USA, Canada / POLISH AMERICANS AND THE 2008 US ELECTION [79]

Which of the three main candidates, Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama, vying for the Democratic Party nomination, and the presumed Republican hopeful, John McCain do you think will better serve the interests of the Polish-American community (US Polonia). Why do you think so?

Some say that most Polish Americans have made the transition into the middle class and do not perceive themselves as a separate electorate with specific needs. Others contend that there are issues of interest to many Polsh Americans which include:

• Immigration-law reform enabling Polish immigrants to obtain legal status – permanent residence or US citizenship;
• Ensuring more Federal Government appointments, including cabinet posts, for Polish Americans;
• Vigorous prosecution of anti-Polonism through the creation of a special Polish anti-defamation unit at the US State Department similar to that which now monitors anti-Semitism world.wide;

• Support for basic family values, including pro-life principles, the traditonal family headed by married heterosexual parents, religious upbringing and high standards of public morality;
• More student, academic and cultural exchange programs with Poland;
• Increased American military aid for Poland in exchange for its agreement to host parts of the US anti-missile shield on Polish territory.
• Increasing business opportunities for Polish companies in the United States;
• Making good on the F-16 offset program, whereby the US pledged to promote investments in Poland in exchange for Poland’s purchase of F-16 jet fighter planes;

• Inclusion of Poland in the visa-waiver program, enabling Poles to visit the US without having to apply for an American visa; the US is now the only NATO country that still discriminates Poles in this way.

Food / COFFEE BRANDS IN POLAND & ELSEWHERE? [17]

What brands of coffee for home brewing do you prefer in Poland and other countries represented on this forum? Pre-ground or whole beans ground at home just before brewing? Know of any decent-tasting decaffeinated brand? Just curious.

Food / DILL (KOPEREK) - POLAND'S FAVOURITE SUMMER HERB [5]

DILL (KOPEREK) - POLAND'S FAVOURITE SUMMER HERB
Few other cuisines make as wide use of fresh dill, that green herb with the feathery leaves which imparts a bright, lively flavour to a variety of dishes. It is often used in places where Western cuisines use parsley. Some examples:

POLISH SOUPS
FRESH TOMATO SOUP (zupa ze świeżych pomidorów): Wash, hull and quarter 1 ¼ lb fresh (preferably locally grown, vine-ripened) tomatoes and simmer covered on low heat with several T stock and 2 T butter 15-20 min. Sieve or purée in processor and add to 6 c meat or vegetable stock and season to taste with salt & pepper. Cream with ½ c sour cream fork-blended with 1 heaping T flour. Simmer briefly and serve over egg noodles or rice. Garnish whith chopped dill. Variation: When fresh vine-ripened tomatoes are out of season, simply stir 4-5 T tomato concentrate directly into hot stock and proceed as above. Canned tomato juice cooked with an equal amt of stock is also good.

SPRING VEGETABLE SOUP (zupa wiosenna): This soup makes use of the season's first baby vegetables. To 5-6 c hot meat stock add a total of 3 c diced vegetables in any proportion, including green onions, baby carrots, small kohlrabi, cauliflower flowerlets, celery and peeled new potatoes. Cook until vegetables are tender but not overcooked (15-20 min.) Thicken with 2 heaping T flour dissolved in ½ - ¾ c half & half or 1½ c milk and simmer several min longer. Salt & pepper to taste and garnish with finely chopped fresh dill, and a little chopped parsley (optional). This soup can also be made with mature fresh vegetables or frozen vegetables.

CAULIFLOWER SOUP (zupa kalafiorowa): Break up 1 cauliflower into small flowerlets, scald drain and add to 6-7 c hot vegetable stock. Cook uncovered 10-15 min or until tender. Dissolve 1 heaping T flour in 1 c milk, add to pot and bring to boil. Add 1 T butter, salt & pepper to taste and garnish with fresh chopped dill. Serve plain or over egg-drop noodles or croutons (see below).

CROUTONS (grzanki): Allow roughly 1 slice white bread (preferably Italian, Vienna, Kaiser rolls or anything else firmer than that mushy American white bread!) and 1 t butter per serving. Cut bread into ½" squares and brown in melted butter in skillet to a nice crunchy golden-brown at least on 2 sides, taking care not to burn croutons. Variation: Rye-bread croutons have extra zest and don't go soggy as quickly as those made with white bread.

