DATELINE NEW YORK: Your Easter basket (04/19/98)

DATELINE NEW YORK: Your Easter basket

by Helen Smindak

In your Easter basket, with all the frills upon it, did you try to wedge the entire contents of your refrigerator? Perhaps you packed half a ring of kovbasa, a tall babka, a large paska, several hard-boiled eggs, a whole horseradish root, a half pound of butter and a container of cottage cheese. Or did you go the conservative route, with just a sampling of the foods that are traditionally eaten on Easter morning?

The correct answer is "a sampling of foods," according to Lubov Wolynetz, educational director and folk-art curator for The Ukrainian Museum in New York. "You should include a small amount of each of the traditional Easter foods in your basket; after the church service, everyone in the family must have a portion of the blessed food plus what you left behind in the refrigerator."

Mrs. Wolynetz says that Ukrainians "judge the mistress of the house according to the way her Easter basket looks, what it contains, and how it is decorated." Speaking earlier this month to a group of housewives and a lone male who had assembled at the museum for a class in Easter bread baking, she gave further pointers that could be kept in mind for the future: the Easter basket, "the pride and joy of the family," should be lined with a newly embroidered rushnyk (ritual cloth) or a white napkin, and covered with an embroidered rushnyk.

The contents should include two breads, a paska, the most important Easter bread, finished with solar-motif dough decorations and centered with a candle (to be lighted when the priest begins the blessing ceremony), and a babka, a tall, mushroom-shaped bread, which contains more eggs and butter and less flour. Other edibles: peeled, hard-boiled eggs; a small amount of salt; farmer's cheese; a nicely-shaped piece of butter, decorated with whole cloves and set on a small dish or atop the cheese; a piece of horseradish root or grated horseradish mixed with beets, and a small ring of kovbasa.

Pysanky (new ones every year) and krashanky, eggs dyed in a variety of colors, with one red egg a definite must, are nestled in among the foods. For a decorative touch, pussy willow branches or spring flowers and periwinkle may be tied to the basket handle with a red ribbon (plastic flowers are a definite no-no).

These hints were offered by Mrs. Wolynetz as she mixed and kneaded dough for a paska and blended ingredients for a cheesecake and a fruit-and-nut cake. Her advice for making a light, airy and tasty paska came from long-held beliefs that instruct the housewife to "think only good thoughts when preparing and kneading paska dough; avoid sudden noises; let no neighbors or strangers into the house while the dough is rising or in the oven; remain standing while the paska is baking (or it will turn out flat)."

To be absolutely sure of a successful paska, the baker should recite an incantation as she places the bread into the oven: "Holy paska, be as grand and beautiful as the sun, because we are baking you for the sun. Let all members of our family be healthy. Let our children grow up as quickly as you grow."

The three-hour class included a demonstration on making a steamed babka, shown by the museum's archivist Christina Pevny, who explained the method she uses to produce her own favorite Easter bread. Mrs. Wolynetz offered a recipe for a cheese and butter combo that called for mixing together farmer's cheese, confectioner's sugar to taste, raisins, a half teaspoon of cinnamon, a pinch of ground cloves and a pinch of nutmeg. Formed into a flat mound on a pretty plate, the cheese mixture was topped by a stick of butter, which was decorated by "carving" raised flowers with a small knife. For aromatic effect, whole cloves were inserted around the flowers.

Students took advantage of a coffee break (and bread and cake tasting) to look at exhibits of folk costumes, headdresses and Easter eggs and to browse in the gift shop. Informed about the performance of Ukrainian spring ritual dances on East Seventh Street, several indicated they would turn up outside St. George's Church on April 19. As the baking session concluded and an Easter-egg decorating demonstration began, some stayed to watch the step-by-step wax-resist method explained by New York artist Sofika Zielyk, just back from demos at the Smithsonian Museum and the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, and egg decorator Anna Gbur of Cranford, N.J.

Information about classes on Easter and Christmas bread baking can be obtained by contacting the museum at 203 Second Ave., New York, NY 10003. The museum can also be reached by telephone/fax at (212) 228-0110 and via e-mail at [email protected].

Martha Stewart at Kurowycky's

Martha Stewart, the diva of domesticity, has been visiting Kurowycky's meet market in the East Village for years. She has told viewers of her daily syndicated TV series, "Martha Stewart Living," that she goes to Kurowycky's when she needs dried mushrooms. Recently she confided that "when I was a little girl, my dad used to take us to Kurowycky's - a wonderful meat market in New York City - to choose our Easter kielbasa [the Polish name for kovbasa] every single year."

