melinda hagenson

This one was a given. My A-Z Challenge theme is my work in progress, and Eighteen Crossroads is the title of that work.

Easy-peasy.

Why eighteen? Because there are eighteen MCs: Aniela and her husband Josef, eight of their children, and eight of their grandchildren. Nearly all of the stories are told in the first person. (There’s a reason for this—but man, it’s a challenge!)

Why crossroads? Because each story is about a “crossroads moment” in the life of its MC. We all have such moments. Sometimes we have a choice, and sometimes the choice is made for us. If you read yesterday’s post, see if you can figure out Daphne’s. Is a choice made for her, or does she make a choice herself?

Some of the crossroads intersect quite obviously with those of other characters, as Daphne’s does with her mom’s. But in most cases, they’re more subtle than that.

In the book’s original conception, all of the MCs were also going to be eighteen themselves—I mean, eighteen years old—because eighteen is a time when many of us find ourselves at a crossroads of some kind. But then a couple of characters wound up just remembering events that occurred when they were eighteen, and others found themselves at crossroads that had nothing to do with being eighteen at all.

And I realized two things: 1) Not all of our most significant crossroads moments occur at eighteen (in fact, one of the biggest such moments in my own life came when I was 42), and 2) Just because you’re a writer, that doesn’t mean you have total control over your work or the characters that populate it.

But anyway, there you have it— Eighteen Crossroads.

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My maternal grandmother, Apolonia (Pauline) Bobrowski Urynowicz, came to the United States in July of 1907, just like Aniela. In fact, she’s the inspiration for Aniela, and thus for my entire book, which is a composite novel.  In a way, I’m writing it in her memory, even though the book itself is fictional.

A composite novel is generally comprised of a series of interrelated short texts that may or may not be limited to short stories. In my case, the book will also contain other texts, including a few of her recipes.  I can think of no better way to keep her memory alive.

One of my favorites has always been her recipe for what my mom always just called crullers. In Poland, depending on the region, they’re called faworki, chrusty, or chrusciki, and in the United States, they’re generally known as bow ties or angel wings.

But my grandmother called them chrusti (with an i), so to me, chrusti they are. It’s pronounced HROO-stee. (The singular, chrust, is pronounced HROOST.) They look like this:

(I wasn’t able to find any pictures of my own, so these will have to do).

I’ve seen many, many recipes for these, both online and in hard-copy Polish cookbooks, but although the final product looks the same, none of the recipes is the same as my grandma’s. I have no idea what quality the results of any of those others might produce, either, but no matter what they look like, I’m very sure they can’t possibly taste any better than hers.

Here’s a picture of my grandma’s much-loved and well-worn recipe, which I wrote down in haste while actually making them with her in the winter of 1976, the year before she passed away:

As far as I know, it’s the only written-down version of her recipe in existence.

And that’s the thing, right? One of the primary purposes of the whole novel, even though it is a novel and not a memoir, is to draw attention to the way memories form, the way we hold our ancestors close though whatever historical connections we can find.  Not just me, but all of us.  And one of those is always, or should always be, the ritualistic preparation of traditional foods.

So here, in the spirit of keeping her memory alive, is my grandma’s recipe in full. If you choose to make it a part of your own family’s tradition, I ask only that you keep her name attached to it.

Grandma Pauline’s Chrusti

Ingredients:

1 cup milk

½ stick (1/4 cup) butter

6 egg yolks

½ cup sugar

pinch salt

2 T vodka or rum (vodka is traditional—we use rum)

3 cups flour

confectioner’s (powdered) sugar

oil for deep frying

Procedure:

Warm milk and butter just until bubbles form around the edge of the pan (do not allow to boil). Remove from the heat and allow to cool until the pan is comfortably warm to the touch.

While milk is cooling, beat the egg yolks with the sugar and salt until thick and lemon yellow. Stir in liquor of choice.

Add half of the warm milk mixture to the egg yolk mixture in a steady stream, stirring constantly.

Mix in half of the flour, then the rest of the milk, then the rest of the flour.

Knead until the dough no longer sticks to your hands. (A little additional flour may be necessary, but don’t add too much.)

Roll out the dough very thin, about 1/8 of an inch thick, on a floured board. Use a pizza wheel to slice the dough into strips about 3” long by 1 ½ inches wide (measurements do not have to be exact).

Make an inch-long (or so) slit lengthwise in the center of each piece, and pull one end through the slit.

Deep fry, a few at a time, in hot oil (375 degrees). Drain on paper towels. Sift powdered sugar over them, or shake a few at a time in a paper bag of powdered sugar, while still warm.

