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Episode 11 - The Polish Princess Ewelina Lawrence
13 Plays1 year ago
This week we are joined by a very special guest Ewelina Lawrence you might know her as EJ. On this episode we discuss growing up as an immigrant in America, what it is like to move from the Midwest to the South, and then debate the best Polish foods. This is one you don't want to miss.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:12
Speaker
Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight Gonna grab some afternoon delight My motto's always been when it's right
00:00:24
Speaker
Good afternoon, Delights. I'm your host, Matt Latham. We're just trying to bring you a smile on this Wednesday, but I couldn't do that alone.
Jacob's College Pranks and Their Impact
00:00:33
Speaker
So I brought on a very special guest, Miss Evelina Lawrence. You might know her as EJ. How are you doing tonight, EJ?
00:00:40
Speaker
I'm doing great, Matt. Thanks so much for having me. We are excited to have you as a guest, EJ. For our listeners out there, EJ has the unfortunate responsibility of being married to and babysitting our other guest, Mr. Jacob Lawrence. Firefighter Lawrence. Firefighter Lawrence. That was a good episode. When I heard some of those pranks, I was shaking my head.
00:01:03
Speaker
Has he not told you any of the stories? He has, but the one where he and I think it was your brother with a tying the doorknob in college, I was just, I'm shocked you didn't hear me in the background.
EJ's Cultural Background and Language Challenges
00:01:14
Speaker
Like that is the most f-ed up thing I've ever heard. I think he has PTSD from all the pranks that he pulled because he couldn't remember like half of the other shit that he used to do.
00:01:26
Speaker
All right, EJ. Well, why don't you tell the people a little bit about yourself? My name is Evelina. I go by EJ because it's just my initials from my maiden name, Evelina Janiszewski, and now I'm a Lawrence as of last year.
00:01:42
Speaker
I was born in Poland in a small town in southeast Poland called Tarnรณw. Most people are familiar with Krakรณw, which is the general area. It's close close by to that city. I moved to the United States when I was a baby and lived with my parents in Chicago before we moved out towards the southwest suburbs where I was raised. But most of my life I spent sharing
00:02:09
Speaker
my heritage basically going to school during the school year in the US and then spending time with my dad's whole side of the family that stayed back in Poland every summer. So I got the split life growing up getting to see both cultures come together. And now I live in South Carolina. What a twist, right? I didn't know you got to go back every summer. What was that like? What are some of the cultural differences between the US and Poland?
00:02:35
Speaker
You know, it's funny because when I was a kid, my parents would send me by myself. So there was like a stewardess program where you would go with flight attendants and other groups of kids would also be chaperoned by flight attendants on the flight. It's about a 12 hour flight and it would be Lotte Airlines, which is a traditional Polish airline. And I used to feel like I was being punished because when I was in Poland,
00:02:56
Speaker
Poland could not make outgoing calls to the US at the time. So if I wanted to talk to my family, my friends, they had to buy a call card to call internationally and call my grandparents' house. I always stayed with either my grandparents or my godfather and my aunt. So I always felt like I was just on a lonely island. I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved it. But I'd be gone for literally the whole summer, like two months at a time. And so it was hard not to get homesick at the kid.
00:03:25
Speaker
Yeah, that would be rough.
Life in Chicago and Family Ties
00:03:27
Speaker
That's a tough summer camp to have to go to every year. Exactly. Yeah. I'm sure you look back on it fondly. I definitely do. I wish I appreciated it more because it's so funny when I would go, you know, I speak Polish at home or growing up, it was always a household.
00:03:42
Speaker
primary language, and then I would speak English with my friends outside of the home. So going to Poland every summer really helped me to remember the language and not lose it because I was forced to speak Polish in Poland, of course. And so my parents would always laugh that whenever I got back from Poland over summer vacation, my Polish was just pristine. I was like, okay, so I see what you're trying to do here.
00:04:07
Speaker
mean hey now you're bilingual so that's good yeah yeah I can't complain so did you have to do ESL and everything growing up yeah I did I remember it wasn't it wasn't for a long time because luckily I had older cousins that had moved to the US and you know weren't in older grades than me so I learned a lot from my
00:04:25
Speaker
best girl cousins that I hung out with all the time. But when we moved from Poland, I remember we kind of all live on top of each other. My mom's family moved out here. My dad's family stayed back. So I would get pulled out into English as a second language class, probably up until like, I don't know,
00:04:41
Speaker
Midway through elementary school, I really can't remember when it stopped, but I do have memories of being in school and not realizing that everyone didn't know Polish.
Transition to North Carolina
00:04:51
Speaker
So, you know, I literally remember telling one of my gym teachers who had a Winnie the Pooh watch on her arm. And I remember telling her, like, I like your Zegar. And she looked at me and she's like, what? I was like, your Zegar. And I'm trying to tell her I really like her watch. I loved Winnie the Pooh. And I specifically remember in that moment, I was like, like, what the hell?
00:05:10
Speaker
you know, and I pointed to her arm and she's like my watch. And I was just, you know, so embarrassed cause I was like, Oh yeah, that's what I meant. Didn't have any idea that the two meant the same thing in my mind. I didn't even know the English word for as I got at the time. So it was, it was interesting. I don't have much recollection of what those classes were like. I know I got pulled out and you know, had to practice, but it's mostly I think to build my confidence. But luckily I had family around me that was further along. So that's great. That's some good news there. Did you have like an accent as a kid and growing up through school or
00:05:40
Speaker
Oh no, I don't think so. I don't think I ever did. I think most people will tell me that I have a Chicago accent mostly, but I never really got anything about having like a bilingual accent. My parents have really strong accents though. Oh still to this day, pretty strong. Yeah, definitely. My dad mostly, he doesn't speak English as much as my mom does because of their job.
