Diples
When I was only five, my grandparents and aunts and uncles left to live in California. My world pretty much fell apart forever. My grandma or yia yia had been my primary babysitter, companion and caregiver. We sang songs, took walks, made things, cooked, and baked. She was especially good at making pie dough from scratch and baking chocolate chip cookies. By the time I was in Kindergarten, I had a babysitter who had been one of her friends. Both my parents worked, which was sort of unusual for the time, and each morning, my dad dropped me off at Mrs. Genakes’s old Victorian house converted into flats. Another of my grandmother’s friends, then in her eighties, also lived there in a beautiful apartment with plants. Their families became my family. I went to all the tea parties held by the Greek Ladies, who all seemed as if they were well-preserved remnants from Socrates’ time, but who, in reality, were not that old. Most were in their fifties and sixties, except for Kyria Eleni, or Kitty, the lady who was 80+. Some were younger than I am now.
Late November or so, they were all busy with the St. George Bake sale preparations. Of course, I was immersed in it, too. I worried along with them if we ran out of nuts for baklava, and I talked about variations in recipes for melomacarona and kourambiedes. One Friday afternoon, Mrs. Genakes, Kitty, and I packed ourselves up into the old black VW beetle Mrs. G. drove. We headed for the old church, now long gone, in East Moline. We went downstairs to the old pine-paneled kitchen. It was already full of ladies, dressed in their cotton dresses, sensible shoes, and netted hats. Most had their hair twisted in a kind of chignon. All were long aprons, bright, handmade, and love worn, over their street clothes. Someone found me an apron that covered me down to the tops of my shoes. I think it was Mrs. Gartelos who put a big mixing bowl in front of me. Someone else added the we ingredients for diples, a kind of honey turn over made of fried dough then rolled in nuts and honey. Soon, I was rolling the dough on the large, flat counters. They used big broom handles or closet rods to roll the dough. Conventional rolling pins just weren’t big enough and didn’t get the dough smooth enough or flat enough. I was laughing, covered in flour, yet taking the whole thing very seriously. I was one of the church basement ladies, and I had a task and a mission. No one complained if my diples were thicker and denser than anyone else’s. Everyone was supportive. There were no men. Only Father Dymick came in to visit us. He was the young priest we had at the time, and he was familiar to me. He was a good friend of my Uncle Jim, and had visited my grandma’s house often. Two things struck me that day about him. One, he was wearing casual clothing, a cardigan and open shirt. I don’t remember him wearing his collar. The second was that he had just come from visiting my Uncle Tom in the hospital. A few days before, Tom had been in a horrific accident with a combine outside Peoria. He had been coming home for the weekend to us. He was talking about Tom and saying he was doing better, but he hadn’t recognized me right away. It was one of those fly-on-the-wall moments.
After a while, the diples were done. Mrs. G. and Kitty wrapped mine up to take home with me. I was very proud that I had made them, and helped the church out, too. We no longer make diples for the bake sale, and I don’t have the time to help them anymore. Nearly everyone baking that day is gone, now. Even Tom, my mother, Father Dymick, and my grandmother’s friends. Christmas memories for me involve handsomely, if quaintly dressed middle-age ladies baking in a pine-paneled kitchen, up to their elbows in flower, honey, and good cheer, especially for a little girl swathed in a too-large apron and flour.
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