Paska (Ukraine) and Cheesecake (Israel)

For today's Easter holiday, I found a recipe for Paska, a Ukrainian Easter bread, so of course I had to make it! Knowing I had all the ingredients, I decided to make the bread a day ahead so that I could just relax and enjoy the holiday, going to church in the morning and hosting my brother and his family in the afternoon. I am SO glad I planned ahead because this recipe required FIVE hours for the bread to rise. That and a last minute trip, mid-mixing, to the store made for quite the epic preparations. Throw in the cheesecake, a common Sabbath dessert in Israel, and it was a long afternoon in the kitchen.

If you've been following my culinary adventures here, you may have picked up on the fact that I am a bit of a planner. Some of my planning is just about being organized, like with our weekly meal plan, so when we are tired or stressed we don't pile on, and so we aren't wasting precious time on the daily minutia that we could be spending playing outside or snuggling with books. I knew I was going to make this bread recipe, so I planned the time in advance.

Some of our planning is more serious. Our family thinks about the issues we have to face as a transracial family. The looks, rude comments, insensitive questions. We plan for the issues our children absolutely face as boys of color in America. The racial profiling, suspicion, and education gaps. This isn't the kind of planning that fills us with joy. It is heartbreaking and sits in the pit of my stomach. We know we have to face these situations, so we plan our responses and our strategies in advance.

When I consider the message of this holiday season though, I must remember that this is not a lonely journey. We are a family of faith, which sustains us in hard times. We have a family that learns with us and supports our efforts, even as they join with their own. We have an adoption community that provides a dialogue and shared experience that we can reach to for information and resources. We try to surround ourselves with others we trust and respect.

There are going to be unexpected moments in any given recipe. We don't know what the future holds for our children, but we try to prepare them, and ourselves as best we can. Our little family is strong in that regard.