22 Sep Mushroom, buckwheat and kefir “placki” and parallel lives

A message

Dalia from Gaza finally got back in touch with me after a long absence – her phone battery exploded during the evacuation. While I am in my lovely home cooking organic food, making “placki” to use up all the excess mushrooms in my fridge; clever, bright Dalia (who should be studying in the UK on a scholarship) just had to leave her home under bombardment. At 25, she is now trying to organise food and water for her numerous family members, including her niece who has lost her parents and now sees Dalia as her mother. While I blog about a recipe, Dalia is figuring out how to procure a tent fro them all. How can both these realities exist here on the same planet? Messaging makes us feel close, as if she was a friend living down the road, yet it’s like we are living in parallel realities, connected only through the small devices we carry in our hands.

Mushroom placki

While placki, or latkes as they are sometimes better known over here, are one of the most common foods in Poland, as are mushrooms, buckwheat and kefir, somehow I have never made mushroom placki before. I have put mushrooms on top of placki before, of course, it would be very strange if I hadn’t. Yet making the placki mushroom-based is, paradoxically, quite unusual. Interestingly, Y preferred these to the usual potato placki with the said mushroom topping, said they were lighter and fluffier (no potato). They are also far quicker to make like this. While I cook, I now imagine Dalia and others in Gaza cooking with me. Even though I am not religious, I say a little prayer for all those who are hungry, because in my experience prayers always work, even if you don’t follow a religion. While our phones physically connect us, I know that our primary connection is our heart connection – our humanity. These past two years (or five if you count the war in Ukraine) as horrific as they have been, should have made us all connect to that.

Recipe for Mushroom, buckwheat and kefir “placki”