Barbara Hammond, A Taste of Christmas

Barbara Hammond

Wahoo. Wahoo? My friend Marilyn had to Google it. Most people just look at me with quizzical eyebrows when I mention that my grandparents, Frank and Rose Cejka* lived in Wahoo, Nebraska. Yes, it’s a funny name, but to me it brings up memories of warm family gatherings and delicious home-cooked food. My Grandma Rose was the best cook in the world and my mother learned from her. Traditional roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut. Homemade pickles. Kolaches and pies. Every year we went to Nebraska for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Dad’s ’39 Buick that he called the Green Hornet knew the way north out of Wichita on Broadway/Highway 81.     1947 Postcard

But if we didn’t go to Wahoo for Christmas, we knew that a box of gifts would arrive from there. And inside that box we would always find a shoebox filled with Grandma’s cookies and tied up with butcher’s twine. My brother Jim, our little sister Mardi, and I delighted in untying that string to behold the variety inside. She made thumbprint cookies, almond crescents covered in powdered sugar, little cookies with big Hershey’s kisses on them, gumdrop cookies, chocolate chippers, and traditional sugar cookies. Plus there were always some kolaches tucked in.

Grandma’s sifter and pastry cutter. My mom made sugar cookies with the 1940s “Santa” cutter 

 

Rose Sklenar Cejka (1894 – 1983) on her 85^th birthday

 

This is Rose’s favorite České koláče recipe in her own handwriting. These sweet pastries (“ko’-la-ches”) are fruit-filled buns. Prune, cottage cheese, and poppy seed are traditional in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but they are also made with cherry, blueberry, apple, etc. in the U.S. Not to be confused with Klobasneks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My daughter Melissa baking apricot kolaches

 

  Barbara Rose Hammond and her grandma, 1943

*Čejka is pronounced “chay’ ka”. The little v-shaped accent mark gives the *c* a “ch” sound. The *j* is silent. It translates as “lark.”