Sundays || Swedish Pancakes

Let’s get one thing out of the way first: Is there anything cuter than a toddler in long johns? Where we’ve been for the last week or so—in upstate New York and then in my hometown, Rockford, IL, it’s snowed for days on end, so Greta has practically lived in hers (you can buy these cute polka dot numbers here). As useful as long johns are under snow pants, paired with an apron, they also make a great post-snow-romp pancake-making uniform. 

These days in our house, there's only one kind of pancake: Swedish pancakes. In Rockford, where every third person is a Johnson, Swanson or Larson, Swedish pancakes are near-obligatory weekend fare. We ate them every Sunday after church for as long as I can remember, tucked into a booth at Stockholm Inn where my dad would make the rounds from table to table, visiting all his patients (mostly Johnsons, Swansons and Larsson) while we waited for our short stacks served with ligonberries, hash browns and a side of poached eggs. 

Back in New York, where we are today, there is no Stockholm Inn. Since András Swedish pancake devotion treads on dissidence (after all, Hungarians have their own beloved palicsinta), Greta and I rely on the recipe Paul Norman contributed to my third-grade-class cookbook many moons ago (thank you Paul, wherever you are). A slightly tweaked version appeared in my new cookbook, Feast, and has inspired our post snow-romp, pre-church Swedish pancake fever three weeks running. We can’t stop. 

Expect more reasons to don long johns and aprons yourself later this week (hint: almond croissants), but for now, happy Sunday.  

SWEDISH PANCAKES  | SERVES 4

2 cups/480 ml milk

3 eggs

5 tablespoons/75 ml melted butter, plus for cooking

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Pinch fine sea salt

1 cup/125 g sifted all purpose flour

Combine milk, eggs, melted butter, vanilla and salt in a blender and pulse until smooth. Add the flour, a little at a time and blend to a smooth batter, about the consistency of heavy cream.

Preheat a crepe pan or a flat griddle pan over medium heat. (When the water dropped onto the griddle sizzles, it is ready). Brush the griddle lightly with butter.

Pour the batter into thin pancakes, twirling a crepe pan to coat with a thin layer of batter (or, if you’re using a griddle pan, use an offset spatula to quickly smooth into a thin, even layer). Cook until the batter turns dull and slightly brown on one side, about 3 minutes. Use a fork or the offset spatula to roll each pancake into a cylinder and transfer to the plate to hold. (if you prefer, let the rolled pancakes sit on the griddle to brown slightly on both sides before removing to a plate). Serve warm with butter and maple syrup, or lingonberry jam.

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM Feast: Generous Vegetarian Meals for Any Eater and Every Appetite 

COOK’S NOTE:

Swedish pancakes can be round, if you have a non-stick or cast-iron crepe pan with a thin lip, or square, if you’re using a flat grill pan. What’s important is to use a well-seasoned, non stick pan since these tear easily (unlike French crepes, which can often be flipped without tearing).

Twelve Grapes {Nochevieja}

hunter, new york

In Spain, revelers bring in the New Year by stuffing 12 grapes into their mouth, one for each of the 12 chimes that sound at midnight from the bell in the town square as the next year begins. It’s folklore that either started as a way to boost grape sales in the bountiful harvest year of 1909, or a way to mock the nobles who consumed their grapes as cava. The gut-laughter it induces is followed by chubby cheeked kisses, bidding the previous year adios. The custom is topped only by the feasts of fish and seafood, capon or lamb for which a Spanish family will spare no expense to mark the year’s end.

In the village of Hunter, New York, two Spaniards, two Americans, one Hungarian and a baby {half Spanish, half American} brought in the New Year with 12 grapes, bad champagne and Martinelli’s sparkling cider around a roaring fireplace at the local inn. Our feast was a mix of Turrón blando {Spanish almond candy} and home-cured pork lomo, courtesy of the Spaniards’ abuela {grandmother}, and Peanut Butter Pandemonium ice cream picked up at the Stewart’s where we made a pit stop on our way into town.

In Spain, families dress to the nines in their own home, sparing no detail of their lavish celebration. At the Hunter Inn, where we hosted our fiesta after a roll in the snow and dunk in the hot tub, attire was pj’s and pearls, inspired by the last minute whimsy of one American who never travels without cocktail jewels and faux furs.

