Mmm...Bucket Of Lard

Alright, gotta take this slowly, ease back into the whole blog thing with small yet delicious nuggets of information. After more than four months off, I obviously need to post something on here. I probably got too ambitious promising to talk in detail about a week-long trip, so I'll try to get back to some more narrowly focused topics so I don't go crazy.

So here's something from Poland. I went with Ben, Kathryn, and Michaela from Thursday, Apr. 10 to Sunday, Apr. 13. We took a train from Berlin to Warsaw, which took about six hours, stayed there for a night and the next day we took a train to Krakow at around 8 PM. It turned out to be a great trip, beautiful cities that really rebounded after the war -- Warsaw in particular, since it was about 96% destroyed, whereas I think Krakow got off easier -- interesting sights, and many lovely people, both in personality and appearance. This was surprising to us and probably is to everyone else who hasn't been, since the stereotypes of destruction, depression, and terrible fashion haunt many of these eastern European countries. It also helped that the weather was gorgeous, much nicer than in Germany during the same period of time.

While we were surprised to see so many really attractive people, we became even more surprised as we ate at more restaurants. Why? Because when every meal includes lard, you expect to see some lardbutts running -- or lumbering -- along. There were no lardbutts, people. Despite finding lard sprinkled liberally on everything we ate, despite eating a leg of pork in an aspic mold (link goes to a definition), despite being served as a starter some slices of bread with a BUCKET of LARD as a spread (link goes to Kathryn's blog post with pictures of Poland, including Polish food if you scroll down), these Poles were not fat. How do they do it?

Maybe they don't sleep much...that's a good way to lose weight, right? While I was in Poland, I had multiple nightmares each night. I rarely dream anymore, whether good or bad, but on at least two nights I had nightmares which I was able to clearly remember. Since I wasn't doing anything else out of the ordinary, I have to assume that what was fueling my night terrors was the addition of large quantities of pure animal fat to my diet. I'm pretty sure the aspic, which was the first night in Warsaw, started this. If you've never had aspic, the definition I linked to won't do it justice. The horror of forcing this thing down my gullet...Ben tried a bite and refused to chew and swallow it, preferring to spit it in a napkin. I couldn't manage all of it, but half was clearly enough to damage my mind. And while the bucket of lard-spread turned out not to taste like anything as far as we could tell, it definitely was one of the least appetizing buckets I've ever seen.

Don't get me wrong -- most of the food we ate was quite delicious, especially pierogies, and I suppose Polish people don't eat this traditional stuff every meal the way we did. Definitely keep an open mind and try stuff, especially since the most hilarious reactions came from people realizing they needed to get the lard out of their mouths NOW. But don't overdo it unless you packed a night light and a teddy bear.