Cold nights and warm bigos
It’s been snowing straight for the last four days, not a full on dump, but always a consistent dusting of flakes from the sky. It all makes us a little homesick.
We got the first serious dump of snow on 15 December. Poles, to a greater extent than Torontonians, seem to have a collective amnesia when it comes to snow and its effects on driving. Before the white stuff flies, there are declarations that one doesn’t need snow-tires because one is a careful driver. But on that December day, the amount of fish-tailing I saw from my seat on the bus was ridiculous. One of my students said that it is like this every year. Although the snow comes like clockwork, the first snowfall catches everyone by surprise.
I was shocked to find that my bus to work was incapacitated by a slight incline. After an hour of being stranded on the side of the road, someone asked the bus driver what was going on. Frighteningly enough, I understood the driver’s answer. There was one way he could take the bus: “Only down.” I got off the bus and decided to walk to the next stop. Maybe another bus would get by mine. I’d take whichever was the fittest.
Somehow, Mr. Only-down got his vehicle down the hill, past the line-up of cars that had collected behind him. Who knows how? He took a running start at the incline and met me at my new stop, just past the top. I sheepishly got on and allowed the man to drive me the rest of the way. Since that day, drivers seem to have gotten used to the snow. The constant flurries haven’t disturb my bussing activities.
Tonight, the snow is extra fluffy, a layer of sequinnned cotton-batten, if ever such a material could be made. It’s the kind that falls through air that sits at -10°C. A teacher that Martha works with hooked us up with a uniquely Polish way to beat the cold. The cheeky stereotypers can stifle their cries of “wodka,” I’m talking about another great Polish invention: bigos. Bigos is usually translated as “Hunter’s Stew” but that’s not very helpful. This dish is mostly cabbage and meat stewed for days. That’s right, this stuff is supposed to sit for days before it’s just right. The rumour is that real bigos won’t be on the menu in restaurants after EU ascension because the whole “sittin’ out for days” part doesn’t jive with EU food standards.
As unappetising as “cabbage” and “stewing for days” may sound, the end result is great. Even the travel guide books advise you to get your hands on the stuff if you can, not the stuff out of a can or in lower-end restaurants, who resort to the aforementioned canned concoction, but the honest-to-goodness, someone’s-babcia-was-chained-to-the-stove-and-cooked-this-goodness, kind of bigos.
Well, today Martha and I got our hands on some of the good stuff. Joanna, Martha’s teaching colleague and star piłkarzyki player, hooked us up. Now, we are as warm as can be.