Talking Story

Starting new conversations in the workplace!

  • Rosa’s Books
  • ManagingWithAloha.com
  • RosaSay.com

Pelmeni

January 2, 2010 by Rosa Say

Aloha my friends,
A more personal post coming up. Feel free to skip this one if you subscribe to Talking Story for the management and leadership topics I normally write about. This will speak of values though; for it’s about the tradition of ‘Ohana (family), triggered by fresh experiences during the New Year’s Day holiday.

I cannot help but think about our January learning theme on Joyful Jubilant Learning as well: “Learning Healthy Living” has so much to do with the good-feelings and  emotional health we gain from family traditions which have made us so much of who we are.

New Year’s Eve

Pelmeni: Garlic and diced onion Pelmeni: Adding the hamburger

Pelmeni: Cutting dumpling circles Pelmeni: Spoonful of burger

Pelmeni: Forking the dumplings closed Pelmeni: Creativity trumps consistency

New Year’s Day

As we awake on this first day of the New Year, there is a great big pot in the refrigerator waiting to be transferred back to the stove. For your ‘ōpÅ« (stomach) it promises simple hamburger dumplings in a hamhock broth. For your heart it holds tradition, memory, family, heritage, and love.

After years of remembering and missing it with each New Year’s Day, I finally made my own first pot of Grandma Protacio’s pelemeni in 2007, thanks to nagging my mom about finding the recipe. My sister had done an internet search and found a recipe for me a couple of years ago (and we learned we had never spelled it right), but I’d never made it then: It looked and sounded way too different (ours was always eaten as a soup). Plus I knew mom had the “real deal” stored away somewhere, and I chose instead to trust in the day she’d surely find it.

Pelmeni: “pelemeni” to us expats, far from the family tree Pelmeni: Sprouting Garlic

Sprouting garlic is probably getting too old to most cooks,
but for pelemeni it is part of the story”
new life for the New Year.

My memory was always of having pelmeni on New Year’s Day, but on mom’s recipe card the date is 12/24/75; apparently Grandma chose Christmas that year instead. I was a junior in college; the rest of the family were still in the Philippines then, so perhaps only home for Christmas? Knowing that the recipe only existed in Grandma’s head, mom and I had made it with her that year, mom writing down the ingredients as Grandma made it. Horrible as my memory is with certain things I have to admit that I don’t remember that at all, and just believe mom when she says I was there too.

Truth is, I can’t remember Grandma in the kitchen actually making it at all. I just remember eating it. It was magically ready each New Year’s Day, like it was supposed to be in any year starting off the right way.

This year Zach was home to help me (his hands are in these photos) and entertain me… it became an all of New Year’s Eve production, with flour everywhere when we were done with the dumpling making.  We even made some wannabe ramen with the soup stock and macaroni, cooked mid-pelmeni production as our lunchtime intermission. Impressive!

Pelmeni: Cooling the dumpling mixture Pelmeni: Mid-day Eve Meal

This is where the Chinese quick-cook (Ker) meets my Russian tradition.
We’ve already been boiling hamhocks with garlic, sage and chicken broth most of the morning to make the dumpling soup stock. So while the hamburger cooled we used the broth for a quick macaroni (wannabe ramen) soup with green onion and cilantro.

From my journal; January 1, 2007:

Reading the recipe card this morning I can see what mistakes I made with my first try. Great cook that mom is, she hadn’t written down what she probably thinks is “the obvious,” and occasional-to-never cook that I am, there is very little obvious to me! My first mistake was that I cooked it too long, and in the reheating today I am quite sure it will turn to mush with the dumplings disintegrating completely. I should have removed the hamhock bones first too, for they’ve done their share of dumpling-shredding with each stirring.

Still, in our first eating last night at about 10:30pm (I made it after Ker had barbecued our “real” dinner … ) it was exactly like I remembered Grandma’s to be — imperfect, doughy and far removed from any gourmet possibilities, but absolutely divine when eaten by the heart’s memory.

My best compliment? Zach had seconds, after bugging me all afternoon as I cooked the hamhocks that “this soup doesn’t have any flavor.”

January 2, 2009

He was right. It still doesn’t have enough flavor. Didn’t in 2007, or in 2008. This year I got a bit closer, dumping in a can of chicken broth to help it along, and pulling some herbs from my garden to throw in the soup pot. Remembered about the hamhock bones, and on Day 3 there’s still no mush!

Pelmeni: Ready to eat

Not going to tell you it’s absolutely delicious, for truthfully it needs a lot of shoyu as you see in this last photo (that part, adding the shoyu, is definitely not Russian… we fall pretty far from that branch of the family tree).

But taste is not the point. It’s tradition, and the only one I remember as the quarter-blooded Russian I am.

I say that tradition trumps taste. At least until I get it right

This year’s achievement was that there was no stress and worry in making it: We just let it be an event and our tradition instead of a delicious food. Nourishment (and healthy living) can come from very imperfect sources. The intention of preserving your heritage — or your strange memories of it — counts for a lot.

What family traditions did you revisit as 2010 started for you?

Reinvention, Tradition, and Circle of Influence.