One day, I would love to spend New Year’s in Spain. Until I do, I want to spend every New Years from here to eternity in pearls and pajamas, drinking Martinelli’s cider, stuffing my face with grapes and getting ridiculous with friends whose love knows no pretense.

By the way, that is the baby, Lola, who only looks like her cheeks are stuffed with grapes. She was asleep for the grape stuffing, pjs and pearls, but I'm pretty sure she's cuter than the rest of us. Plus, András says my pj pictures are too skimpy to post here.

Guilt, Glee and Christmas Trees

I am one of those rare New Yorkers that absolutely loves going home for the Holidays. Although my siblings might disagree, the minute I get home, I loose all contact with my picky preferences and accept our holiday habits, meals, and mayhem as a temporary version of bliss.

For about a week, I revert to a pre-1999-state, when I left the Midwest for city slicker life, slip into bulky old sweaters and sit at my spot at the family table to eat whatever meal is placed before me. I forget that I once said the best meal I ever ate was linguine with caviar and sea urchin at Le Bernadin, and suddenly it’s Mom’s mashed potatoes, Mom’s turkey noodle soup, Mom’s shrimp cocktail and prime rib dinner on Christmas Eve.

Today, when I got back to the city, I listened as my friends and colleagues reported back about their visits to in-laws in the Midwest. There were storied back-of-the-soup-can green been casseroles, jiggly Jell-O molds with Cool Whip, sickly sweet sweet potatoes, blue-cheese balls with holiday cracker medleys – all the things we love to hate about our humble culinary beginnings. We all had a good laugh at these institutions of American culture, but I felt secretly grateful that my family had somehow escaped them. Sure, I had experienced all of these fine foods at some point in my upbringing, but rarely at home, and certainly not at the holiday table.

I hate to brag, but my mom makes a mighty fine Christmas meal. It’s not to say our family is above condensed canned soup casseroles. We had them on occasion. But our holiday table has always had some version of a fresh vegetable {this year, asparagus}, a wonderfully roast meat {turkey, plumped with plenty of real butter}, smashed sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry relish, Waldorf salad, pecan pie from scratch with real whipped cream…

I was having this thought, feeling rather proud of my mom, when it occurred to me that Waldorf salad has both mini marshmallows and mayonnaise. Just then the conversation turned to miniature Christmas villages, Christmas plates, tiny tree earrings, and {aghast!} Christmas salt-and-pepper shakers. My mind flashed to a mental snapshot I’d taken of our Christmas Eve table, complete with Christmas imprinted s & p shakers, and I felt both guilt and glee.

Although I may never have a set of Christmas dishes of my own, I have to admit I love, no adore, eating off of them exclusively from the minute we arrive home until the day we head back east. They speak to me of a time and place where the world revolves around the changing of seasons and holiday flourish, instead of stock prices. Like appliquéd Christmas sweaters, faded felt stockings and cream-of-mushroom casseroles, they serve as humility touchstones that insure that I shall never be too cool for a cup of Christmas cheer.

Christmas Merrymaking

u.e.s., new york

On Tuesday of last week, I got this invitation in the mail from The Brothers Clark.

The Brothers Clark, who are these fine gentlemen, I wondered?

From the tone of their invite, I imaged a set something like the Mast Brothers, strikingly stylish and certainly suave entertainers. I set my calendar with the inscribed details: a Recession Reception in their finely appointed Upper East Side Apartment; attire of the black tie variety, "though we highly encourage you to explore your own variation of this theme, pocket watches, monocles, power ties, Park Avenue gold digger get ups and anything that says I couldn't care less about my neighbor's foreclosure."

And then it came to me, these are the devilish brothers, Frankie and Johnny, youngest of a brood of Clarks that began with my friend Katie, and worked its way through the Irish name book {Mary Katherine, Kelly Frances, and so on} until all six were birthed and baptised accordingly.

