ode to babka

{subtitle: thank you, kellers!}

Way back in September 2009, when I was dizzily spinning around our reception, my friends David and Kelly promised to see us in New York come February. They renewed that promise when we met up again in Chicago for Erin's wedding, and lo and behold, last week they stopped by. My house. In Long Island. And they did not come empty handed. No, besides my adorable Le Creuset bowl, they also came bearing Babka.

Hello, Babka.

What is babka?

I did not know.

I learned that it is a spongy cake with origins in Eastern Europe, and is traditionally baked for Easter. There is also a Jewish traditional babka - a doubled and twisted length of yeast dough, baked in a high pan, common in North America in chocolate or cinnamon varieties.

You may remember a certain argument about chocolate vs cinnamon babka.

Seinfeld -) The Babka - The funniest bloopers are right here

Our babka was not a lesser babka. It was brought to us from Zabars. I have yet to visit but now I feel that I must, since Kathleen Kelly and Joe Fox meet there in You've Got Mail and the little Babka scene above took place there as well. Plus Kelly devoted a whole post to it and told me my brain would explode if I went, so I'm planning a stop to see what all the fuss is all about. My mom agrees this is a worthy pursuit, so we've put it on the schedule for March.

Anyway, back to our babka.

It was very yummy. We sliced it like bread and warmed it like toast and had it for breakfast one day. (Ok, the whole story is, I stuck it too close to the broiler and it caught on fire, but everybody is just fine.) Another night we had people for dinner and served it warm with ice cream. YUM.

Despite it's Eastern European origins, neither my Polish-heritage husband nor our Albanian dinner guest had ever heard of it, but we all agree it's fun to say and even better to eat.