Paska isn't baked. It's listened to 🕯️ You have to pay attention. You have to be unhurried. My babusya said you couldn't come to the dough with a troubled spirit — it would feel you. I used to think that was superstition. Now I stand in that kitchen at four in the morning and I understand completely what she meant. Your state of being transfers into everything you touch with intention.

When it finally rises and goes golden in the oven, something almost ceremonial happens in the chest 🌿 A satisfaction that has nothing to do with achievement. More like... rightness. Like a small confirmation that certain things are still intact.

My neighbors buy theirs from the shop. I don't say anything about it. But I will knead this bread until my arms refuse to cooperate, every single year, without question.

What have you kept doing the old way, even when the easier option was right there? 🌾