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Most kids leave Santa cookies. My brother and I would try to bribe him with an extra treat: a couple leftover pierogi from our Christmas Eve dinner.

Instead of sugar plums, pierogi danced in my head. And while I never admitted it in my letter to Santa, I was an accomplished pierogi thief. While they were kept warm on the stove ahead of our guests' arrival, I could lift the cover to the pan that cradled them without making a sound, liberating one to scarf down before my Polish mother walked back into the kitchen. My lips gleamed with a mix of butter and Bonnie Bell lip gloss.

I don't pilfer pierogi ahead of dinner anymore. I recognize now that everyone should get an equal taste of this dumpling joy. And I now savor each bite, especially the bites where the edges have become perfectly crisp.

Like chef Marta Mirecki in Allison Aubrey's Morning Edition story (you can hear the story by clicking on the audio above), I am a first-generation Polish American. While I have adored pierogi since I can remember, my heightened appreciation didn't happen until I actually started to help my mom make them. My arms were sore for days after the first time.

It turns out a rolling pin and pierogi dough can rival any upper-arm workout. The dough needs to be rolled thin so it doesn't overpower the precious filling inside. There's nothing fast about the pierogi process. Once the dough is perfectly rolled out, it's time to grab a drinking glass, flip it over and use the rim to cut out circles. Those circles come to embrace the perfect kiss of filling — the possibilities are endless.

Sweetened farmer's cheese? Yes.

Mashed potatoes and cheese? Of course.

Getaway

Director: Courtney Solomon

Genre: Action, Crime

Running Time: 90 minutes

Rated PG-13 for intense action, violence and mayhem throughout, some rude gestures, and language

With: Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez, Jon Voight, Paul Freeman

The White House says President Obama will issue two new executive orders on guns — one to curb the import of military surplus weapons and another that closes a loophole allowing some felons to get around background checks.

The two actions — to be announced by Vice President Joe Biden at the swearing-in of Todd Jones, the new director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — will join 23 others that the president has issued in an effort to reduce gun violence.

They are part of a set of recommendations from the vice president unveiled in January.

"Even as Congress fails to act on common-sense proposals, like expanding criminal background checks and making gun trafficking a federal crime, the President and Vice President remain committed to using all the tools in their power to make progress toward reducing gun violence," the White House said in a statement on Thursday.

According to the statement, "felons, domestic abusers, and others prohibited from having guns" can skirt background checks by registering the weapon as a trust or corporation.

"The proposed rule requires individuals associated with trusts or corporations that acquire these types of weapons to undergo background checks, just as these individuals would if the weapons were registered to them individually," the statement says.

The second would halt a practice of special approvals to import U.S.-made military weapons from other countries. The White House says since 2005, the government has authorized the re-importation of more than 250,000 such firearms.

The new policy would "deny requests to bring military-grade firearms back into the United States to private entities, with only a few exceptions such as for museums," the statement says.

Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. issued a deeper explanation for the technical problems that halted trading for three hours last week.

As Reuters and Bloomberg explain it, Nasdaq's systems were overwhelmed when ARCA, the all-electronic exchange owned by the NYSE, deluged it with data. The vast amount of data exposed a "latent flaw" in the Nasdaq system that "receives all traffic on quotes and orders for stocks on the exchange."

Bloomberg adds:

"Today's report amplifies previous public statements by Nasdaq about what led it to freeze trading in about 3,300 stocks both on its own platform and others where equities change hands in America. The disruption underscored how quickly the integrity of the U.S. market, which has a value of about $20 trillion, can be subverted as orders to buy and sell shares are matched on more than 50 exchanges and alternative electronic venues.

"'Any piece of software, even if it's run for 100 percent for 10 years, there's still flaws in it.,' Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld said in an interview with Bloomberg News. 'Whatever you have, it's a question of what unique set of circumstances happen to reveal that.'"