In past years, the Clarks have gathered in a wing of the Waldorf Astoria with Grandfather Clark {aka, Big Al} presiding over the bar, and opened their doors for friends one and all to join their festivities. After a few holiday cocktails, we would ensemble on foot to one of the city's fine steak houses and animate three or four table with raucous Irish cheer. On one such occasion, I found myself at the infamous Sparks, and as I followed my hosts through a doorway made narrow by rows of Paddys, I heard a priest call out every Clark by name, blessing us each in the sign of the cross as we crossed his path.

The Brothers Clark Recession Reception, in their post-collegiately appointed east midtown apartment, was a different variety of family fun {no 22-ounce steaks, creamed spinach or mashed poetaytoes, as ordered by the family patriarch; no blessings from the family priest} marking our time and age as our own. But as any clever hosts knows, when one is serving merriment with whit and charm, one needn't pomp and circumstance.

Slàinte!

Date Night: O Tannenbaum

In northern Illinois, where I grew up, parents pack their kids in the car on early winter weekends and trek to the countryside to ride horse-drawn carriages and cut down a tree. It’s a chance for fathers to show off their skills with a saw, for brothers to play like manly lumberjacks and for big sisters to assert their urge to rule the roost by insisting the tree they picked has the best posture and most prominent peak on which to adorn with the family star. It’s a tradition so beloved that my childhood friends got married at the Williams Tree Farm where our family tree came from for at least two decades.

In Hungary baby Jesus {and patient mothers} brings the tree, all lit up, on December 24, while the children are out at the afternoon matinees with their Papas. It’s a subtle reminder that all good things come from above, not from a bearded man with a big round belly. {Sweet St. Mikulás [St. Nicholas] comes on December 6 with his evil companion Krampusz, to bring goodies to the good girls and boys, and viragács [a bundle of twigs] to the naughty ones}

In New York City, we buy our trees on the corner at pop-up tree farms created by French-Canadians who gladly spend weeks in the big city in exchange for the hefty prices we pay for their silver pines. It’s an admittedly less established tradition, but like everything in New York, it comes with its own set of magic and joy.

Our magic and joy came in a package only three-feet tall, but filled our tiny home with an embracing luminance that gave me the instinct to set a pretty table, etch our initials into tiny tree stumps and make a meal for two, starting a tradition all our own.

Our menu:

~

Pickled Turnips

Swiss and Avocado Omelets with Pea Shoots

Pomegranite and Meyer Lemon Spritzers

Hand-wrapped Chocolates

~

Now, if we only had something to put under the tree….

{Relish}

l.i.c, new york

I have always wanted to do a Friendsgiving {a grown up gathering of friends on Thanksgiving, a la Ross, Rachael, Monica and gang}, but going home has too many pleasures to resist. Mom makes an incredible meal; we all pile on the couch and watch movies and dress up in our old prom dresses {seriously}; and Dad keeps the piano playing, the jokes going, and has us all feeling like we’re twelve again.

Staying in town for Thanksgiving, on the other hand, seems like the last right of passage in a long line of grown-up things I’ve been resisting for years. The first year András and I stayed here for Thanksgiving, I cried. Last year, barely a newlyweds, we hosted our own cozy Thanksgiving. This year, we decided to go for it, and gather a hodgepodge of people we love in one place, potluck- style.

It all feels very grown up, and I’m positively excited, particularly since our dear friend Kirsten, who is kind and crazy enough to host the 14 orphans who couldn’t make it home this year, told us that at this Friendsgiving, there will be paper crowns for all guests. Excellent! I feel quite at home amongst royalty.

But, I have to admit, when I talked to my baby brother last night, I got a little sad, particularly when he mentioned the cranberry relish. At home, thanksgiving starts with the relish. Actually it starts with Turkey, but we were never up early enough to see Mom pull out its parts, stuff it silly and put it in the oven. By the time we were up, the house already smelled of pie and melted butter, and Dad had the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade cranked up loudly on the Tele. Occasionally there’d be breakfast, and sometimes, during a chubby phase {usually mine}, Dad would take us kids on a bike ride or to the YMCA to play basketball and “burn some energy.”

