PULLING POVITICA

A few years back, I taught a few cousins make povitica.  Povitica is known in Polish, Serbian, and Croatian communities as a traditional Christmas bread.  It's lightly sweet, with a filling similar to pecan pie, only thicker consistency and made from ground english walnuts, not pecans.  To my knowledge, there are very few bakeries that make povitica in the United States.   I imagine the reason has to do with the fact that this bread is labor intensive and time consuming.  However, I make it and a few years back taught a few of my cousins. 
Last week, I had my 2 aunts over, and several more cousins who were interested in learning to make povitica.  I started that morning making the dough and the nut filling.  They were coming over that afternoon and I wanted to time it so the dough would have raised twice and was ready to be pulled.  That's what makes this bread different.  The dough is not rolled, but pulled.  I wished to have each cousin take home a loaf of povitica as a Christmas gift from me, so I needed to make a double batch.  I helped them with the first batch and stood back and watched as they tackled the second batch without my help.
When my cousins arrived, the men stood and watched us women in the process for a while, then went back to watching football.  But first, I grabbed this photo of some of them before they went back to the game.
 
We laid out a clean tablecloth that I use for this purpose only.  We dusted it with flour so the dough doesn't stick to the cloth.  Next, I showed the ladies how to 'pull' dough.  This is done by sliding your hands under the dough and pulling carefully, from underneath.  The dough is fragile and tears, so you pull with your palms up and fingers back.  We pull until the dough is paper thin.  I ball of dough can be stretched to the size of a table. In this picture, I am repairing holes that sometimes happen while pulling dough.  We repair holes so the filling doesn't get on the tablecloth and make things messy later.


My aunt Stef has made this before and was a great help.  This can be a lot of fun as we would swap stories around the table.  It was great to visit with all of them, and I highly recommend doing a project like this as a fun way to keep in touch with extended family.  The next step in making povitica is when the dough cannot be stretched anymore without tearing lots of holes in it.  If the dough is thin enough to read a newspaper under it (if one was placed under it) then you've stretched it far enough.  At this point, we trim the edges of the dough so we have no thick edges.  This dough is a yeast dough and thick edges will raise into thick bread-y parts of the povitica.  We don't want that.  Then we take the nut mixture, which consists of butter, eggs, sugar, 4 pounds of english walnuts, and a few other ingredients and carefully spread it over the dough to the edges.  Using the back of a spoon or spatulas, you have to be careful again so the dough doesn't tear underneath as you spread on the nuts.
  Here is Nancy spreading on nuts.  After the entire surface of dough is nut covered.  Next is the part that makes everyone smile.  It's just fun and rewarding when you get to this part.  You take the edge of the tablecloth and pick it up from both sides of the table, and roll the dough towards the center. 

almost there....
 
People form their loaves differently.  Some people form one long rope and form it into a 'w' or 'e' roll, we just roll ours into the center, measure how long our pans are and cut loaves with a plate to fit. We cut loaves with a plate to seal the edges and keep walnut filling from coming out.  Then they are brushed with an egg, sugar, water mixture to gives the loaves a shiny glossy top after they're baked, and lay them aside to rise.  After rising an hour, we bake them for another hour.  We made 14 loaves of povitica that day.  I was able to give my aunt and cousins all a loaf for Christmas and I know they enjoyed the day.  I did.  Inbetween raising bread, we had a potluck lunch.  We played pinnochle, and had a white elephant gift exchange.  At the end of the day, we posed for this picture.


The white part if the bread dough we pulled, and the nut filling is the darker part.  The Polish people like more white (bread) in their povitica, and the Serbians like more nuts.  It is very rich as it's made with whole milk and real butter.  Anything less will keep dough from stretching properly and nut mixture from tasting right.  If you try to make this, plan for about 6-8 hours to devote to all the raising and baking of povitica.  We did a double batch and the final loaves came out 9 hours after I started the dough. This is a great way to spend a day with family.
The best way to eat this is with a cup of coffee.   For as long as I can remember, we have had this.  It was served at my Polish grandmother's Christmas table, my mom's and now mine.  If tradition sticks, my children and grandchildren (when I get them....) will have this at their Christmas table too.

needs, wants and routines

birds of prey presentation and dissecting owl pellets

bird houses and a wounded, blinded screech owl.