CREAM OF SORREL SOUP (zupa szczawiowa): Wash a handful of fresh sorrel (about 1/3 lb) very well in plenty of cold running water to remove all sand. Trim off and discard stems. Chop and simmer in 2 T butter in sauce pan about 5 min. Dissolve 2 T flour in 1 c meat stock or bouillon, add to sorrel and simmer several min longer. Add sorrel mixture to 5 c meat or vegetable stock and bring to boil. Remove from heat. Fork-blend 3/4 c sour cream, gradually adding 1 c soup 1 T at a time. Gradually stir into soup pot and simmer several min. Serve over halved hard-cooked eggs, allowing 1 egg per serving. Optional: garnish with a bit of chopped dill. Note: In southern Poland, this soup is usually served with rice. Hint: Bottled sorrel is available at Polish markets and delis.

POLISH MAIN COURSES
ROAST CHICKEN POLONAISE (kurczę pieczone po polsku): Soak 2 broken-up stale white bread rolls in milk to cover until soggy. Process or grind together with 3 raw chicken livers. Combine mixture with 1/4 lb raw ground veal, 1 - 2 eggs, 1 - 2 T soft butter or margarine. Work well by hand until fully blended. Season with salt, pepper, a dash of nutmeg, 1 heaping T finely chopped fresh dill and (optional) 1 t finely chopped parsley. Mix well. Rinse well 2-1/2 - 3 lb broiler and pat dry. Rub inside and out with salt and stuff just before roasting. The general rule of thumb is to allow about 3/4 c stuffing per lb of chicken. Sew up, tying legs together. Rub chicken all over with a little oil, sprinkle with pepper and paprika and rub in. Bake in preheated 375° oven about 75 - 90 min. Baste occasionally with pan drippings. Serve with sliced cucumbers with sour cream and dilled new potatoes.

CHICKEN-BREAST CUTLETS (kotlety z piersi kurczaka): Pound 4 skinned and halved chicken breasts to between 1/8" and 1/4" thick. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and (optional) hunter's seasoning, dredge in flour, dip in egg wash and roll in bread crumbs, shaking off excess. Fry in several T hot butter to a nice gold-brown (several min per side), drain on absorbent paper and serve immediately. Dress portions sprigs of dill and lemon wedges. Serve with rice or potatoes and mizeria or lettuce.

BREADED PORK CUTLETS (kotlety schabowe): This is probably Poland's single most popular main course! Cut bones away 6 center-cut pork chops or slice boneless center-cut pork loin 1" thick and pound with meat mallet pound on both sides until ¼" Sprinkle with salt, pepper and a pinch of marjoram and/or garlic powder if desired. Dredge in flour, dip in egg wash and roll in fine, plain bread crumbs. Gently press breading into cutlets so it stays put during frying. Fry to a nice golden brown on both sides in hot lard, vegetable shortening or oil, drain on paper towel and serve immediately. Optional: Garnish with a bit of fresh dill.

MEAT & RICE GO£ĄBKI (gołąbki tradycyjne): Prepare filling by combining 1 lb raw ground meat (pork, pork & beef, pork-veal-beef combination, or ground dark-meat turkey) with 4-6 c undercooked rice, 1-3 chopped butter-fried onions fried, 1 egg and 1 T chopped dill. Mix ingredients well and salt & pepper to taste. Place oblong portion of filling at base of wilted, parboiled cabbage leaves with thick center vein removed, roll up and place snugly in roasting pan in no more than two layers. Drench cabbage rolls in roasting pan with either 4 c tomato juice (plain or containing several dashes Tabasco or ¼ - ½ c spicy-style ketchup) or 3 c puréed or stewed tomatoes. Bake covered at 350° 1 hr. Reduce heat to 325° and cook another 1-2 hrs.

MUSHROOM GO£ĄBKI (gołąbki z grzybami): In 4 T butter, margarine or oil sauté 16 oz fresh portobello or white mushrooms, or some of each (washed and chopped) with 2 medium chopped onions. When lightly browned, combine with 4 c preferably slightly undercooked rice, barley or buckwheat groats. Add 1 raw egg, 1 T chopped dill and mix to blend ingredients. Salt & pepper to taste and garnish with 1 T chopped fresh parsley and 2 T chopped dill. Fill pre-wilted cabbage leaves as usual, drench with a 10½ oz can cream of mushroom soup combined with 3 c boiling water in which 1 mushroom bouillon cube has been dissolved, and bake in preheated 350° oven at least 2 hrs. Not only vegetarians will enjoy this tasty dish!