Each spring, the March or April issue of her Living magazine pinpoints a specific date on the calendar for a trip to the East Village to "pick up ham, kielbasa and horseradish at Kurowycky's."

This year, she went a step further, she brought her TV crew to one of the few places in New York that has a licensed smokehouse to document "just how they make that exact same kielbasa that I've been buying all these years."

Speaking with Jerry Kurowycky Sr. and his son, Jerry Jr., who operate the store, Ms. Stewart surveyed the variety of smoked meats and sausages in the display cases before moving on to the back room where kovbasa is prepared and smoked. She followed the process of kovbasa-making just as "Dateline" did a year ago (April 27, 1997), asking questions and watching closely as Jerry Sr. ground up pork shoulder coarsely in a huge stainless steel tub, added some ground beef, then mixed in spices and freshly ground garlic.

Ms. Stewart continued her review focusing on the sausage-stuffing technique as the butcher used an air-pressure machine to fill edible casings with the meat mixture and his son tied the rings of sausage and hung them on racks. She herself got into the act by hanging sausages on the rack and helping to wheel it into the gas-fired smokehouse.

Later in the show, which aired April 2, Ms. Stewart's mother, Martha Kostyra, showed her method of cooking what the TV hostess described as "this simple Ukrainian and Polish specialty" - first by parboiling a kovbasa ring for 15 to 20 minutes, then transferring the sausage (pricked with a fork) into a roasting pan and baking it in a 350-degree oven for 20 minutes. The finished delicacy was set on a platter with rye bread, sweet butter, pickled beets, hard-boiled eggs and horseradish (prepared with grated horseradish, vinegar and sugar).

The day before, Kurowycky Meat Products received a pat on the back in the New York Daily News from food authors Patricia M. Mackenzie and William L. Gillen. Ms. Mackenzie and Mr. Gillen informed readers they would not be cooking an Easter feast this year - "we'll be serving a Kurowycky ham in the traditional style, at room temperature." Headlined "Where hams take the Old World cure," the article mentioned that the shop was established in 1955 by Erast Kurowycky and is now operated by his son and grandson.

Kurowycky's dry-cures (ages in salt) each ham for several weeks, smokes the hams overnight in four giant ovens, then bakes them on a bed of ham bones to prevent burning the bottoms. The hams require no further cooking, but can be reheated easily if "warm is your way."

The article was accompanied by a photo of the father-and-son team checking the ovens.

Springtime at Mayana

During the first two weeks of April, the Mayana Gallery at 136 Second Ave. has been abloom with springtime color in the form of large, life-like color photographs - forsythia, acacias, magnolias and Japanese cherry - scenes caught on film with such accuracy and naturalness that one was sure the scent of the flowers came through as well.

The work of amateur photographer Teodor Teren-Juskiw of Brooklyn, the poster-size photos of spring flowers are part of a 79-item exhibit that includes stunning views of sunsets near the Statue of Liberty and the Verrazano Bridge, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and costumed youngster performing spring ritual dances outside St. George's Church in Manhattan. The works range from 8-by-10 through 11-by-14 scenes to the poster-size flower photos.

Mr. Juskiw does not restrict himself to spring themes and landscapes, but points his Contax camera at colorful compositions that catch his fancy at any season - laughing sunflowers, a kylym of autumn leaves on the ground, waterlilies and exotic orchids at the Botamic Gardens. His portraits, mostly of persons in the field of arts (conductor/singer Volodymyr Bozhyk, artists Lubomyr Kuzma and Pavlo Lopata and opera singer Alexandra Hrabova, for instance), reveal a flair for catching individual expressions and moods.

Mr. Juskiw is gifted with other talents as well, as pointed out during opening ceremonies by Mr. Kuzma and musicologist Oksana Lykhovyd. A native of western Ukraine's Horodenka area, he sang as a baritone at the Lviv and Warsaw opera houses after studying with famed opera singer Adam Didur at the Lysenko Music Society and taking first prize in a 1939 competition in Lviv. He is active now as a music and art critic for such Ukrainian periodicals as Svoboda, America, Canada's Homin Ukrainy and London's Vyzvolnyi Shliakh.

The exhibit, his fourth since 1972, was opened by Mayana Gallery curator Slava Gerulak and sponsored by the gallery and the Ukrainian Art-Literary Club. The exhibit continues through April 19.