Has it really been that long since I've last posted?  Gosh, I'm getting really bad at blogging aren't I?  The last time I posted, I was sharing about a group of kids I teach a unit of science to.  My unit is about birds.  This unit began focusing on song birds, and we made several wood projects to attract and enjoy studying birds in our backyards.  Having this unit at this time of year allowed us to see species that are migrating through the midwest at this time, however, our last study on songbirds was about mating, nesting, and hatching, and it's not the time of year for that.  I never did find chick eggs to incubate, but we all cracked eggs and studied the parts of an egg, and we made bird houses to put out next spring.  We then switched our focus from song birds to raptors, in particular, owls.  The kids dissected owl pellets and put together the skeletal remains of what was in the pellet.  Then we took a field trip to a nature preserve and got to see a few birds of prey up close.  This little screech owl was my favorite.  He has a blind eye and that's what landed him in this preserve.  They had a barred owl, and a great horned owl and the presentation just sealed all the kids learned in class.  This was a very good study for the kids and I still hear them feedback information that they are putting what they learned to practical use.

So much has happened in the last month since I have posted, and I'm beginning to find time again for things I love.  I was rumaging around in some quilting things that belonged to my mom.  After mom passed away, my sister and I went through her sewing things and divided them up.   Mom was a quilter, and liked both pieced and applique, but she she preferred applique. I like pieced quilting, it's easier and takes less time than applique.  When mom retired, she took countless classes in various types of block assembly, and I am still a mom with 7 children- 6 still at home, and 5 I homeschool.  Time is not something I have an abundance of....  I have been the happy recipient of several of mom's quilts, and after she passed, I aquired one of her photo albums where she kept pictures of all her quilts and who she gave them to.  I was amazed at how many she made in her retirement years.  What else surprised me was the fact that I had made a similar photo album of quilts I had made and given away.  hmmm, must be in the genes as neither of us were aware of the other doing the same type of documenting of our works.   Anyway....I was rummaging through some of mom's things in a box I had shoved into a corner of my basement and found some of her (many, many) templates.  2 of them piqued my interest, maybe because the package promised "The EASY Way to Quilt." They are starmaker 5 and starmaker 6 by Kaye Wood.  Thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, I found that Kaye Wood has a website that has televised programs of her using these templates and showing me how.  YAY!  They are for pieced quilting and I am thrilled, because these products actually do make piecing easy.  I'm also thrilled to be able to use some of mom's tools that brought her so much pleasure.  Someone in my sub list was assembling a grandmothers garden quilt and that pattern isn't known for being easy.  I wish I could see how far she came with her grandmothers garden.  My Starmaker 6 makes easy work of hexagons and I think I might even attempt it with these inherited templates.   I know that many of you won't find this information too interesting, but the quilting subs are probably rejoicing with me.

Homeschooling

Because I homeschool my children, from time to time I blog about what we're doing in the school year.  To people who send their children to school, there might be a question in their mind how tricky subjects are handled, and this entry is about how I handle Science.  I have linked arms with a few friends and between us we have 10 children we homeschool.  We pick a topic we want to cover in a school year in the subject of science, and we divide it up between us (last year we did the human body).  Each of us takes about a season to present our unit, do the experiments, field trips, and teach all about our unit.  In return for doing all the work for one unit, our kids get three very detailed units.   This year, we chose zoology.  We, (the moms), divided up birds, reptiles, and marine life between us as unit studies and we agree to teach solely on our unit.  I chose birds, and I am going to share with you how my unit is going.  My unit went first and began this fall, so I chose to teach on taxonomy or classification of birds and their scientific names.  We learned about orders of birds, such as song birds (passerines), raptors (falconiformes), etc., and are looking specifically at song birds for the first 3 lessons.  I'm teaching the kids how to identify birds by field marks, size, song or call, and we are tracking their behaviors at feeders.  There are classroom programs nationally to count birds who visit feeders, and track migrating patterns, and see which birds stay during colder months.   These kids are observing bird behaviors at feeders.  Our first craft was to make bird feeders.  The kids were pretty pleased to drill holes in the bottom of their plastic containers, glue the wooden frame that holds the containers,

help staple the frame together,

add the hooks and wire hangers, then hang the feeders, add birdseed, and begin to observe.

They were so proud of their accomplishment!  Here they are with their feeders.

After we began this unit, we all started seeing several hummingbirds show up in our yards at our flowers and hummingbird feeders (more than the usual numbers).  They begin the fall migration, and the fact that we are seeing them tells me they are a sign of more migrating birds to come.  It's a good time of year to be watching birds as we will see birds from the north that we typically don't see here.  The kids had a snack and were instructed to start collecting bird feathers, and given a small amount of homework till the next time we met.

At lesson 2, we divided the feathers into the 5 main type of bird feathers, and learned to 'zip' the barbules on the feathers as a bird would do by preening.  They learned the parts of a feather and its purpose (flight, insullation, coutour of a wing, etc.).