One thing was always the same. Baby brother, whom on all other days was completely uninterested in the happenings of the kitchen, would put on his little blue apron, monogrammed with “Timmy,” and pull up a stool to the counter along side Grandma Pollock and her meat grinder. There he’d help her push raw cranberries, chopped apples and oranges with their skin on through the machine into a mess of ruby goodness in a bowl on the other side. They’d stir in some sugar to soften the bite, and watch as the colors melted together. The relish then took its proud place in Mom’s finest crystal bowl in the center of our holiday table.

In many families, cranberry relish, though very much present at the Thanksgiving meal, is mostly relegated to the periphery. For them, it is, to use my friend Klara’s phrase, the unremarkable extra in an otherwise exciting show. Perhaps their relish came from a can, and slid out in a solid mass with a thunk to be cut into ribbed rings. Or maybe their relish was cooked to a sticky sweet goo, bereft of its bracing vigor.

At our house, the relish is raw, and the relish is king. And rightly so. Let’s consider its meaning. First, there is the noun.

1rel·ish 1: characteristic flavor; especially : pleasing or zestful flavor
 4 a : something adding a zestful flavor; especially : a condiment (as of pickles or green tomatoes) eaten with other food to add flavor.

And then, the verb.

1 TO rel·ish. 
3: to eat or drink with pleasure
4: to appreciate with taste and discernment

A raw cranberry relish is befitting of every definition, and a perfect compliment to the buttery madness of the rest of the meal. It is its raw state, and the act of grinding it, releasing the apple, cranberry and orange juices all at once, that makes it so perfect a condiment. But having lived apart from my grandmother’s meat grinder for several years now {except the year my mother mailed it to me to, bless her heart}, I’ve learned to make Grandma’s relish the cheater’s way, chopped up in a food processor, which has turned relish making into a simple and almost weekly habit from the day organic cranberries first arrive in our CSA until well after the New Year.

Should you have the taste and discernment for raw relish, you may find yourself loving it just as much with a fine cheese, served over rich Greek yogurt, or spread on sandwiches as you do at the center of your table. And, should you ever be just a touch lonely for the flavors and family it is meant to be shared with, you may, like me, find yourself grinding up a batch a day early and dipping in directly with a spoon, which is sure to return your spirits to their zestful state.

footnote: Timmy and András would like you all to know that they do not partake in the dress-up portion of this holiday.

Homesick Cider Donuts

chelsea, ny

There are two things in life that can assuredly make me homesick— trick-or-treaters and cider donuts. Both remind me of cozy fall days at home, where Halloween was the scariest thing I could imagine and the only tough decision was whether to have one donut or two, hot from the press on an afternoon visit to Edwards Apple Orchard. Edwards is a special place, run by folks that have become family friends, who load up families on their wagons and ride them into their orchard year after year to pick barrels of Macintosh, golden delicious and jonagolds, an apple that’s hard to find out East. It is there that I said one of my first sentences {“look daddy, I found one!” of an apple plucked from a ground littered with them}, there that Dad taught my three siblings and me to jump off the wagon when no one was watching and how to discreetly climb back on before we got caught. It’s there that we learned the smash-the-apple-core-under-the-wagon-wheel trick, how to navigate hay barrels and that a thick slice of sharp Wisconsin cheddar melted on the crust of a home-made apple pie makes it even more irresistible {try my recipe inspired by theirs, here}.

As a girl, I dreamed of my wedding in between the sturdy rows of apple trees far out in Edwards' fields, and when a tornado struck the year András proposed, I cried. But trees were replanted and barns rebuilt and those donuts are still made hot and fresh all day long. They remain one of the things in life that is always as good as I remember.

Right now, there are dozens of darling trick-or-treating tots in the Chelsea Market below the kitchen at work dressed as everything from Frida Kahlo {complete with unibrow} to Frankenstein. They make me miss home, and the little darlings in my own life, Indian Princes Kate, aka Sacagawea, Sir Benjamin Goddard, my knight in a shining costume and Baby Gracie, with her footed PJ’s and freckles painted on with eyeliner and love . The only thing I could think of to ease my suffering just a little was a stack of cider donuts from the Migliorelli Farm stand at the Union Square Farmer’s Market. They were delicious, but not quite the same as a donut straight from hot oil, a donut so fresh it perfumes the air with the scent of cider and melts into the memories of a family day at the orchard.

