Język teraza

Though I haven't made much mention of it, I'm still leisurely making my way through the textbooks by Swan and Polakiewicz I acquired two weeks ago. Right now I'm up to lesson 11 in both. I would've posted earlier, but I guess there just isn't much surprising for me in either the Polish language (at one point or another, I've put time into learning Czech, Ukrainian, and Russian) or the books themselves, though there is a certain winsome cluelessness to the way Swan in particular makes a point of scrupulously providing both male and female alternatives for every grammatical form in every dialogue while doing nothing at all to mitigate the glaring sexism of the content. (Here, meet Pan Józef Kowalczyk. He's a rich manager who reads the sporting news every day. Now meet Pani Jolanta Szymanowska. She's a pretty secretary who harbours dreams of being a Hollywood star. Oh, the silly girl!) Polakiewicz is, if anything, worse on this score despite being published a full decade later.

But I'm definitely digging the passive agressiveness of the dialogues. You could page through dozens of similar texts without coming across any gems of veiled hostility comparable to:

• Po co pytasz, skoro już wszystko wiesz? "Why are you asking as long as you already know everything?"
• Ostatnio ciągle jesteś (zmęczona/zmęczony). "Lately, you're constantly tired." [to someone "too tired to go to the concert today"]
• Znam (ja)/(go) od dieciństwa. (Ona)/(On) nie jest tak (miła)/(miły), jak się wydaje. "I've known her/him since childhood. She/he isn't as nice as it seems."

And I've come across at least one beauty of a false friend. Any guesses at to what an adapter is? (Or--more accurately--was, since I can't find any evidence this term is still in use today.)

Sadly, I may have missed out on a golden opportunity to practice what I've learned. My aforementioned Cubs-loving neighbour has a gloriously Polish surname, but that's hardly unusual in this city. Last weekend, however, he had some putative relatives over for a barbecue and I was 99% sure I heard two of them chatting po polsku. Unfortunately, Swan inexplicably waits until lesson 9 to introduce "Do you speak/know/understand Polish?" so I was deprived of my opening line. Oh, well. Być może raz jeszcze.

Odd ends

Weekend before last, I bought me an oxtail. I didn't know what I was going to use it for but it looked too good to pass up, at least what with me being in a buyin' mood. I covered it with water and stewed it from the time I brought it home until a little before I went to bed--nearly ten hours in all. When I went to put it into a tupperware container, the meat slipped right off the bones and I was able to collect 'em and toss 'em out.

In the meantime, I decided to make a German-style Fleischsalat using the meat and a li'l of the broth. So on Saturday, I brought the whole mess to a boil, pulled out a few chunks of cartilage I'd missed, and then strained it. This gave me about a cup-n-a-half of oxtail meat and just under two cups of broth. The broth went back in the fridge and the meat got marinated with pickle, raw onion, cider vinegar, mustard, and I don't remember what-all else.

The end product was surprisingly well received for the simple salad that it was. But this still left me wondrin' what to do with the stock. I confided my dilemma to princeofcairo and he told me, "make some rice with coconut milk and have the best damn beans and rice ever". So tonight, that's exactly what I did.

Well, actually I started last night with the moros y cristianos recipe from Penelope Casas. My one major change was substituting Bosnian sudjuk for the bacon. Nothin' against bacon, of course, but it struck me that beef sausage might go better with beef broth. And indeed it did. I was worried a night in liquid would make the beans too soft, but they held up just fine.

Was it the best beans and rice ever? I asked monshu that and he diplomatically said, "It's definitely one of the best." Certainly there was no shortage of oxtaily goodness in the sauce and my worries about using too much onion (all I had was a big honkin' vidalia) were groundless. I made twice as much rice as usual for the two of us with the thought the extra could be boiled in the leftover coconut milk for pudding, but we wolfed down so much we barely have enough left for a side tomorrow night.

Nasz gościszek z domu

Obecnie mamy kota. On się podoba mojemu przyjacielowi, ponieważ jest bardzo piękny. On ma skórę niebieskoszarą a cztery białe lapy. Jego pierś też jest biała. Poza tym, mój przyjaciel chciał wesołego kota i on jest bardzo wesołym kotem. Prawie dużo wesoły czasami.

Nasz kot ma wiele imiona. Po polsku go nazywam "Szarym Koczurem" albo pro prostu "Koczurem". Kiedy się gniewam on jest "Bestią". Rozgniewam się, bo on mnie kąsa. Chciałbym kupić myszy, żeby on mógłby je kąsać, ale mój przyjaciel jest przeciwnym.