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Families feud. Factions within them with axes to grind occasionally take swings at settling things. One such occasion in our clan was always Christmas Eve, when a long-simmering rivalry between two of my aunts boiled-over into heated competition to claim best family cook bragging rights. In one corner, hailing from her home kitchen on Hartwell in East Dearborn, was Mrs. Mary “proud of that pronoun” Gozdzialski. In the other, from her nearby Reuter street digs, Ms. “I don’t need a man to tell me what to do,” Helen Stempkowski.
Each intent on taking the crown, my constantly-sparring aunts trained their efforts on their respective strengths. Aunt Mary was our reigning pie-baking champ. Her apple, cherry, blueberry, and pumpkin offerings were all knock-out-punch quality, and she brought a battery of them to the table every year. Aunt Helen’s ham, meanwhile, was world-class; intimidatingly magazine cover-worthy with its perfect studding of stickpin cloves and glossy, honey-mustard glaze gussied-up with ginger ale or 7 Up (I forget which), her “secret” ingredient. To this day, while recognizing prime rib’s serious contender status, slow-roasted ham remains — in my mind — as great a whole-muscle meat presentation as anyone can put on a pedestal platter. Pound for pound, cost-wise, taste-wise, it’s what I put my money on.
Evenly matched in cooking skills otherwise, my aunts kept to their respective camps in the days preceding the main event. Insiders from each side teased with reports that the competitors were in good shape, ready and raring to go at it again. Once the pork butt-grinding and pickled pig’s feet gelatin (which we ate as a dessert) were done, it was time to pop the tops on the pickled Herring and open the annual can of Polish culinary whoop-ass on each other. Christmas Eve came; fight night.
With the 6:30 ringing of the dinner bell, it was on. Opening rounds were contested at Aunt Helen’s house, where my grandmother lived and reigned as family figurehead. The second Grandma finished saying grace, her two girls started jabbing.
“Now tell me what you think of my kielbasa,” Aunt Helen baited around the tables, dishing it out and fishing for compliments. Heads bobbed over first bites. Full mouths muffled general nom-noms. Nobody answered with anything specific. We all knew better, and what she’d say next: “I just hope there’s not too much garlic.” Those were fighting words.
“Now me, I like it garlicky,” Aunt Mary countered quick. Shots fired and taken by both combatants, everyone eating within earshot instantly became potential conscripts to the conflict. Seats at the table turned foxholes for ducking into as the subject of sausage filling became cannon fodder flying back and forth in passive-aggressive salvos. Most of us kept our heads down. A few who tried to be heroes died on that molehill.
“I like it either way,” Uncle Stash (Stanley) — proud Marine — at once volunteered. Neither of his sisters appreciated his diplomacy. Shot down by both for transparent appeasement efforts, he beat a hasty retreat back into our silent company. All the rest of us could do was quietly admire him for it.
“Garlic. No garlic. Same damn difference.” My Uncle Janek would charge in after way too many shots of courage before dinner, raising chuckles all around, let-loose with tacit agreement, no doubt.
“Why are you laughing, Harry?” Aunt Mary would ask her husband, dead seriously.
“Enough, Janek,” Aunt Helen would button her brother’s loose lip. “Maybe it’s time you had coffee already.”
“Everybody just eat,” Grandma would referee in Polish when the go-‘rounds got too testy for her tastes. With fighters stifled and separated by her decree, we’d set to finishing a magnificent meal in a more peaceful quiet. “Now, that’s all good cooks need to hear around their tables…” she’d reset the mood a minute later. “…The sound of family with mouths full of food to enjoy.” Amen. God bless simple wisdoms.
After dessert, we passed presents and more alcohol. By 8:30, the entire living room was covered in six inches of shredded wrapping paper, and the whole house reeked of Old Grand-Dad Bourbon, beer belches, and Lucky Strike cigarette smoke. That strong-scented memory of my childhood Christmases still perfumes my sentimentality over the Holidays. What I wouldn’t give for another whiff. At 9:00, on Aunt Helen’s unceremonious cue (“OK, Grandma needs her sleep!”), everyone packed up and took the party over to Aunt Mary and Uncle Harry’s house, where the family Christmas proceeded into extended poker or Pinochle playing and — remarkably — a second seating of full-blown dinner served a scant two after the first; mirroring its predecessor dish for dish, but presided over this time by proud Mary. Uncontested now by contrary opinion (Aunt Helen always stayed back with Grandma), she had her say.
“Try my kapusta [kielbasa and sauerkraut],” she beamed with the glow of a girl who’d had her share of highballs [bourbon and Squirt] by then. “It’s just right.”
These days, this Goldilocks of garlic-flavoring is the sole survivor among her siblings. At nearly 101, she spoke with me “long-distance” as she says, from her nursing home in Traverse City, just this past week.
“You know, Bobby,” she looked back with me, lucid and illuminating in hindsight. “Some memories are happy. Some sad. But they’re all precious. It’s a shame how much time we spent quarreling, but I loved my sister and I’m sure she loved me.” The point she drove home was most poignant, given how their story ended; after many years of them barely speaking to each other over a perceived slight centered around — of all things — a missed ride to church. My Aunt Helen went to her rest in 2009 with the rift between them unresolved.
And that brings us back to the whole point here. Maybe this Christmas, bury the hatchet with someone you love but sometimes can barely stand for some silly reason or another.
Like my mother used to say for her part in it, “The hard feelings really aren’t worth it.”
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