One of my favorite childhood memories is of the time my mother and I drove over to her parents’ house one December night before Christmas. Babci, my grandmother, had taken a big pan of her homemade babka out of the oven just before we had arrived. She sliced a big hunk of the sweet bread for us to take home. We devoured half of it in the car. It was still warm and soooo delicious!
Here is a poem I wrote more than a dozen years ago about my Babci making her famous babka:
THE CHRISTMAS BABKA
by Elaine Magliaro
We watch Babci make the Christmas babka.
With plump peasant hands
she kneads sweet dough
on the white porcelain-topped table,
places it in a large sky-blue bowl,
covers it with a damp towel,
and sets it on the kitchen counter
near the hissing radiator.
Swelling with bubbles of air,
the dough rises into a pale yellow cloud
flecked with bits of orange rind.
The baking babka fills the house
with the scent of Christmas.
We eat the bread fresh from the oven,
its insides steaming and golden—
a homemade treasure
rich enough to warm a winter night.
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At Blue Rose Girls I have a video from Brave New Films entitled George Bush’s Nightmare before Christmas. In the video, an actor impersonates Bush and recites a parody of Clement Moore’s famous holiday classic The Night before Christmas.
The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Author Amok.
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