Immigration

The New Zealand National Film Unit presents a 1949 piece about Displaced Persons.

Exchanging Portraits (Part 59)

Poland, 1960. This is one of our Polish relatives; I know nothing else about her.

A Proverb, Illustrated

Poland, November 1966. "Not my circus, not my monkey."

"A Corner of Lithuania Frozen in Time"

Photographs from the Lithuanian "panhandle."

"Moscow is stationing 'thousands of troops, including mechanized and naval infantry brigades, military aircraft, modern long-range air defense units and hundreds of armored vehicles in the territory.'"

Kaliningrad.

Babos Receptai (Part 8)

My paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, sometimes added other people's recipes to her collection. She received a recipe for "Karališkas Mazurkas" (Royal Mazurka) from a friend; that recipe became a regular feature of our family's Easter menu.

Poles commonly bake Mazurkas, but I've not seen a recipe similar to this one.

Here is our version of the recipe (Note: My Mom later wrote "5 eggs, 1/4 pound butter, 3 cups flour, 2 cups sugar" in the margin): 

Karališkas Mazurkas

8 ounces (1-3/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon) unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder*

8 ounces (1 cup, or 2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (my addition)

1/4 teaspoon almond extract (my addition)

5 eggs

3 ounces (3/4 cup) blanched, slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and adjust rack to the center position. Generously butter a 9 x 9-inch square baking pan (reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees if using a glass pan). Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour and baking powder and set aside.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter. Add the sugar very slowly, beating mixture until it is very thick and pale yellow, about 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in the vanilla extract and the almond extract. 

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. (Mixture may appear curdled at this point; that is okay.)

Using a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon, gently fold in the dry ingredients (do not overmix or the cake will be dry). Fold in the blanched, slivered almonds. 

Spread the batter in the prepared pan and bake for about 33 to 37 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.  

Cool in the pan and slice into squares. 

*A later version uses 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar, instead.

Dance-Floor Reunion

Chicago, Illinois, March 14, 2015. "Thank you parents/guardians for your cooperation."

Babos Receptai (Part 7)

Yes, Paczki season has passed. My paternal Grandmother occasionally baked them, but we called them "Pončkai" (the pronunciation is similar to the Russian "Ponchiki"). I don't remember Tatjana associating Pončkai with Fat Tuesday, but I recall it was a big deal when she made them. We rarely ate fried foods, and Tatjana considered deep frying a messy and smelly process. She therefore would not fry food in the kitchen. When Tatjana made Pončkai, she instead took the dough and the oil to the basement, where she used a primitive deep fryer, set on an old kitchen table, to cook the Pončkai.

When I was a child, I didn't like Pončkai because Tatjana filled them with cherry preserves. I hated biting into the eggy, yeast dough and feeling the sensation of cherry skin rubbing against the roof of my mouth. I wanted American-style, pastry-filled donuts.

Here is Tatjana's recipe for Pončkai:

Here is how I wrote up the recipe:

Pončkai (Grandma's tested recipe)

1-1/2 packets [fresh, cake] yeast, bloomed with 1/2 cup water

1 cup flour heated with 1 cup boiling milk, allowing to stand and mixed well

[1 tablespoon sugar]

[1 cup warm milk]

7 egg yolks beaten with 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar

[about 2 pounds flour]

1/3 to 1/2 pound [unsalted] butter, melted

4 egg whites, beaten until stiff 

[lard and Crisco, for frying]

Note in side margin: Some people in Lithuania add 1/4 cup sour cream.

Add the bloomed yeast to the heated milk mixture with 1 tablespoon sugar. Mix well; then add 1 cup warm milk and mix again, after that add the egg yolk/sugar mixture and [ ... ] some flour, then the warm butter and again flour, then the beaten egg whites, and again more flour. 

Note in side margin: add 1/2 teaspoon salt (definitely).

Add 1/3 stick of real vanilla (finely chopped). In all, mix in about 2 pounds flour (1 small package), it's possible to add 1 cup more.

It's good to fry these in a mixture of half fat (lard) and half "Crisco."

A Closer Look (Part 16)

Mariampolis, Lithuania, December 24, 1936. My Mom cherishes her Christmas gift. The doll may be wearing Polish folkdress; Mom's maternal Grandmother, Zigmunta, was Polish.

Here's the original post for this photo.

"If I wanted, in two days I could have Russian troops not only in Kiev, but also in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw and Bucharest[.]"

Said Putin.

Politicians should avoid photo ops on tanks.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė took a ride on a tank today during NATO exercises. The tank was part of a "demonstration that involved approximately 2,000 Soldiers from Denmark, Poland, Lithuania and the U.S. in a dynamic display that demonstrated allies working together in a cohesive operating environment."

What's the story here?*  Grybauskaitė erroneously called the "Leopard" tank a "Tiger."

*No, she does not "look, in the tank, wearing the helmet, like Rocky the Flying Squirrel."

Another Protest

Chicago Loop, December 1970. Here's one of the last images I have of the Simas Kudirka protest.

A march against Russian aggression will take place this Sunday, April 27, 2014, in Chicago.

"Putin’s shameless swaggering fits the eighteenth and twentieth centuries far better than it does the nineteenth."

An historical perspective.

Diplomatic Maneuvers

Russia imposes trade sanctions on Lithuania, and White House announces Vice President Biden will visit Lithuania and Poland next week.

Maneuvers

"Russian army holds exercises on Polish and Lithuanian borders."

"Lithuania Loves Poland"

A new PR campaign.

The Life Box (Part 2)

I wrote here about the Wonders of the Animal Kingdom album into which I pasted the stamps my Parents had collected for me at the Jewel Food Store. I learned recently that grocery chains throughout North America participated in the promotion.

*     *     *     *     *

Verona, Wisconsin, May 2013. My album is in fair shape; it rests in the bottom of the life box. Although we finished assembling the album by the time I was three years old, I enjoyed looking at it for many years. The artwork was brilliant to a child's eye, and I often used the album as a reference after Dad and I returned from our Sunday visits to the zoo.

Tongue tied.

"Vice-Minister of Culture reprimanded for rushing with promises of bilingual street signs."

It's another wrinkle in Lithuanian-Polish relations—particularly, the Vilnius issue.

Love your neighbor.

An historical study of Lithuanian-Polish relations.

See also here and here.

Nineteenth-Century Sex Workers in Vilnius

"In order to avoid going bankrupt, brothel mistresses organized into a proto-union and made demands to the Governor that brothels be allowed to [settle] in a permanent location and they would not have to move every one to three years."

Vilnius generally was a cosmopolitan and progressive city.