseradish, Eggs and Krashanky, and Pysanky!

s.l. 2013

Calgary's Orthodox Christians of Ukrainian ancestry, celebrated the miracle of Easter on May 5, 2013.  It is a most important church event.  After the ritual preparations, fasting and cleaning house, both internally and externally, bringing pussy willows to be sprinkled with Holy Water is a step towards the renewal of Easter.   The Easter Sunday Breakfast Feast is brought to church to be blessed in a basket, breads, cheese, meat, eggs, butter, salt and other items such as pysanky.  Each food item at the Breakfast Feast has layers of meaning. Enjoying this blessed meal is a way of perpetuating the family story, greeting those that came before us, and those that have yet to come, with the news that Christ has Risen.  Visiting the graves to sing the hymns of Easter reminds us that we are all facing the end of our lives. What next?  Is that all there is?  What on earth am I here for? 

d.s.2013

I remember my grandmother making a very strange statement to me on the day I was married.  She said I had written myself into the family book.  Of course I had no clue what she meant.  After all these years, I am beginning to have an idea. But it takes a while for it all to sink in!

Maybe it takes repetition, repeated traditions, uncovering layer upon layer of meaning to figure out life?  And lots of moments of personal famine, periods of fasting, waiting, anticipation before the "what next" happens.  It is a wheel, and the journey takes many turns of the wheel - the uphill push and the downhill ease. 

The egg game is always fun,
the egg that stays whole wins,
and so does the person whose egg
is so tough enough to
win the day.  amk2013

The Easter message this spring is all about pruning, trimming off the parts that don't bear fruit, and hoping the new growth will prosper.  Surviving a long life without being pruned or trimmed off the tree of life must mean that the branch has born a lot of fruit - and prospered. And Calgary's Ukrainian community is just like that, too.  The branches that produce fruitful crops continue to take sustenance from the community that has ancestral connections.  And new arrivals to Calgary who want to retain connections with their ancestral roots cluster around the Ukrainian idea.  The idea that one can continue to have a toe-hold in Ukrainian things, worldwide, and live a life of economic prosperity elsewhere is unique. We are here, we are a force for good, our hopes are one.

A lot of Ukrainian Calgarians celebrated Easter today.







. 

Pra-Baba's Woven Willow Basket

n.kryschuk

The ancient willow, it is said, grows with wet feet. To harvest the soft spring grown willow, you have to get your feet wet, and learn to bend. Then you weave.

Little Foxes Village, Лисичники is located in Beyond the Woods County, Заліщики, near the southern border of Halychyna Галичина where it meets Bukovina Буковина. The chutora (хутір farmstead) is a climb up a steep rocky hill, higher up the valley where Little Foxes begins. Steep, rolling hills climb up the river valley. The road? No more than the width of a car, it is lined with picket and willow fences - near enough to touch through a car window.

Old log homes built in the late 1800's still stand, repeatedly repaired and whitewashed over the years. Here and there the beautiful, old painted designs of rozpys розпис are hidden under the eaves and over windows.

On that beautiful May evening in 1887, Dmetro and Kateryna were so pleased to welcome their first born little girl, Anna. She would be the first of their five children who survived into adulthood. Times were hard, but Anna and Paraska, Maksym, Onufrey and John (who would be the 5th child) grew up loving the farm life.  

The villagers knew each other well, and worked together on the fields for the landlord. They worked for the 17th sheaf! That is, after stooking 17 sheaves of wheat for the landlord, he granted them permission to take one sheaf home for their growing family needs. Poverty was everywhere.

Sad news came from the neighboring village of Kashpertsi Кашперці. Yurij and his lovely wife had also had a little girl whom they called Anna. Tragically, his wife and next baby died during childbirth. Widowed and sorrowing, Yurij was blessed to have the neighborhood ladies care for his baby daughter Anna, but it was clear he needed a more permanent arrangement. Little Anna needed a mother, and poor Yurij needed a wife to take care of his child and make a home for his family.

Kateryna and Dmetro knew of Yurij's plight but they had problems of their own. Their children, Anna and younger siblings Paraska, Maksym and two year old Onufrij were soon going to be joined with another baby, and poverty was knocking at their door. Anna needed to be settled into her own home life very soon.

Barely 14, Anna married the widower Yurij. Wife and new mother to Yurij's daughter Anna, they made a family. By age 17, Yurij and Anna had a son, at 21 a daughter, and with three little children they realized the family plot wouldn't feed their growing family needs. Really, the term "farm" hardly encapsulates the size, they were small plots of land, not even acreages, about the width of a city lot and running perhaps a quarter mile in length!  Emigrating to the "free lands" of  Canada, they sold all their belonging in 1900 to pay for the steamship voyage from Hamburg to Halifax.

Not knowing what to anticipate ahead, Anna packed her hand-woven basket full of important necessities, eating utensils, seeds, a kerchief, sewing needs - all tools for the various roles she would play in the life ahead - doctor, veterinarian, tailor, carpenter, midwife and hunter. Oh, and dreams!

 
Time has not been very gentle with this basket. Anna was my pra-baba. The basket was woven in her little village before she left home. It served as her Paska Basket but at one point it was in danger of being discarded. Unable to burn the family heirloom, my dido's supple fingers strengthened the broken weave with willow. When that wouldn't serve, he lovingly wove wires through the broken places to preserve this beloved family treasure. 

On Easter Sunday the basket will cradle my family's hopes and dreams again, as it has for 113 years here on Canadian soil. Paska - the Resurrection, babka - the ancestors, kovbasa - the sacrifice of blood, cheese - the first fruits of the soil, eggs - the symbol of eternity, red beets horseradish khrin- both bitter and sweet, and the beautiful pysanky - the universe unfolding as it should. Happy Easter! Христос Воскрес!