Homemade Tradition

I grew up eating a Czechoslovakian dessert called balbalki sometimes at Christmas and other special occasions.  It’s made with potato bread and ground poppy seeds.  My Paternal Great Grand Mother used to make it after harvesting her own poppy seeds in the fall which she had planted in the spring.  Her potatoes were also homegrown.  She passed before I had a chance to meet her but my Mother continued the tradition, modernizing the recipe a bit.  The first time I brought my Husband home for Christmas he tried this dessert and politely declined to ever try it again.  The ground poppy seeds make for an interesting taste for sure.  So I never made it because my Husband hated it. Fast forward to my Father’s 70’s birthday celebration.  My Mother made balbalki which required grinding 5 cups of poppy seeds–the kids helped and had a blast cranking that grinding handle over and over again.  Then they tried it and loved it!  Yum!  They ate it for days!  So this year I turned 40 and I thought that I really wanted to pass the tradition of balbalki to the kids.  I asked my Mother to find a poppy seed grinder–they make grinders just for poppy seeds!  I wanted to make balbalki for my special day!  And you know what?  Even though my husband said he throws up in his mouth a little thinking of balbalki he ground all those poppy seeds with a (turns out) broken poppy seed grinder which took him hours!  The kids each took a turn.  I did too.  But literally for hours he ground those seeds until they were what I call fluffy.  I was being silly all these years not wanting to make something he didn’t like when the reality is that if it’s important to me he will suport me no matter what.