Trena Eiden

Every year, just before Christmas, I bake five loaves of Potica Bread. Depending on who you ask, Potica pronounced po-teet-suh, is a Serbian, Slovenian, Croatian or Yugoslavian pastry, but it’s my mother’s recipe and we’re not those, we’re just us. This delicate deliciousness is rolled thin, then lathered with a mixture of 3 pounds of chopped walnuts, which is 11 cups, a pound of butter, two cups honey, lots of vanilla and six eggs. It’s expensive and time consuming, but I make it because it’s a family tradition. I say tradition, but wouldn’t that imply that my children, who are all grown up, would now be making Potica Bread? I would have thought so, but since I make it for them, why do it themselves? I once asked our oldest son if they’d ever made the bread and he gave a hearty laugh, “Haha!” Puzzled because his wife is a crackerjack cook, I asked, “Why not?” He raised his eyebrows and loudly, as if talking to a deaf or demented mother, explained in an exasperated tone, “We looked at the recipe, saw the expensive ingredients, then read what all that the recipe entailed and decided we wouldn’t be doing that.”             

I understood this wise thinking because as I finish out each baking session for the season, I think, “It’s pricey and a lot of work, I don’t think I’ll do it next year.” But, like birthing babies, I forget how awful it is and next year, I do it all again.

Disclaimer: For those of you who are true culinary experts, “awful” for me is any recipe with more than three ingredients or taking more than five minutes. I’m basically Rita Rudner, who long ago said, “I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and say, ‘Well, that’s not going to happen.’” 

Last year for Christmas, Gar and went to see our kids in Orlando. We visited Disney World and were a little mesmerized by 8.5 million lights stretching 15 miles. There were 5,000 garlands and 1,700 wreaths and the decorations used 300,000 yards of ribbon. It was inspiring, but what was really mind-blowing was the baking. At the Grand Floridian Resort, there was a life-sized, two-story gingerbread house with 10,000 individual gingerbread shingles. It took the team of bakers 500 hours to bake the gingerbread and another 480 hours to build and decorate the house. They used 1,050 pounds of honey, 800 pounds of flour, 140 pints of egg whites, 700 pounds of chocolate and 600 pounds of powdered sugar, 35 pounds of spices, a lot of creativity and I’m guessing some magic. How else could you get people to willingly bake like that? Pay them I guess, and I wouldn’t know anything about that.  

Cinderella’s Castle, built with over 4,000 gingerbread bricks, took 37 people 11 days to assemble, mostly because it was over 17 feet tall and 25 feet wide. Using 611 pounds of sugar, 439 jars of honey, 1,011 pounds of flour, 111 pounds of spices, 51 pounds of chocolate plus 67 pounds of modeling chocolate, 88 pounds of rolled fondant, 43 pounds of royal icing, 511 eggs, 11 gallons of milk and, according to Disney, 11 sprinklings of pixie dust. All joking aside, if I was baking to that extreme, it’d take a 55-gallon drum of pixie dust, not to mention actual pixies. 

Disney was enchanting, but equally as awe-inspiring was what we saw outside of town in a country neighborhood. While cruising, looking at Christmas lights, we came upon an elderly woman standing by the entrance to her property, which had beautifully lit homes. As she motioned us through, I rolled down my window. She said she was 85 and for 20 years, starting in October, she and her grandson decorated the many houses, barns and outbuildings on her acreage, which cost her an extra $150 in electricity each season. She murmured, “I find great joy in watching people marvel at our family tradition.” Her family tradition was with the grandson, not son, so I’ll have to wait for my grandbabies to grow up. Apparently, the people who emerged from my loins and hers, aren’t into preserving heritage.  

I was fascinated by this older woman’s energy because frankly, the older I get the less I’m compelled to deck the halls. My decorating is noticeably similar to my cooking. If it takes more than five minutes or a single strand of lights, my festive spirit, isn’t. God bless us everyone.