They had collected so many feathers between them, mostly contour feathers.  They shared where the other families were short on a type of feather (mostly down feathers) so each child had one of each type of feather to glue on a chart.  We had feathers everywhere!

We learned about molting and the sequence a bird molts its feathers.  We discussed flight, how a bird flies, and terms associated with flight such as normal and low air pressure, lift, drag, airfoils, and aerodynamic shape.  One of our experiments was to create a low pressure above a straw by blowing air at an angle from another straw.  This would produce lift of the liquid in the straw (because low pressure produces lift).  The kids discovered by blowing hard, they could get water to squirt out from the straw at each other.  This picture shows one of the kids getting the liquid in her straw to lift up (and eventually out) of her straw.  They had a fun time with this experiment, and several of them got pretty wet.  They learned all about a man named Bernouli who discovered this principle.

Our second experiment was to create 2 paper airplanes that were identical in shape and size.  The difference was that one airplane had an airfoil shape to the wings.  (This is the shape a bird has as its wing)  The kids practiced with both airplanes to see which plane caught wind better and produced lift and glided to the ground better, (the airfoil).  We learned about why birds migrate and how they do it and how scientists track migrating behavior. We had snacks and ended the 2nd lesson.  More observing feeders, more homework.

Making and designing our airplanes.

Science in action...

For my 3rd lesson, I am teaching on mating, nesting, eggs, and incubating eggs.  Unfortunately, I am unable to find a source that I can get an incubator to hatch chicks.  I've done this before through 4-H, but it was in the springtime and they do not have chicken eggs available for the embriology project in the fall.  RATS!  I'm still working on what to do here. 

For my last unit, I will be teaching on raptors, and focusing on owls.  We will be dissecting owl pellets and assembling skeletal remains from the pellet to see what the owl had for the meal that produced the pellet.  (owls can't digest hair and bones from their prey, they vomit it up in pellets and by dissecting them, scientists learn about the food chain and the diet of owls.)  I've already gotten my pellets in the mail, and the kids are really excited about doing this.  The pellets come with handy skeletal charts for the kids to figure out what their skeletal remains are.  (I did this last year with my kids and it really grossed out my 20 year old, but fascinated my younger kids. Obviously I need to catch my kids while they're young to enjoy this science unit.) 

My final lesson is to a nature preserve for a field trip.  They will be doing a discussion on owls and presenting about 6-8 species of owls in this area for the kids to get up close to.  This field trip will just cement the facts learned in class and give the kids an up close look at what they just studied, and dispell some myths associated with owls.

Then, my committment to teaching science in units is finished for the year, and another mom starts her unit.  Marine animals are next, and then reptiles.  In the springtime, we will be dissecting frogs.  I should say, the kids will be dissecting frogs.  The beauty of this arrangement is obvious.  The burden doesn't fall to one person, it is shared between 3 moms.  Because a mom has to worry about one unit, she can go as indepth as she wants with it. We agree to cover lessons, and materials used in class, but experiments involving bigger sums of money, such as the owl pellets and the field trip is covered by each mom for her child(ren).  The total cost of my unit per child for the pellets and field trip is about $7.00 to the moms, so it's cost effective for what they get (bigger groups get bigger discounts). The kids are extremely close to each other as a result of sharing this science class.  The unit studied is so in-depth, that the kids recall what they learned years down the road and can still apply it.  Each unit ends with a snack, and a small amount of work at home to be finished before the next lesson.  And best of all, the kids love science.

So, if you homeschool and feel overwhelmed with certain subjects, look to other moms who teach their kids at home and share a subject in a cooperative. 

It's really bad to be a part time xangan isn't it?  I cannot believe how irregular I am getting at posting!  I was trying to wrap up our vacation adventure in my last post to write about something a little more exciting that was going on while we were out of town.

My xanga site was created by my second child some years back.  She made me a moderator of a site called Moms of Seven, and no surprise... I was the only member of this blogring.  She wrote the very first post announcing my birthday to all her xanga friends who came to my site and wished me birthday greetings.  I had no idea this was going on, till I signed into my internet service and saw tons of e-mail messages with a link to a xanga site.  I followed the link and was stunned, and when I saw she joined me to the Polish Christians, homeschooling moms and created a blog ring and made me moderator of 'Moms of Seven'. I was wondering what kind of joke she was trying to pull on me.

