Four Thousand Varenyky

Every summer, my church holds a Ukrainian festival, and the women of the parish make varenyky, the dumplings my grandmother made when I was small. I'd always just eaten them. In July I finally signed up to make them.

We started at six in the morning in the church basement. There were twenty of us at long tables, ranging in age from fourteen to ninety-one. We made dough, rolled it, cut circles with upside-down glasses and filled each one with potato and cheese, sauerkraut or sweet cherries. Then we pinched the edges shut.

The older women pinched three for every one of mine. Theirs were perfect half-moons with tidy edges. Mine looked like they'd been through a storm. Baba Halyna, who's ninety-one, kindly repinched a few when she thought I wasn't watching.

We sang folk songs. We gossiped. We drank strong coffee. By the end of the second day, we'd made over four thousand varenyky.

At the festival, people waited in line for an hour. A little boy told me they were the best thing he'd ever eaten. I didn't tell him which ones were mine.