This post is a supplement to today's post titled: Pizza Crust
(Just to give you some history: there's "Warenika: a first attempt" which details my first time eating warenika. Do not be confused by the title, this was my first time making warenika by myself, second documented story of encounters with warenika)
As a devoted newlywed, I decided to attempt to make my husband’s favorite meal for his birthday. Unfortunately for me, it happens to be the most tricky meal to make in the history of civilization on earth. I think those Germans knew what they were doing, and schemingly planned a meal so delicious your mouth could water just seeing the name, and so confoundedly hard to make you will want to yank your own eyeballs out just to keep from crying in frustration. That should give you some idea of what’s coming.
Attempt. That’s the key word here. I attempted. I did not succeed. So if you enjoy a story where everything works out happily in the end and success and delicious warenika are on the menu for dinner…you’re looking for a different story. This is a tragedy. And not just any tragedy. A warenika tragedy. The worst kind.
It started out as a normal Summer day in Winnipeg. We were living in our own home on Mulvey Avenue! The heat was actually quite unbearable and we had no airconditioner. Actually, it wasn’t the heat, it was the humidity. And that’s humidity with a capital H. We both went to work in the cool of the morning. He, to continue construction on a house, and I, to mow lawns and lug heavy furniture around the university I was attending. Needless to say we both expected the worst out of a humid day in July. But it was Derek’s birthday and we both left the house in high spirits.
I had a particularly good reason for being in high spirits. I had a surprise for my adorable husband on his birthday! I was taking off from work early to come home and make his favorite meal before some of our friends showed up to share a birthday meal with us! I was so excited that I expended a great deal of energy doing the normal work around school, skipping out to the garage instead of walking, taking the lower end of the book case as we hauled it down the stairs. When I got off work at two in the afternoon I was as tired as I would have been had I worked the full nine-hour day. But I got on my bike and pedalled home in joyful anticipation of the party I was hostessing tonight.
When I got home I busied myself with putting up streamers and starting to mix the dough for warenika. The windows were open and the fan was on full blast, along with the music…and Ifailed to notice the vacant street in front of my house. Normally Mulvey is full of cars. People park several blocks away from Corydon and walk to work in the morning. But I rode my bike up to the back of the house and never even looked out front. This was my first dire mistake.
Green and blue streamers waved in the fan’s blast and I stirred the dough until I knew I’d have to take another shower before guests arrived. Dancing around with a wooden spoon between the counter and the refrigerator didn’t help. I continued to add flour, but that dough just wouldn’t clump together. So I left it to dry a little in front of the fan and I finished the cake and put it in the hot oven. I laughed as I thought, “I could just leave it on the counter and it might actually bake faster”. I returned to the dough and it was still too sticky. So I added more flour and left it in front of the fan again. As I worked on the cottage cheese filling I wondered what I might be doing wrong. My mother-in-law uses an electric mixer…was that the only way to get it right? Did I copy the recipe wrong? Did I forget something?
Soon everything was ready except for the silly dough. I was really starting to get miffed about the situation. I was certain I had the filling done correctly and it was resting in the fridge. The cake was in the oven, which was heating up the house; the frosting for the cake was made and sitting on the counter. The sausage was thawing in the sink. The canned corn was sitting in its can in the pot waiting until closer to dinner. What could I have done wrong? Aha! I had not mixed it by hand yet. That would be easier than stirring it with a wooden spoon anyway since it’s so thick.
So I shove my hands into the warm moist dough and knead it and knead it and knead it. I put more and more flour on the table top and knead and knead and knead. I’m drenched by now, and exhausted, and starving, and much more frustrated than before I stuck my hands into this goopy mess, not to mention the fact that I’m all out of flour.
I decide to call my mother-in-law. She’s made these hundreds of times! She’ll tell me what to do! But first I have to get this dough off my hands. I take the sausage out of the sink and push the faucet up. No water comes out. There’s nothing. Not even a tiny drip. Not even a spit of mist. Nothing. I go check the bathroom sink…and shower…and the hose outside. No water. And as I’m standing over the long hose in the front yard I notice that there are no cars on the street. There are barricades at the end of the street. With signs.
Covered in crusty dough and sweat I march to the end of the street and read the sign: “No parking Street Renewal Project Water will be shut off between the hours of 12 PM and 8PM 7/7”. Just then a truck pulls up with a cartoon picture of a water droplet the size of my torso, smiling with a great big blue smile out from the side of the truck. A man gets out and starts pulling hoses and tools out of the back of his truck. “What’s the deal?” I ask him. “Well, we’re repairing some broken pipes and have to shut off the water to this block”. “Had to” I say. “What?” “Had to, it’s already shut off. And I can’t wash my hands!” “Sorry”, he says, and he smiles like that big dopey water droplet on the side of his truck. Sorry…
I turn around and storm back to the house with my hands well away from my pants. I’m supposed to host a party tonight! I’m supposed to serve warenika…Derek’s favorite meal! As I return to my kitchen I notice the pan I used to make bacon the night before soaking on the counter by the sink. Desperately I stick my crunchy hands into the greasy, tepid water. I rub as much of the slime off as I can and dry my hands on a towel. I grab the phone with dough still under my fingernails and dial my mother-in-law.
Nobody answers. I dial again. Nobody answers. I dial my sister. Nobody answers. I dial my best friend. Nobody answers. I dial the couple coming over for dinner. Nobody answers. I dial my mom. By the time she picks up the phone after the fourth ring I’m sobbing. She can’t recognize the voice of the person who has called her crying and sobbing. I’m sure all she could understand was “Water—.” Mumble mumble Sob. “Dinner—.” Unintelligible cry. “Derek--.” Hiccup, hiccup, cry. It’s hot as Hades, my hands are crusty and smell like bacon, there’s no water, I took off work early, people are coming over in half an hour, all I wanted was to make a special dinner, I’m a bad cook, I’m a bad wife, I’m a bad homeowner, and my own mother doesn’t know my voice on the telephone!
At last she recognizes my voice and says “Laura! I’m so glad you called!” Just for that, I stop crying. Can she not understand my crisis?! Well, apparently not, with all my sniffling. I finally explain the situation to her and she laughs and says, “I saw your weather report online today. You’ll never get that dough to dry in such humid weather without an air conditioner.” My own mother laughed at me. Boy, do I feel like an idiot. She suggests going over to a friend’s house, taking a shower, and going out to an air conditioned restaurant for dinner.
I leave the broken egg shells on the counter. I leave the greasy frying pan of precious water. I leave my flour-y apron. I leave the wooden spoon on the stove. I leave the melty frosting in the bowl. I leave the hot cake in its pan. I leave the steamy upstairs apartment. I leave the fan blowing the blue streamers. I leave the cottage cheese filling. I leave the sticky dough smudged across the kitchen table.
And when I get home…it’s dried on.
The end
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