It’s times like these that I’m grateful for good friends that fill my life with new memories, and for those who happen to be good at conjuring old ones, like my buddy Bob at Food Network, whose recipe for apple cider donuts hits dangerously close to home. For today, my only tough decision is one donut, or two.

Happy Halloween!

P.S. If you make Bob’s donuts, and I highly recommend that you do, be sure to chill the batter for at least 2 hours, or even better, overnight to make the batter easier to work with. Or transfer the batter to a piping bag fitted with a metal tip as I did, and pipe it carefully into rings on the surface of the hot oil.

The Odyssey {and a Jar of Jam}

veszprem, hungary

I arrived Saturday in Hungary on a 48-hour solo mission to collect my residency papers, a process András and I started on our last visit back in July. It was my first trip to my husband’s homeland alone, two and a half days poised purely for a 1 hour Monday  meeting on which my future citizenship resides.

My trip began at András’ parents house, where I am greeted by his mother's traditional welcome meal, and a backyard brimming with the fruits that were only promises back in July—füge {fig}, alma {apple}, dios {walnuts}, birsalma {quince}. My head spins with possibility. There are purple grapes to turn into pies,  figs to jam, quince to preserve and elderberries to make into deep, black syrups.

But that’s not why I’m here. So, I rest and let Anya, his mother, spoil me in the love language we both speak— thick kokoa {cocoa} and fresh kenyer {bread} and warm palicinta {crepes} smothered a summer’s work of preserved apricot and plums. Anya’s jam, or lekvar, tastes more like fresh fruit than anything we get back home, the luscious whole pieces of fruit just sweet enough to melt on the tongue and remind me why András can make a whole meal of nothing else.

In two short days, we plant cherry trees and visit my favorite winery in Csopask and eat ice cream on Lake Balaton. And every few hours we return to the kitchen where I dip back into her jars, spooning decadent portions of preserves over her homemade bread and the kefir she has curing on top of the fridge. With each bite I regret first that András is not here with me, and second, that I can’t eat enough for us both. I regret most that I can’t possibly bring back enough flavors from home to take the place of actually being here. But I can try. I clasp my hands in front of me and say his name, a gesture Anya rewards with two giant jars of jam, wrapped tightly in paper for travel home.

Monday arrives too quickly, and Anya wakes me at 6 AM for reggeli {breakfast}, a cup full of her kefir with apricot lekvar and a bowl of peeled kurta {pears} from Porva. I pack, tucking my treasured lekvar into my little bag, and head to the office of immigration with Apa, András dad. I’m greeted by a friend of András who works there; she triple warns me what to and what not to say. If I am asked why I didn’t come sooner, I am not to say it’s because I live in America. I am to say I was on holiday. I’m not so say why András wasn’t there with me. I am to say he's off playing sport on the other side of the country. I’m not to say I’m leaving on a plane bound for New York within the day. I am to say the address of our little house in Porva, which I know, but practice saying in Hungarian over and over again in my head as the gravitas of my accuracy sinks in.

At the desk, alone, I’m greeted by curt words I don’t understand. “Angol?” I ask. Another agent steps in, half smiles and offers me broken English and a thick file with documents all baring my name or András’; banking slips, our marriage license, proof of property ownership. I recognize all of these from our first meeting here. She asks me to write and sign several declarations, and then, after much breath holding, she produces a passport-sized document with the Hungarian emblem and a photo of me in coiled buns taken back in June, looking decidedly Hungarian. She presses it into in the back of my passport and marks it with a final authoritative stamp, granting me resident status until 2014.

I beam. “Szep,” I say. Beautiful. She smiles. 


I meet Apa in the waiting room and convince him to help me celebrate with a quick trip through the piac {market} to get my last fill of local favorites. I fill up on barack {Peaches}, muskotaj {muscadet} grapes and rétes {strudel}. We polish them off during the two-hour journey to the Budapest airport where he drops me with a hug and a smile that matches the one that will greet me on the other side. I promise to give András their hugs, and feed him well.

