Mom’s Christmas Gift

By DAVID HOVAN CHECK
The cookies always came first. Mom was famous for her specialty cookies, but those simple gingerbread cut-outs were the most fun when we were kids. We’d help with the cookie cutters of all shapes and sizes, stars, Christmas trees, hearts, and, of course, gingerbread men. These cookies would keep, so they were the early birds destined for tins, four or five days before Christmas. But the best cookies had to be made closer so they’d be nice and fresh. There were snowballs and cherry bells (a special mixture of walnuts and toasty flour with a cherry on top), and the ethnic sour-dough rolls with lekvar or apricot and nuts inside called revshky. Mom learned these recipes from her Slovak mother and grandmother, and, so, too, many of our other favorite holiday dishes.
First and foremost was the stuffed-cabbage. Helping Mom roll the rice and beef mixture into the boiled cabbage leaves became a holiday ritual. Rolling some sauerkraut into an idle cabbage leaf for a snack a mischievous part of it. Layered in a big pot, stove-top, with sauerkraut, tomato soup, and either colbasse (the Slovak way of saying kielbasi) or spare ribs, Mom’s stuffed-cabbage had a flavor like no other…only her older sister, our Aunt Annie, could make it better.
Mom grew up in the Eastern Orthodox church, a Carpatho-Russian congregation at St. John’s in Perth Amboy, NJ. So her family celebrated what they called Russian Christmas on Jan. 7. Every Russian Christmas Eve we would all over to our Aunt Annie’s house for a traditional ethnic dinner. Here we were treated to the stuffed-cabbage, but most especially to the mushroom sauerkraut soup and the small baked bread rolls with either sauerkraut or poppy seed and honey called bolbalky, that Mom would reintroduce to her holiday menu later on when her granddaughters came. Bolbalky became such a favorite of her first granddaughter, Megan, that when she couldn’t pronounce it a young age she would cutefully ask Mom-Mom for “balky” instead. The mushroom sauerkraut soup was ideally made with certain dried mushrooms and a special sauerkraut juice that are hard to find anymore, especially away from the ethnic conclaves of North Jersey.
Every Christmas Eve Mom would treat us to her “famous punch” mixed in an antique crystal punch bowl that her mother brought over from Czechoslovakia, until, when I was about 12, I accidentally pulled it off the table and everyone watched in disbelief as it shattered on the floor. Yes, Mom was more than upset. A new crystal punch bowl replaced it, of course, Mom’s punch was just as good, but the heirloom bowl was part of family lore.
Christmas Eve was always just the appetizer to get ready for the big Christmas Dinner the next day. But the punch, the cookies, and other assorted goodies were plentiful.
Homemade potato salad, a huge bowl, was another of Mom’s tasty specialties, and no one could make it like her, we don’t know how she did it. And a pretty rigorous endeavor it was, with all those potatoes peeled and cut and the mixing. Somehow we came to know the special flavor strived for, and so Mom would keep mixing the big bowl and keep asking us to try heaping spoonfuls till she had it just right
Then there was what she called her “mold,” a lime and pineapple gelatin she would shape in an upside-down cake tin…it was delicious.
So the time came for the Christmas feast, and out on the dining room table came the stuffed-cabbage, the ham and colbasse, the homemade potato salad, the mold, the sauerkraut and poppy seed bolbalky, assorted vegetables, and, first, a steaming bowl of mushroom sauerkraut soup. Bowls of cookies and plates of Mom’s pumpkin and French apple pies lined the room and kitchen table waiting for dessert.
And every Christmas we loved Mom’s cooking. And every year we kind of took it for granted because it was always there. But not too much for granted, because the bolbalky and mushroom soup were once-a-year events. The stuffed-cabbage appeared more frequently, because it was so good it had to.
Then about nine years ago when Mom entered a nursing home, her cooking, her Christmas dinners and treats, weren’t there anymore. It was a hard adjustment, but at least we had Mom. Every year, at Christmastime, her daughter, Mimi, would bring Mom some delicious homemade stuffed-cabbage from her passed-down recipe, and sometimes bolbalky, too. Every Russian Christmas, Jan. 7, I would make a pot of mushroom sauerkraut soup to share with Mom. It took me years of trial and error, but I think I finally got it right.
When Mom was more alert, she always enjoyed this, of course, the chance to have some Slovak cuisine. When she lapsed into her few years of dementia, the taste and smell of these loved foods would always bring a smile to her face as she recognized the traditional dishes and ate them heartily with good cheer.
On Nov. 1 of this year Mom left us. But Christmas will always belong to the love and joy she brought us throughout the years with the Christmas feast she worked so hard to give us. And I think it’s fitting that the last hearty meal she had last year, before being put on a pureed diet, was a big bowl of her daughter’s homemade stuffed-cabbage that she ate with love, she ate with delight, and she ate every bit. Not quite as good as yours, Mom, I know, but close enough.
We’ll be having some stuffed-cabbage this Christmas, I promise.
.
Check writes from Rio Grande