GROUND PORK CUTLETS (kotlety mielone): Soak stale white bread rolls (app. ¼ lb) in water or milk until soggy. Fry 2 sliced onions in a little fat until golden. Run drained soaked bread and onions through meat-grinder or process briefly. Combine with 2¼ lbs ground pork (or pork & veal or pork-veal-beef mixture), add 2 eggs, mix well by hand to blend ingredients and a dash of garlic powder, 1 t chopped dill and salt & pepper to taste. Form 12 - 16 meatballs depending on size desired. Fry in hot fat as is or (if you prefer crustier cutlets) first dredge in flour. Fry to a nice golden-brown on both sides, flattening them somewhat with spatula. Reduce heat, cover and simmer on low another 10 min or so until fully cooked.

DILLED NEW POTATOES (młode kartofelki z koperkiem): If you can get real, young, walnut-sized new potatoes, instead of peeling them use nylon scrubber to scrub away the thin skins under cold, running water. Place 2½ lbs scrubbed new potatoes in pot, cover with boiling water, add 1 t salt and cook on med heat about 30 min or until fork-tender. Drain. Dot with butter (about 1 T) and garnish with finely chopped fresh dill. Toss gently to evenly coat potatoes with melting butter and dill.

CALIFLOWER POLONAISE (kalafior po polsku): Remove any green leaves from base of cauliflower and trim off core. Place cauliflower cored-side-down in a pot tall enough so the cauliflower is at least 3" from the top rim. Add cold water coming up 1/3 of the way up the cauliflower and 1 t salt, bring to boil, reduce heat and cook covered at a gentle rolling boiling about 20 - 30 min or until fork-tender. Meanwhile, in saucepan heat 3-4 T butter until it bubbles, stir in 2-3 T bread crumbs and simmer, stirring frequently, until it is nicely browned. Remove cooked cauliflower from pot, drain well, place on serving platter and spoon the browned bread-crumb topping over it. Garnish wtih chopped dill. This can be a side dish or a nice vegetarian meal in itself with some sliced tomatoes and dilled, buttered new potatoes on the side.

VEGETABLES POLONAISE (jarzyny po polsku): Other vegetables may be prepared the same way as cauliflower polonaise, including wax and string beans, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, carrots, peas, peas & carrots, cabbage, etc. Simply cook vegetable in lightly salted water until tender, drain well and garnish with browned buttered bread crumb topping and chiopped dill. Optional: Instead of plain water, vegetables may be cooked in stock or simply add a bouillon cube to the pot. Note: Adding a little sugar (1 t or so per 2 c water) will improve the taste of many vegetables.

POLISH SALADS
CUCUMBERS & SOUR CREAM (mizeria): Peel 2 cucumbers and slice into thin rounds. Sprinkle with salt and let stand 30 min. Pour off liquid. Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper, 2- 3 pinches sugar and 1 T lemon juice or vinegar. Lace with 1/2 - 2/3 c fork-blended sour cream (or plain yogurt for weight-watchers). Garnish with chopped dill. Optional: Intersperse a small onion sliced wafer thin.

Food / POLISH-STYLE FRUIT & VEGETABLE GARDENING [4]

Fruit and Vegetable Gardening -- Poland style

Not all the ingredients used in Polish cuisine are readily available in every American supermarket, and that is particularly true of certain garden produce. Besides, it is often more convenient to pop into the garden rather than to drive to a supermarket even for those varieties commonly found in its produce department. And, there is a certain satisfaction in growing your own in your backyard vegetable patch, as the produce is fresher, mroe natural and devoid of chemcial lfie supports. Here are some suggestions.

BEETS, BEETROOTS (buraki): To make a delicious baby-beet soup called botwinka, you need the greens and immature roots of baby beets which are rarely available commercially. Growing your own will enable you to enjoy this treat early in the season and prepare all kinds of other beet dishes (buraczki, barszcz, ćwikła, etc.) when your beets mature.

CELERIAC (seler): Stalk celery has never been widely used in Polish cuisine. When Poles say seler, when mean celeriac (root-celery), but that is not always easy to find in America. That's why growing your own is a good idea for all Polish food fanciers who have their own vegetable patch. This root vegetable (that grows underground with green leaves protruding) is one of the classic ingredients of włoszczyzna (Polish soup greens). It is also prepared as a cooked vegetable in its own right, is great in mixed-vegetable salads and can even be pre-cooked and then fried like a breaded cutlet.

CHIVES (szczypiorek): These fine, subtly onion-flavored greens add flavor and color to a wide variety of dishes including: white cheese, scrambled eggs, soups, salads, sauces, fish and gravy-type dishes. Available in supermarkets, but it's more convenient to have them handy, ready to be snipped when needed.

CURRANTS (porzeczki): Currants are another berry-type fruit far better known in Poland than America. Blackcurrants have much more vitamin C than citrus fruits and are great in syrups, juices, jams and alcoholic cordials. Redcurrants are also enjoyed by many, and there are even whitecurrants.

