Making the Paska...

Embarrassingly Silly Time Lapse Video

(for your viewing pleasure) 

Making Paska is a time honored tradition in my mother's family.  It has been an amazing mental time travel experience for me to go through the entire process as an adult child of my mother's and grandchild to my Baba.  I feel an ancestral call to connect more deeply with this part of my Slovakian heritage.  As I knead the dough, I imagine my kitchen filled with apron garbed images of my mother and my Baba, side by side, flour smudges across their time worn yet sturdy hands as they work the dough with expertise. I can hear the subtle scraping of the metal bowls against the countertops at each turn of the dough matching in time with the upbeat polka music that filtered through the kitchen from the dial operated radio at my Baba's house. I take a mental snapshot of these images as they are wisped away by the present day and the beeping of my kitchen timer.

There are four rise times included in this Paska making process and I'm finding they are also a much needed rest time.  And, after baking several batches now, I can understand why we only had it once a year at Easter.  Nevermind it is a traditional Easter bread with all its multifaceted symbolism, this bread literally takes an entire day to complete and none of the processes can be rushed.  Shortcuts don't exist as they would take away the very essence of this masterpiece that is cultivating each step of the way.  It's no wonder that our modern world has switched to electric bread machines.  I'm certain it was a worn out bread maker who invented it thinking there must be a faster way! Ah, yes, the conveniences of our time have created impatient souls.  

Exhausting yes, yet at the same time, exhilarating to witness the achievements of ones tireless effort.  I'm finding that the purposeful pace of this baking process has allowed me to absorb the wisdom within the subtle nuances gaining a greater appreciation for the warrior women that have come before me and who dwell among us who are worn flat out, yet wage on!  A deep appreciation of my ancestry fills my heart in unexpected ways.  I

Since the actual footage would take hours to watch, I thought it might be fun for you to view the prep process for Paska, (especially the messy, sticky parts where I realized I did not add all the flour...learning opportunities are all around us) in a compilation of fun timelapse reels all spliced together.  Enjoy!