Though we've been re-located back to the Midwest for over 2.5 years, we've only been in our new office, studio, and consultation office AND been in our house as homeowners in South Bend for a year and a half total. Though Jenny is from South Bend originally and we've been photographing South Bend & Michiana weddings and portraiture for literally 9 years, this state and city had not been our home base for an 11 year span, so there's been a lot for us to learn about culturally, socially, and more.
South Bend is a diverse city with a plethora of cultures and immigrants from far and wide. Over the past year or two we've gotten into learning more about the culture and experiencing different ethnicities' takes on the holidays. Though this city is very Irish, Mexican, German, etcetera, the Easter season is one of those seasons dominated by a couple different ethnicities in the area: The Polish and the Ukranian. We learned that on Fat Tuesday the local Polish have a few locations that sell highly sought after paczis- a sort of donut type dessert that comes in a magnitude of flavors. We've gone out to get these delicacies both of the past two Fat Tuesdays since living here. Our favorite place to purchase them is West End Bakery because the shape, flavors, and price is unbeatable (plus the shop is small, traditional, and the most authentic place to purchase these sweet Easter treats). Throughout Easter another amazing Polish treat is a kieflie. Everyone is very particular about their kieflies, but the best by far are often made by the eldest matriarchy of the family. These are filled with walnuts, brown sugar, etc. and are wrapped into a C-like shape.
<- Polish lemon, plum, custard, and bavarian cream paczis !(pronounced "pawnsh-keys")
((With an Easter Polish kieflie at the top right!))
Just a couple days ago was another Polish holiday locally: Dyngus Day. Though we don't partake in the drink-all-day Polish-Saint-Patricks-Day style partying that is involved in Dyngus Day the day after Easter, it IS a huge tradition in town, so we did purchase a traditionally Polish alcohol: the brandy Jezynowka (YEZ!). We had it as a sort of aperitif post dinner and we can definitely confirm that it does indeed taste a bit like Dimetapp. Dyngus Day usually involves delicious Polish foods such as Polish sausage, thick kluski noodles, pickled cabbage pierogi, and other hearty foods. We've frequented local smaller meat markets and we can definitely say that Jaworski's Meat Market is one of our favorite places to pick up some of these awesome cabbage pierogis and other sausage goodness-! (Also Eby's Market and others! You can find yourself some rad sheep-shaped Easter butter at both and we may or may not still have one in the fridge.)
Traditional Polish drink.
Though we do have some Polish heritage, we don't know of any Ukranian heritage in either of our families, but that didn't stop us from learning more about Ukranian egg pysanky last year and maintaining the tradition this year! Growing up in South Bend Jenny was introduced to childhood classic books you may remember such as Rechenka's Eggs and Babushka's Doll, so she already knew the main idea behind these amazingly intricate pysanky eggs. With that very little knowledge we swung by for a visit to the Godfrey family at the South Bend Farmer's Market last year to learn more from this great artistic Ukranian family! They showed us the eggs that they'd made so far that year (they churn them out like the pros they are!) and proceeded to give us tips on how to best go about the intricate process. They even sold us our starter pack of beautiful dye, the black wax, a booklet, and the ever necessary tool: the kistka.
So started our pysanky egg tradition last year in our new home in South Bend. When we made our pysanky eggs last year we first hollowed them out with two tiny holes on white eggs: One hole on the top and one hole on the bottom. Through these tiny pin holes you must blow the interior of the egg out. Once cleared out you can cover the holes with wax so that you don't fill the egg with ink liquid. We learned through the process last year that there is another option to this- you can wait to clear the egg out until AFTER you decorate the egg. This way your egg stays heavy in your hand and is easier to decorate AND the egg won't float throughout the dying process. We also bought brown eggs far too late last year, so this year we started off with brown eggs this year to see how they handled color.
The process of pysanky is basically layering colors and patterns through the build-up of wax. Neither of us is much of a planner when it comes to creating fun handmade art, so we still have not taken the route of drawing out our patterns. Since we aren't Ukranian, we haven't exactly taken a traditional route in patterns either, but it's been fun experimenting these past two Easters. Jason has taken an organic route with larger designs, while Jenny has stupidly taken on intricate line work and learned the hard way that horizontal lines on an egg will take years of practice (no matter how much great advice Mrs. Godfrey gave us on that).
The process is quite simple: Scrape wax into the kistka's small pen-tip sized well, heat that metal well on a flame, wait until the wax melts, then draw with the wax. This process sounds easier than it is as it's hard to know when you have a good consistency of wax. This process is done over and over for hours for just one egg. Once you cover with wax the parts you want to remain that color, you dye the egg lighest color next. You then draw wax on the parts you want to be that color, then repeat the process. You can color all the way until black, and then it is time to remove the ink to see how you did. Traditionally the wax is removed from the egg by placing the egg over a flame, but we like to blow dry the egg and wipe the wax away with a paper towel. **Our goal for next year or just for fun throughout the year this year is to get a faster wax method: an electric kistka. We didn't realize that we only have one kistka, so we were only able to create one egg at a time this year.
We hope that those of you who celebrate had an amazing Easter (or Passover) this week and that you enjoyed time with your loved ones and traditions. We have been up in Grand Rapids for the past few days and are looking forward to heading back to our office this weekend! We have some gorgeous physical albums that we've been designing this week (and are about to print this coming weekend) and we're excited to print linen textured photographs for some other family and Senior Portrait Sessions this coming weekend once the families have chosen their favorites! We're coming to a close on wedding photography "Low Season" this month, so we're wrapping up all album designing and portrait printing in the next few weeks and focus our energy toward all of our amazing upcoming 2018 weddings as well as finalizing some additional 2019 weddings!