These get stale very, very quickly. Best to make them when you have a lot of people around.

Makes around eight dozen.

Great with coffee or tea.

I’ve always been interested in and proud of my Polish heritage. When I got my first car when I was seventeen, I put a Polish coat of arms sticker on the back windshield.  A stylized eagle hovering over the ramparts of a castle.  I loved it.

Jump forward a few decades. In one of the very first stories I wrote for this book, long before I even knew it was going to become part of an actual book, the main character’s name was Catherine Bedford. Her name came to me out of nowhere, and I knew, as soon as it popped into my mind, that this was her name. There would be no changing it.

When I realized her Polish parents needed a Polish name from which Bedford might have derived, Bedczynski popped into my head. It wasn’t a name I’d ever heard in my life, but again, I knew, as soon as I thought of it, that this was the family’s name.

Of course I promptly did a search for the surname Bedczynski.   Now, remember, this name was totally invented. It’s MY name, in a way. I made it up out of thin air. So I wasn’t surprised when my search turned up no hits. In a way, I was relieved, and I gave it no further thought.

But last summer as I was working on another story, I needed a name of a town for another character to be from, and it was in this search, on a page of maps of Poland in 1907, that I unexpectedly found a listing for Będziński .

I invented the dang name and spelled it wrong? What?

So I clicked on it . . . and found that it’s a region (not a name, per se)—and the page that came up showed not a map, but a coat of arms for that region. My heart stopped when I saw it.

The coat of arms is the same one I had on the Poland sticker on my first car. I put that sticker on the car in about 1976. I remember it vividly. And now I find out it’s the freaking coat of arms for Będziński.  Creeeeepy!!!

But wait—it gets even trippier.

The coat of arms page contained a list of towns that have coats of arms, with live links for each.  One of them was a place called Bobrowniki.

Really? Really?? Bobrowski was my grandmother’s maiden name.

Of course I clicked on it. And guess what? Bobrowniki is a township in Będziński .

Goosebumps. It still gives me goosebumps.

I’m telling you–this book was meant to be.

_______________

Coat of arms image by Bastianow (vector version) [Public domain or <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5″>CC-BY-SA-2.5</a>%5D, <a href=”http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APOL_powiat_b%C4%99dzi%C5%84ski_COA.svg”>via Wikimedia Commons</a>

I wavered between two possible themes for the A-Z Challenge, but after deciding there were plenty of grammar gurus out there already, I’ve chosen to blog about my work in progress, a composite novel titled Eighteen Crossroads.  

It’s kismet that Aniela’s name begins with A, since her story establishes the foundation of the whole cycle. Her spirit resides in nearly all of the characters who populate the rest of the stories in the collection, so it seems right to begin the Challenge with her.

Her story begins with her arrival in America in July of 1907. She’s eighteen—spunky, spirited, confident, and capable.

Since Poland was divided (or “partitioned”) in 1795, the area she hails from (Kowno) belongs to Russia.  This means she’s legally Russian, but she’s ethnically Polish. (Nobody in the United States who claims Polish roots is really Polish if they or their ancestors came to America between 1795 and 1918, since politically, Poland didn’t exist at all during that period.)

Like most other ethnic Poles of the time, Aniela is concerned with the perpetuation of a Polish national identity in the absence of a physical country to call her homeland. She doesn’t want to be American—she wants to be Polish in America, since it’s illegal to be Polish at home. America is the land of the free, she reasons, and therefore she should be free to be Polish if she wants to. But her desire to cling to her Polish identity conflicts with the American societal expectation that first-generation immigrants jump into the Melting Pot.

The whole cycle explores this challenge: the development of an American identity made up of other national identities belonging to immigrants who don’t necessarily have any desire to abandon them. The collection tells the stories of three generations as they variously embrace and reject Aniela’s version of the American dream.

What is an American, anyway? Is one American because one has settled here and is raising a family here? Or is American identity involved with something more?

I’ve finally done it—I’ve lost my mind.

You haven’t heard from me in months—not since the bleach debacle—and now, here I am, committing to writing and posting every single day for a whole month!

But the A-Z Challenge just looked like too much fun to pass up.

Here are the basics:

Participants will post every day (except Sundays) for the entire month of April. Each day’s post will correspond to a letter of the alphabet. It all starts tomorrow (well, now today—April 1) with the letter A, and it’ll finish up on Wednesday, April 30, with the letter Z.

Brief posts. Engaging posts. Useful posts.

Well, that’s how I’m envisioning it, anyway.

Are you ready for this?

Am I?