In a matter of days, a mom joined my blogring and began to comment on my posts.  We found we had an incredible amount of things in common besides the seven kids.  It was uncanny-almost unreal at times.  Over the years she and I would go back and forth to each other's xanga sites and find more and more similarities.  She quickly became one of my favorite visitors to my site, and she always had so much encouragement for me.  It was like a breath of fresh air when I would read her comments, because moms of seven rarely get online before 10 pm, and in the tired evenings, I would find rest and encouragement in a stranger/friend.  I had never met her and yet I felt I knew her well. 

I am in Kansas and she is in the pacific north-west, a distance too great to ever meet for coffee.  It was unlikely to happen anyway because we were the type of people who get free time while we are in our pajamas.  Still, if there was anyone I would have liked to have met in person, it would have been her.  I'm a little cautious, (something she understands all too well) you just don't go meeting people you meet online!  We never approached the subject of meeting for a long, long time.

We started sharing a little more about ourselves to each other as time went on, and eventually it came down to planning our vacation.  I share with her we were heading west to Yellowstone and suggested maybe it would be a nice place to meet if she felt so inclined.  The rest is Xanga history, we did meet last month while we were on vacation.  We arranged to meet at Old Faithful, which is pretty fitting as she was beginning to feel like a faithful friend (notice how I left out that 'Old' part-we are nearly the same age-lol)  I was really excited about this and took the time to go to my kids and explain that this one day-this particular day in Yellowstone was going to be mine!  (They laughed at me)  I really didn't know what to expect when our kids met, but reasoned we were at a place that had so much beauty and wonder to look at, that if they couldn't be entertained for the day, that would be unfortunate.  Like I said, I didn't worry about them too much.  My husband is an easy-going man and I have never seen him uncomfortable with anyone, and he assured me this was fine and he wasn't uncomfortable with meeting the Mamaglop family.  My kids were all fine with it too, which is some kind of miracle to get them all to be in agreement.  I was going to meet Mamaglop.

On her end, her husband was fine, and I heard her kids teased her she was setting them up on a blind date with another family.  She brought 3 sons with her, and the kids I had that were near their ages were all girls.  I also brought along my 2 sons, but this could have easily been construed as a blind date but that was never part of our plan.  

I wondered who would find who and if we would find each other in the crowds at Old Faithful, or where we would eventually meet, or.... do I sound like I was nervous or excited?  I was!

We arrived at the old Faithful Inn and checked in. 

I was coming out to the lobby of Old Faithful Inn to find my husband when I turned around and saw her husband extend his hand.  I saw her 15 year old reach out with his hand.  I saw her 12 year old, and last of all, I saw her.  We had finally met for the first time in person.  It wasn't awkward, in fact, it was a relief that they found us so quickly after we had arrived at the hotel.  Last of all, I met her 20 year old.  We went out to watch Old Faithful and to sit down and visit while we waited. 

Our kids stood around while their parents talked like they knew each other forever.  It was so easy for us, like we had known each other for years, but I noticed it didn't seem so easy for the kids.  They seemed ill at ease with each other, not knowing what to expect, or what to say, or to do.  Kind of like a blind date-ha ha! 

We sent the kids in a different path from us hoping the ice would break, but they returned to us in seperate groups.  Mine together, hers together.  I was only a little concerned, because I was hoping our kids would mix a little better than they were appearing but thought they would be fine.  I was having a wonderful time!  

We walked around hot pots, steam pots, and various geothermal sites, and I figured eventually those kids would start to walk a little closer to each other and mix with each other. 

We would watch them head off on hikes up mountain paths and they seemed to return to us in their own family group.  I later learned they had no problem talking to each other while they were apart from us parents, but would clam up to each other as soon as we were within sight.  I didn't realize we were so intimidating to them.  As the day wore on, and we walked on and on, we went for lunch together.  My husband and I had a great time visiting with Mr. and Mrs. Mamaglop, and the kids ate, then broke out some cards.  The ice was beginning to thin for them.  

We never really laid out any committment to each other for the day, but we (my husband and I) had arranged our entire day to spend with them if they chose to.  Mamaglop and I never seemed to have any of those uncomfortable lags in conversation, in fact, we talked all day and after we left each other, I though of a million more things I wanted to ask her.  She noticed details like particular colors in hop pots.  She always stopped and gazed longer at hot pots that were turquoise. 

She also knew a lot about the wildflowers growing there.  As the day was winding down, I realized she was the type of person who I would like to have living next door as she was so easy to talk to.  Her husband and my husband were like two peas in a pod, with similar minds and backgrounds.

We went to dinner and our kids!!!! our kids!!!  You wouldn't believe our kids.... they were laughing, they were getting loud, they wer getting silly, they were having fun.  Our day together ended late that evening, and it was a perfect day. 

Now, I miss her, and him, and their children.  We have got to do this again!

What a beautiful group!