Having a husband who loves cooking is a blessing as well as a hardship. The upside is not having to do any meal planning, plus not having to cook three times a day (I just have to show up at the table when he calls to tell me that meals are ready). The downside is that I have to ‘tolerate’ seemingly unnecessary shopping trips in search of some odd ingredient. To find this cannot-live-without item, we often end up visiting several specialty stores, or just plain markets, no matter how distant from each other. But this is where serendipity sometimes strikes. On one shopping crawl I met a man whom my husband Richard calls my ‘flirty Polish boyfriend.’
That happened many years ago when we lived in a suburb of New York. Richard was in ‘urgent’ need (it’s always urgent) of slab bacon. Asking around, we learned that we could get it in Polish butcher shops in the East Village. In those days, the East Village was not a place tourists or diners visited; those on the street were mainly local residents. It was a highly mixed ethnic neighborhood with a variety of new immigrants to replace the Poles who had lived there for decades. “It will be an interesting place to visit,” Richard declared. Off we went by a train and a subway.
Walking through the quiet East Village, we spotted a Polish butcher shop. As we walked into it, an old man (old enough to be my father, anyway) greeted us with a charming smile. He was slight, had thin white hair, wore a white apron, and had a pair of dark-rimmed eye glasses. When Richard asked him about slab bacon, the Polish butcher, twinkles in his eyes, practically levitating, led Richard to the meat case to show the wonderful things on offer. “Look at dis! What you dink abut det?” He said in his heavily accented English, pointing to one tray of meat after another. We got carried away and bought a lot of meat, far more than we could ever use. “Never mind,” Richard assured me with excitement in his voice, “This is exactly what I needed. Really great stuff here.” While chatting up Richard, the butcher kept glancing at me, obviously ‘flirting.’ I was amused and Richard thought it all hilarious.
The old man asked if I had ever tasted ‘babka.’ What the heck is babka? I wondered. Seeing my head shaking, he led me over to a rack full of large bread-cake loaves, which he said tasted like Panettone. I must have been under his spell, too, since I bought one of those huge loaves with no idea whether it was any good. As we were, finally, heading for the door, our Polish butcher asked me to wait. Then, he rushed over and took a picture of him hanging on the wall of the store. “I want you have dis to remember me!” He signed it with a flourish and gave it to me saying, “Promise me det you come back.” Feeling a bit overwhelmed, I simply nodded. We had his photo framed and kept it in our kitchen until we left for overseas.
We never forgot that lovely man and decided to visit him during a recent visit to New York. The East Village has changed tremendously: so many, mainly ethnic, restaurants—Indian, Japanese, and Korean—lined the busy streets. The area also offered a mix of low budget and somewhat upscale stores. No sign of anything Polish and no butcher shop! We asked several people on street if they knew where the Polish butcher shop was: none had any idea what we were talking about. As we were nearly ready to concede defeat, we spotted a tiny Polish deli across the street. Ah hah! Surely they would know about our Polish butcher shop. We went in to ask.
“We came here years ago to an excellent butcher shop, run by a charming old man.”
“He is dead.” The middle-aged shopkeeper, behind the glass case and cash machine, knew immediately whom we were referring to.
Shocked, Richard and I responded simultaneously, “Oh, no! When did that happen?”
“About two years ago. He was visiting his daughter in Arizona and had a heart attack. He died there.”
“What about the butcher shop?”
“He closed it a few years before. His children had insisted that he retire and enjoy life. He had lots of money. But then, he didn’t live long enough to enjoy it. He was a good man.”
We were dumbfounded and sad that we wouldn’t see him again. I was almost angry at him: I came back as you asked me, and you are not here!!
“Where, then, people buy meat around here?” Richard was still interested in meat shopping.
“Here! I sell good meat.” The man proudly gestured toward a pitifully small selection of meat. Seeing what he had, I thought, this is so unlike my old Polish friend’s shop: his was at least four times bigger and offered every cut imaginable. To be fair, as small as this deli store was, it seemed to have at least small amount of almost everything that a Polish housewife needs for her cooking. Browsing the shelves I found all sorts of cans, jars, and boxes of Polish wonders, such as grated celery root, beets, and pickles. And a stack of Polish-language newspapers at the entrance.
“How long you have been here?” I asked the friendly shopkeeper, who had only a slight, indistinguishable accent.
“A few years. I am from Israel. I married to a Polish woman who owns this store.”
We bought a small package of smoked ham and were about to leave when Richard asked the Israeli man, “Where can we find really good babka around here?”
“Look right there in the window. I have them. Two kinds, one with cheese and regular.”
Knowing how much I loved babka, Richard insisted that we buy a loaf. Although I was dying to have one, I weakly protested that I wouldn’t be able to finish an entire loaf before we left New York. At Richard’s urging, I happily complied. Since we didn’t know the difference between the one with cheese and one without, we asked one of the shoppers, who appeared to be ethnic Polish, for advice. At her recommendation, we chose one without cheese.
As we were paying for the babka, the shopkeeper cut off a chuck of warm sausage from a tray fresh from the oven and offered me a taste. “It’s the best sausage you have ever tasted,” he assured me. Although it didn’t look appetizing, I accepted it, just to be civil. What a surprise! It was soooooooo delicious! I insisted that Richard taste it also. He loved it, too, and asked for one large piece to add to our package. As the shopkeeper wrapped up our purchases, he gave me the rest of the sausage, a big piece, saying: “Please enjoy it on your way home. You will come back for this.” He is damn right. I will have to go back for that sausage!! I said myself. Not only was the sausage great, the babka was heavenly. I polished off the whole lot in two days, all by myself.
As nice as the Israeli storekeeper was, and as delectable as his meat and babka were, he’ll never take the place in my heart occupied by ‘my’ Polish friend, who gave me his autographed photo so many years ago. Walking away from the East Village, already munching on babka and finishing the last bits of sausage, I felt acute feelings of loss. It’s strange to feel such loss for a person whom I hardly knew. The soft, golden afternoon light on that winter’s day made me feel even more melancholy. I whispered, Goodbye my dear, charming, flirty friend.
On the way back to the apartment where we were staying, we noticed an art installation of a huge pink rose high up on the New Museum of Contemporary Art building. That one pink rose reflected on the silvery walls of the Museum by the afternoon sun brightened my heart. It was as if my Polish friend was sending me a rose! I waved to him, mouthing Thank you, my friend. I will not forget you.