Inside, I proudly display my resident’s sticker to the passport control, who flips past to the front page where a blonde and blue-eyed American girl smiles back at him. I ignore his disinterest in my pending countrymanship. I’m buoyant, thinking only of returning home to share my good news with András. I slide my bag through the security belt and glide through the metal detector.

“Open your bag, please,” an examiner asks. He hands me my bag.

I confess immediately. “I have lekvar.” 

“Do you know the rules about liquids?” he asks. “No liquids.”

“Yes, I know the rules. Lekvar is fruit and sugar, it’s not liquid.”

“No liquids.”

I proceed to explain that this is the only bit of home I can bring back to my husband, that it’s harmless, that it’s impossible for me to hurt anyone on the airplane with lekvar. Bombs have never been created from lekvar. He is unmoved. I begin to doubt the authenticity of his Hungarian accent. Certainly a Hungarian would know that I could not, would not, throw one’s mother’s jam away. I consider asking him to see his residency card, but instead I ask to see his supervisor. I tell my story again. I cannot throw it away. I will not throw it away. And besides, it’s not liquid, it’s lekvar.

“No liquids, no lotions, no lekvar.”

“Show me where it says no lekvar!” I demand. I recognize the desperation in my voice, and the fact that I’m treading on thin ground with a man who could make sure neither my lekvar nor me return to New York, but I’m unable to stop myself. He pulls the sign, points to lotion.

“But this is jam. It’s fruit and sugar. Fruit and sugar.” I repeat. My voice cracks.

“I’m sorry.”

Tears flood from my eyes as I lay the two jars of jam on the top of the pile of discarded water bottles and lotions, and pass out of security toward the gates.

On the other side, I stop, dropping my bags with my resolve, and cry. When I wipe my eyes, I see my gate directly in front of me with a flashing sign “oversold,” and in my hand a boarding pass that reads seat 35 E, the last row of the plane. It was more than I could bear.

I found a pair of soft eyes at the gate, and my tears come again. I’m not feeling well, I explain, asking to be moved up to bulkhead.

“Are you well enough to fly?” He asks.

“Yes. It’s just, I’m upset. They gave me a hard time at security.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. What did they do?”

“They took my grandmother’s jam.” I said, embellishing the facts beyond my control. “It was just lekvar, just fruit and sugar. It wasn’t going to hurt anyone. ”

“No. No, of course not. That’s terrible,” said the man with the soft eyes. Finally, a real Hungarian, I thought. “How about we put you in first class, seat 6A.”

“Yes, that would be fine.” I say.

On the plane, I recline my seat (before take off), snuggle into my duvet and fall into a deep sleep on my feather pillow. I wake up to wine in a real glass, filet mignon and a cheese plate, which I pick at before reaching for the cheese and piros paprika {red pepper} sandwich on fresh bread Anya packed me. I admit, I enjoy the endless stream of movies and service, the infinite legroom and 9 hours in a fully reclined position. I admit this is the better way to travel. But I’m still not convinced that all the free mimosas in the world can make up for being robbed of a whole month of Anya’s jam. Luckily, Mr. tough guy missed a jar.

Tradition

veszprem, hungary

I’ve always envied the food traditions of other cultures, like the Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes for Christmas Eve. For years I adopted the culinary traditions of others, until I realized one very simple thing. I have my own.

Tradition is anything you’ve done more than once, and cherish. It’s the chocolate layer cake my mom bakes for each and every family birthday, or the Swedish pancakes we ate every Sunday after church among the Johnsons, Swansons and Larsons of Rockford, Illinois. One of my favorite new traditions is the welcome meal Anya, András’ mother, has waiting for us as soon as we arrive in Hungary. No matter the season or the hour of the day, it is always the same: A light broth made rich with the flavors of carrots, parsnips, potatoes and onions pulled straight from the ground; thinly sliced cucumbers marinated in their own liquid with garlic and salt; two hearty slices of her wheat-rye bread with cool slabs of butter; and bodzavirág (elderflower) syrup sodas made a'la minute with her homemade bodzavirág szirup and sparkling water from Balaton.

