Better Pita
Guests are privileged beings, but they also have some obligations: like “make the hostess happy.” However, today I just didn’t feel like doing what she wanted!
I was exhausted from weeks of busy activity, and muddled by the three-hour time difference between my home town and that of my hostess, which meant we got to sleep long past our normal bedtime. I love birds, but the Australian feathered dawn orchestra had come on double forté at 4:30 in the morning. Kookaburras, such cheerful creatures, made it hard to get cross with their laughter. Rosellas, of various colours, screeched and squawked through the trees. Magpies warbled operatically. Crows “arked” balefully, apparently unmindful of the beauty of a new day. Mudlarks gave their peewee calls, and willy wagtails squeaked. And the rest of the chorus chimed in with great background sound effects! I did not mind the singing, but I certainly did not want to get out of bed when I should have.
Bleary eyed, I struggled down the stairs and tried to look interested in breakfast. Perhaps I succeeded, because my kindly hostess cheerfully told me she wanted to show me some special cooking, which would begin as soon as I returned down the stairs from tidying myself and my room.
But when I went up and flopped “just for a second” on the deliciously comfortable but unmade bed, I instantly fell asleep. The warmth of Queensland is very soporific! All thoughts of unwanted cooking demonstrations vanished from my head. Two hours later I awoke, warm and sweaty, and burdened by a massive dose of guilt.
After contemplating sneaking out a side door and disappearing for the day, I braced myself womanfully and headed for the kitchen. Hopefully, all cooking and demonstrations of same would be well and truly over.
But no, my hostess was still hard at work, alone, in her splendid kitchen, amidst a tantalizing array of aromas. And grabbing my reluctant attention was the mystifying transformation of my hostess’s elegant glass-topped dining room table, now draped with an ancient and clearly much-used cotton sheet that cradled a blob of yellow dough in its midst.
“Hello, Nada,” I smiled sheepishly. “I’m a bit tired.”
“Not to worry,” she responded generously. “I’ve been waiting for you so I could show you the pita.”
“I suppose I am too late to help with the cooking?” I offered hopefully.
“Yes, I’ve done it all, but I did want to show you how I make the pita.”
“Oh!”
Nada continued to bustle in her kitchen, but eventually walked over to the shrouded table. Grabbing the mound of dough, she pulled it towards her and spoilt its nice round symmetry. She moved to the end of the table, and gave the dough another pull, then to the other side, all the time with more pulling.
I watched in fascination as Nada soon began literally running around the table pulling her mound of dough in all directions. Presently it was no longer a mound but a flat stretch of pastry. Round and round she went, round and round, until finally the whole large dining room table was covered with a tissue thin sheet of real, hand-made, filo pastry!
“This is what we use to make pita in Serbia!” Nada announced proudly.
“Amazing,” I muttered, lost for words. “Truly amazing.”
Now, it’s not as though Nada had nothing else to do with her time. A busy mother of three, running her own successful business, she had ample reason to make use of every supermarket convenience food and buy packaged filo pastry. But no, she chose to take pride in her work, in her traditional skills, in what she did repeatedly for her family. Maybe I was an appreciative audience. But the fact was, she did this all the time for her family.
While I pondered the miracle of real filo pastry, Nada began chopping onions and potatoes, mixing them in a bowl. Next she chopped spinach and tofu together. Herbs and flavourings were added, and spoonfuls of fillings were soon wrapped in happy little parcels of the tissue-thin pastry. When they came out of the oven half an hour later, golden with goodness, they were irresistible.
Nada taught me that there is nothing quite so effective as a well-learnt, well-practiced skill to make a person feel good about themselves. The easy way might seem better, but in the long run there is more satisfaction from some real, productive work, than mere easy acquisition. In the modern rush for attainment have we lost the satisfaction of simple accomplishment and skill. We have forgotten that work is a gift, with blessing in it. We think of it merely as a means of getting money.
Thank you Nada, for showing me otherwise.
