You say pierogi. I say varenyky.
This year for the holidays, Megan, Niko and I traveled down to Arlington, VA to join her brother Franz and his wife Maria’s family for a traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve feast.
In preparation for the 24 people who’d be feasting, Megan, Franz, Maria and I spent all day in the kitchen, making and rolling dough, boiling and mashing potatoes, sauteeing cabbage and onions, and stuffing and folding savory varenyky — all under the watchful eyes and expert hands of Maria’s mother.

In total, we produced close to 200 of the dumplings. Crawling through our hive of industry, Niko passed from eager hand to eager hand, lap to lap, contenting himself on small balls of potato and cheese filling and punctuating Doris Day radio on Pandora with bursts of laughter and baby gurgles. In the end, he feasted as well as the rest of us, and the homemade pierogi that filled his belly furthered him on his journey of solids.