The meal is followed by the deepest, most relaxing sleep side-by-side in András boyhood bedroom, until Woody (as in Woody Allen), their feisty adopted stray dog, barks and wakes us. When I emerge, groggy but relaxed, Apa, (András’ dad) and I tour the backyard as I recount the location of every fruit tree, gauge their stages of ripening and how well we’d timed this visit around the season of choice.

We speak in our broken garden Magyar, our common language, and reconnect over the simple words we speak of each other’s mother tongues.

Alma. Apple.

Szilva. Plum.

Figue. Fig.

Those are easy for me.

málna.Strawberries

Szedrek. Blackberries

Cseresznyék.Cherries

Bigger challenges for my sleepy tongue, but I’ll get there.

If veggies are abundant in our community plot back in New York, this is the land of endless fruit. He shows me the tiny black raspberries that will ripen in fall, the fig tree that rebounded from our visit last May, grape vines that have doubled in size, and the new hazelnut tree that’s already producing fruit. Immediately, I start thinking about which season I’ll plan our next trip around.

For the moment, I’m quite pleased with myself. My plan worked out perfectly—we would arrive for cherry season, so that bowls of sweet and sour cherries would line our wedding table next Saturday. The cherries are everywhere—dark, firm cherries the size of walnuts, tiny black cherries with just a hint of sour, and Hungary’s famous meggyes, soft sour globes that make you pucker and smile. But Saturday is a whole week away. I’m sure the tree can spare just a few for me now.

A Movable Feast {Pedaling, part i}

When I first moved to New York City, I fell in love with a New Yorker who seemed to have sprung from the stories I’d read growing up in the Midwest. His traditions—like his annual Peking duck dinner in Chinatown on Christmas Eve—were uniquely New York, and a chic juxtaposition to the stuffed bird and buttered potatoes of my family table back home.

Committed to becoming a New Yorker, I spent the next few years tucked into Chinatown’s tiny stalls tasting sweet sticky rice and soup dumplings, hand-formed dumplings and dim sum, looking for new traditions of my own. Those flavors were great fodder for my culinary tales, but still, I never quite felt I belonged.

Then I met András. One sleepy December Sunday, just months after we’d met, our afternoon bike ride through Chinatown came to a halt outside a bustling shop called Mei Lai Wah. András ducked behind the shop’s steamy windows, promising delicious fuel for our ride home. He returned with two paper bags, wet with steam. I peeled back the paper with frozen fingers and devoured hot roast pork buns until I was laughing with satisfaction. How he (a vegetarian who seemed to consider food merely fuel for his next ride) knew about something so good was beyond me, but I loved him for it.

We began to frequent the bun shop, eating buns—coconut for him, pork for me—sliding our little Chinet plates across the aged formica bar for more with nods and smiles. Afterward, I’d peek in the kitchen, where thin men stood around giant woks, poking buns and gabbing like sisters. They’d shoo me away as if I were a spy instead of a loyal customer, which made me laugh and return even more faithfully. This was my Chinatown.

After 8 years living in New York, I forfeited my holidays at home for the first time in my life and András and I booked dinner at a famed three-star city restaurant. The meal was refined, festive, delicious—and heartbreaking. As we finished, I burst into tears. I longed for sweet potatoes smothered in bruleed marshmallows and for my family.

At a loss for how to comfort me, András took me to our bun shop. I was soothed by a stack of steamy buns and familiar faces that always greeted me with ironic half-smiles that made me feel at once welcome and amused. This food, this family, was mine as well.

Last summer, Mei Lai Wah’s doors closed without warning, and just as suddenly they reopened again. Rumors of new ownership had us weary to return and when we finally did, our fears were realized. Everything familiar was replaced by something newer, cleaner, brighter. A sleek wooden countertop stood in place of the formica bar we once considered the best seat in the house. We took a seat instead in the booths in the back and I sighed and bemoaned the passing of our favorite tradition. But just as quickly I remembered that it was progress that brought me here -- and our beloved buns, now served by younger faces with bigger smiles, hadn’t changed. They still deliverd the same comforting flavors that always manage to somehow validate my choice to call New York City, and these adopted traditions my own.

*{This piece was originally published in the Winter 2009 issue of 360 magazine. I love this piece, because this tradition marks the beginning of the edible life I now share with my husband, András. }