So where am I and what am I doing?
No kidding: I am right here in Madison. There is a Polish deli in this town, in a yuppified strip mall. It is so wrong for so many reasons but there you have it. Each time I enter (all of two times thus far), it is completely empty. I should buy something, I should! But the selections are too…. Polish.
Alex owns the place and he was there today when I poked in. I want to refer all lonely people in Madison to his store immediately. The man is a talker! So Polish it hurts. It is one long sentence, sort of like this one which you cannot interrupt because it is joined together to form a whole and if you jump in and say something like I really must get going then you appear totally rude and like you’re really not listening to any of it and so what’s the point…
I just want to note that Polish people really are rotten spellers (in foreign to them languages) because we have a basically phonetic approach to words. A spelling bee would be a joke! How do you spell szczypiorek? What, you’re kidding, right? There is only one possible way: szczypiorek (meaning: chives). Try not to make fun, therefore, when you see signs in the store that seem somehow off. We are not trained to find fault with something like this:
Alex, the highlander (the moustache says it all). He hasn’t been back to Poland for a while, but on the counter he keeps a picture of his old highland home. Next to it is a cheap replica of the Statue of Liberty. Behind it? A portrait of the pope. No, not the new one. The real pope. All we need is a fake-autographed photo of George W. Bush and I'd feel like I entered a place straight out of the Chicago Polish community.
"When I lived in New Jersey, I wanted to get a degree at Princeton, but it's all about money here. I settled for menial work. It's okay, it's okay. It's the American way."
Nina - did you know your new neighborhood boasts a "Matt's Polish Meats"? Corner of Bassett and West Main . . . . .
ReplyDeleteI've wondered if Alex the deli is too Polish to survive in Madison. (The late Polish deli near the corner of Allen and Century in Middleton, which we actually entered once, definitely was.) I sort of like the idea of having it there, every time we walk past the sandwich board en route to Pasqual's or Michael's. Hopefully their overhead is low.
ReplyDeleteReally what I want is Atlas Deli back, even though a big part of the reason it was so great was that it was almost surely operated as a sandwich charity.
Grand!!!
ReplyDeleteHow do you trigger so many varied, all wonderful, reactions with a single post?!
the cucumbers... never seen them before, and they kind of frighten me. UNLESS, they taste like the garden-grown cucumbers/vinegar/onions salad that my Zia Zia used to make just for me
I can't believe you are not fond of sauerkraut! So that's why you could not indulge me with a sweet-and-sour cabbage recipe...
Did my mom draw that sign? She's quite self-conscious of her spelling, so I've learned not to be critical of poor spellers (again, I've gotten worse with age myself, along with breaking grammar rules).
I love your description of Alex's talking style. Hey--Alex was my other grandfather's name... the one that owned a neighborhood "meat market." My uncle, "Alex, Jr.," operated the family business (producing the best Polish sausage in town) for years after my grandfather passed away, and bears an uncanny reseblance (down to the hair part, glasses, and moustache) to your Alex!
Thanks for the memories, Nina! (I wasn't sure if this should be an email or comment, but no harm in adding to dialogue, I suppose!)
jlp: unless it's private, or an insult (of the type that would make even me recoil), a comment posted here is a comment enjoyed by many! So thanks for putting it up. (I don't actually mind sauerkraut.)
ReplyDeleteKathy: yeah, but it's the Polish meats that actually gross me out. In this deli there is a whole shelf of sausage and lunch meat -- who knows what they put in the stuff!
Tom: Alex and his wife moved here from New Jersey to be closer to their grandchild (whose parents got work in Madison). He considers it his retirement store (heart troubles took him off the docks where he did such things as sandblasting on navy ships). I asked about business (they just opened fairly recently) and he said it's better on non-summer days. Quite the optimist.
I love sauerkraut and feel that it is underutilized in American cuisine. Sauerkraut should be served with every meal.
ReplyDeleteThanks for recognizing that I left you a comment.
ReplyDeleteBert
Sour cucumber puree? Does not compute with my midwest farm girl upbringing. Now Mom did "put up" sauerkraut.
ReplyDeleteMMM Sauerkraut! How much would a finger cut off in sauerkraut be worth? I mean a finger in custard would be noticeable, but a finger in sauerkraut would just be a pickled finger.
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