March 28, 2005 by Rosa Say

There is a firestorm going on with the Carnival of the Capitalists today.

I’d clicked over to pick up the new link for the week for our Ho‘ohana Community Online listing (what I’m talking about is here) and read this:

Welcome to this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists, which is my privilege to host for the second time.

I’ve just come back from a week’s skiing in Austria to find over 50 excellent entries in the carnival’s mail box. While I’ve duly read and mulled over each of them, I can’t help thinking that it’s a daunting task for you, the reader, to give all these great bloggers the attention they deserve in one mega-session.

So I’ve unilaterally decided to break with tradition slightly and publish one batch today and another on Wednesday. Sorry if you hate the idea, but if I’ve made your life a little easier, I’m pleased. Either way, leave a comment below or drop me an email (russell AT mobhappy DOT com) and let me know what you think, so other hosts can take board your feedback.

Well, so far the more vocal customers are not happy with Russell’s break from tradition. You can click over there and read the comment string: There are some lessons in customer focus and marketing to be learned there. This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists.

I’m pointing it out to you because while Russell may have had very good intent with his decision, one’s circle of influence is something we who wish to reinvent must be aware of, and be realistic about. There is so much we can all do within our own Kuleana first: Start there, and do it well so that you will have a grand stage from which to launch your future efforts as your circle of influence grows with each success.

In our Reinvention Forum, Wayne had talked about involving everyone concerned in reinvention decisions, and his article is well worth another read when framed in this real-time case study over at Russell’s Mobile Technology Weblog.
Wayne Hurlbert on Reinvention: Whole Business Marketing.

There are two different customers involved here, the authors who submit their articles each week, and those who read them (which includes many in the first group as well.) Let’s think about this:

What kind of reinvention could Russell have done instead that would make the Carnival fresh this week, but not break from tradition in such an alarming way for so many? What do you think?

Related posts:
Working within your Circle of Influence.
The Reinvention Forum Index.
I’ve written about the Carnival two other times:

Carnival of the Capitalists.
So far, I subscribed to 3 new blogs this morning.

Tags: Reinvention. Tradition. Customer Focus. Circle of Influence.

Search Talking Story your way

RSS Current Articles at Managing with Aloha:

  • Do it—Experiment!
  • Hō‘imi to Curate Your Life’s Experience
  • Kaʻana i kāu aloha: Share your Aloha
  • Managing Basics: The Good Receiver
  • What do executives do, anyway? They do values.
  • Managing Basics: On Finishing Well
  • Wellness—the kind that actually works

Search Talking Story by Category

Talking Story Article Archives

  • July 2016 (1)
  • April 2012 (1)
  • March 2012 (6)
  • February 2012 (6)
  • January 2012 (10)
  • December 2011 (1)
  • November 2011 (4)
  • October 2011 (17)
  • September 2011 (8)
  • August 2011 (6)
  • July 2011 (2)
  • June 2011 (2)
  • May 2011 (4)
  • April 2011 (12)
  • March 2011 (16)
  • February 2011 (16)
  • January 2011 (23)
  • December 2010 (4)
  • November 2010 (1)
  • October 2010 (1)
  • September 2010 (4)
  • August 2010 (1)
  • July 2010 (4)
  • June 2010 (13)
  • May 2010 (17)
  • April 2010 (18)
  • March 2010 (13)
  • February 2010 (18)
  • January 2010 (16)
  • December 2009 (12)
  • November 2009 (15)
  • October 2009 (20)
  • September 2009 (20)
  • August 2009 (17)
  • July 2009 (16)
  • June 2009 (13)
  • May 2009 (3)
  • April 2009 (19)
  • March 2009 (18)
  • February 2009 (21)
  • January 2009 (26)
  • December 2008 (31)
  • November 2008 (19)
  • October 2008 (8)
  • September 2008 (11)
  • August 2008 (11)
  • July 2008 (10)
  • June 2008 (16)
  • May 2008 (1)
  • March 2008 (17)
  • February 2008 (24)
  • January 2008 (13)
  • December 2007 (10)
  • November 2007 (6)
  • July 2007 (27)
  • June 2007 (23)
  • May 2007 (13)
  • April 2007 (19)
  • March 2007 (17)
  • February 2007 (14)
  • January 2007 (15)
  • December 2006 (14)
  • November 2006 (16)
  • October 2006 (13)
  • September 2006 (29)
  • August 2006 (14)
  • July 2006 (19)
  • June 2006 (19)
  • May 2006 (12)
  • April 2006 (11)
  • March 2006 (14)
  • February 2006 (14)
  • January 2006 (7)
  • December 2005 (15)
  • November 2005 (27)
  • October 2005 (22)
  • September 2005 (38)
  • August 2005 (31)
  • July 2005 (34)
  • June 2005 (32)
  • May 2005 (27)
  • April 2005 (28)
  • March 2005 (36)
  • February 2005 (33)
  • January 2005 (35)
  • December 2004 (13)
  • November 2004 (24)
  • October 2004 (22)
  • September 2004 (28)
  • August 2004 (8)

Copyright © 2021 · Beautiful Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in