This Is Not Your Babcia's Polish Store

Every year since I can remember.  Somebody had to "get the kielbasi".  My mom used to be the one  We lived in a waspy community where cooking Kielbasi in public was  probably considered un-American and punishable by public service. But  we loved the Easter clog-your-arteries ritual that included kielbasi, farmers cheese and babka.  My theory is that the horseradish cuts the cholesterol.  My mom became the one  because she worked in Newark, N.J. where you could not only get Kielbasi, but the requisite Jewish Rye Bread that made the after Easter sandwiches so good.

 My mom is gone now, so I am the one. It took me many years to realize that you can't buy rye bread at the Polish store. Theirs is bland. The Poles and the Jews lived such symbiotic lives, that their cuisines intermingled. I discovered this only after Joe bought me a Polish cookbook for one of my birthdays. We now eat Polish Kielbasi on Jewish Rye bread. Now that I am the one, I not only get it for our Illinois clan, but for my aunt in Arizona. You know how they feel about immigrants in Arizona, so -I bring her hers in my checked luggage (vacuum packed to avoid smell detection) and hope I make it through security and border patrol screening without having to show my documents.

I headed out this Thursday to get the Easter Kielbasi.  I have always gone to Gene's Sausage on Belmont Avenue near Laramie.  Last year's trip (without a car) took a loonnnng time.  Red Line to Belmont bus.   They opened a new store in Lincoln Square last year.  I decided  #66 bus to the Brown Line to Western was so much shorter that it was worth exploring.  Nice, short trip.  The store is close to where we go every fall for the German fest.  I almost didn't recognize the neighborhood without the fest set-up.  Following my CTA trip planner directions, I found Gene's with no problem.  There was the familiar bovine above the entrance that marks the original.  There is the hanging display of the various sausages behind counter that I recognize.   That is where the similarities end.

I couldn't find the full fat farmers cheese I sought.  Hope my kids will settle for "lite"  In the place of the home made horseradish in red (beets) or white were 14 different varieties of horseradish sauces.  The rough vegetable display with low priced varieties of greens, onions and the like weren't there.  Heirloom tomatoes at Gene's?  OMG.

The biggest joke of all - the sausages hanging behind the counter were labeled in terms that no Polish store shopper would recognize.  At the Belmont store I know I could ask for Weisjka and get what I wanted.  What the hell is Alpine Sausage, Double Garlic Sausage and the like?  They all look like Kielbasi to me. 

There was one rack labeled "Polish Kielbasa" so I went with it.  I had to wait about 45 minutes while they brought some over from Belmont.  Right before I came, someone else had come in and bought 15 pairs - so I was left without any.  Hope it was someone else who had been named the one by her family.

Next year I'm going to Belmont.  I can read on the bus, listen to the Polish language being spoken and get my lower priced stuff in generic plastic bags instead of the fancy paper ones that tout "Fine European  Gourmet Food". 

It's Polish Sausage, for God's sake!  Happy Easter.