DILL (koper): This is one of Poland's favorite herbs. Finely chopped, the fragrant feathery leaves impart an unforgettable flavor to boiled new potatoes and other vegetables, poultry stuffing, soups, sauces and fish dishes. The mature dill stalks are used to make dill pickles. Even if you don't have a vegetable garden, dill will grow along a fence, behind the garage or in other such out-of-the-way places. Some apartment-dwellers even grow it in a window or balcony flower-box.

GOOSEBERRIES (agrest): One of Poland's favorite garden berries is nowhere nearly as well known in America. They are excellent in preserves, syrups and compotes and can be used in an interesting sauce for meats. Gooseberry bushes have extremely sharp thorns and a row of them can be planted to successfully keep unwanted stray animals from wandering into unfenced property.

GREEN-GAGE PLUMS (renklody): Large, yellowish, pinkish or red plums usually meant for eating. They are also used in jams and other preserves.

GREEN/SPRING ONIONS (dymka, szczypior): Chopped green onions are a nice garnish for most salads, white cheese, and cooked-vegetable dishes. And scrambled eggs are superb when fried in chopped greens onions simmered in butter.

HORSERADISH (chrzan): Prepared horseradish is easy enough to find on the market, but some recipes call for grated horseradish roots. This root vegetable spreads underground enabling you to dig up a root whenever you need it.

ITALIAN PLUMS (węgierki): Known in Polish as Hungarian plums, they are widely used in Polish cookery to make powidła (plum butter), jams, syrups and cakes.

LEEKS (pory): This is another ingredient of standard Polish soup greens which comprise: carrots, leeks, parsley roots or parsnips, onions and celeriac. Leeks also make a delicious soup and cooked vegetable and are great in salads.

MARJORAM (majeranek): Whereas dill is Poland's favorite fresh herb, marjoram is the most widely used dried herb. The stalks of mature marjoram are cut, tied together in bunches and suspended upside down in a warm place. When fully dried, the leaves are stripped off and sieved to get home-made rubbed marjoram. It beautifully brings out the flavor of pork dishes, meat balls, gołąbki, soups, bigos, roast duck and goose as well as bean dishes. Marjoram is the main flavor accent in kiszka and West Poland kiełbasa.

PARSLEY (pietruszka): Although this green is more widely available in America than dill, having your own fresh-picked parsley whenever you need it is certainly more convenient than dashing down to the store or doing without. The finely chopped greens are used in poultry stuffing (together with dill) and to garnish potatoes, vegetables, soups and salads. The parsley root is one of the traditional soup greens.

PEARMAINS (papierówki): Despite their English name, pearmains are not pears but the earliest variety of apple to ripen (in most years ready to eat in June). The Polish name refers to its paper-thin skin which always a greenish yellow and never turns red.

POTATOES (kartofle/ziemniaki): Although potatoes are certainly available in even the smallest grocery, finding real Polish-style walnut-sized młode kartofelki -- the kind you don't have to peel since their thin skin easily comes often under running water with a pan scrubber -- is not always easy. Naturally, you have to have a fair-sized garden to make growing potatoes worth your while.

RADISHES (rzodkiewka): Although easy to find in supermarkets, there is nothing like crunchy garden-fresh radishes to liven up salads and lend color to platters. They are cooked whole until fork-tender in boiling salted water and garnished with Polonaise topping (butter-browned bread crumbs). The young greens can be chopped and used to garnish salads and white cheese like chives.

RUSSET APPLES (szara reneta): These tart apples are regarded by Polish homemakers as the best variety for cakes, duck and goose stuffing, compotes and other cooking needs.

Genealogy / MEANING OF UŁASZYN AND ŁUCIŃSKI SURNAME [6]

Ułaszyn is a name of patronymic origin derived from, believe or not, the Christian name Błażej (Blaise). Purely Polish patronymics would include Błażejczyk or Błażejowski, so what does that have to do with Ułaszyn?. Remember that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was once euro per's biggest land empire encompassing-besides the nations mentioned in the name itself-Latvians, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, Armenians, Moldavians, Tartars, etc., etc. This made for quite a bit of cultural cross-fertilisation. In Ukrainian there were several versions of Błażej, including Własyj and Włas (Polish spelling). In Ukrainian the W (English V sound) often alternates with a semi-consonantised U to produced a mildly English W sound, and this would produce Ułas instead of Włas. From there, Ułaszyn (meaning Blaise's boy) is but a step away. For more information on the Ułaszyns of Poland, where they live, whether anyone else is researching the surname and whether a coat of arms goes with it, plus a slew of genealogical tips on tracking down lost-lost relation, please contact me.