00:06:01
Speaker
They both have a really tight-knit Polish community around them in Illinois, but my mom has to interact with more English-speaking clients, so it's helped her with her English a lot, but both really strong. When Jake first met my parents, he was so nervous because he was like, what if I can't understand? I'm like, it's okay. We've come a long way.
Marriage and Cultural Traditions
00:06:21
Speaker
How's he doing with Polish? Has he learned any words or can he hold a conversation? He knows the most random words. It actually cracks me up. He can't hold a conversation and has no idea if we're talking about him when my mom or dad come to visit. So it was funny because I remember early on when we first started dating, he would come back to, when I moved in with him in Plaza Midwood in Charlotte, he would come back from work and say random words like kobyeta, which means woman, or like dzi, which means doors.
00:06:49
Speaker
I'm like, how do you know these random words? He was using Duolingo. Nice. Yeah. He was trying to familiarize with some words, but he never actually learned how to construct sentences. He just knows a lot of random words now. Actually, I have Polish cable at the house because I tried to ... Of course, I don't speak Polish as much as I did when I lived with my parents. I talked to them on the phone almost every
00:07:14
Speaker
but I tried to remind myself so I don't forget. I have Polish TV on in the house a lot so he hopefully will start picking up some more.
00:07:23
Speaker
I didn't have that money on Jacob picking up anything without being specifically told to pick it up. Yeah. I actually bought him Rosetta Stone one year for, I think it was a Christmas gift, a really selfish Christmas gift. I was like, let's get this rolling. And he was like, you bought this at the worst time. I think we opened the account one time and because he was like finishing his bachelor's degree and like doing stuff for work and then training for the Iron Man, like all of these things, he just didn't have time to learn it. So we'll try again.
00:07:50
Speaker
You just got to get them like a Polish word of the day calendar. Every day, learn one new word. Oh, that's actually a great idea. And eventually he'll be able to like maybe throw something together. Yeah. Enough to have or understand a conversation. I mean, similar to anybody else that comes over to America that speaks broken English. He just has to get to broken Polish, you know? Right. Yeah, that's not a bad idea. I know I thought about making like flashcards or something
Polish Cuisine and Traditions
00:08:13
Speaker
because we need to start cranking those out. Yeah.
00:08:17
Speaker
Definitely. There was like some comedian that does the stand up and he married a Latino woman and he wanted to learn Spanish because he was like Jacob, he couldn't speak anything. So all the baby toys that they bought, he bought them over. You could switch it to Spanish. So then like when the toy was teaching the kid the colors in Spanish, he was learning the colors in Spanish, playing with his kid. That is actually brilliant. That is such a good idea. That's what you need. So you need to pull this version of that.
00:08:41
Speaker
You just need to buy toys specifically from Poland or have your family like send you baby toys. That's actually genius. I had not thought of that. I'm definitely going to try that.
00:08:50
Speaker
So what was it like for you growing up in Chicago? What kind of stuff did you do as a kid growing up in the big city? Well, I really don't remember a lot when I was closer to the city. I want to say we lived in, my cousins lived in Schiller Park. My mom and I lived in Jefferson Park. I know early on we lived with my grandmother, my mom's mom, who made the move from Poland first.
00:09:12
Speaker
my mom's one of seven so my mom's siblings started moving from Poland and my mom and I were somewhere in that mix where once we moved over from Poland we lived with my grandmother and I remember eventually I have like really foggy memory of my life downtown because I was so young
00:09:28
Speaker
But I do remember spending a lot of time that we lived in these townhomes. And I remember my Uncle Jack living in the basement of one of those with my grandmother and my other uncle. I remember staying with them a lot while my mom was working. So it really was just my childhood is mostly hanging out with my cousins.
00:09:46
Speaker
That's what I remember the most. My two older girl cousins, they were like my best friends. There was one fond memory I have in that neighborhood in Chicago where there was a garage sale and my cousin and I loved going to garage sales, like loved looking through what people were trying to get rid of. So we spent a lot of time doing that. Like we were the weirdest kids and we would go and like pick up these books. And so there was one time I went to a garage sale, I got a book for like, I don't know, a dollar and then I brought it back and my
00:10:15
Speaker
I was like, okay, great. And then I was like, we're going back. We're going to go check it out some more. And I kept coming back with more and more books for less and less money. Cause they were just trying to get rid of their book. So like it went from like a dollar to like 75 cents, 50 cents to just like a quarter. And then finally they were like giving us books for free because they were trying to get rid of them. I had to have been like, I don't know, seven and I'm bringing back these like thick like romance novels. Like I had no idea what they were. My mom was like, stop bringing these books
Pride in Polish Heritage
00:10:43
Speaker
home.
00:10:43
Speaker
So that was something. It was just a lot of fun garage sales with my cousin and playing at the park, stuff like that, but mostly outside. And then what I mostly remember is living in the Southwest suburbs. We lived in a town called Aurora in Illinois, and then we moved to Naperville, which is where I grew up most of my life.
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah, that was pretty sweet. And Aurora, we actually lived near my cousin again. So her family moved to Aurora. My family then moved to Aurora. My mom did say that my dad joined us in the US a little bit later than my mom and I because of he was working stuff out with his visa to leave Poland.
00:11:18
Speaker
I don't remember all any of that. I figured my dad was with us the whole time, but I guess not. But eventually he joined us and we hung out in Aurora and we were close to our cousins. And so that's one thing that I really miss about living in Illinois is that I was around, I mean, I've got like close to 20 cousins, like just from my mom's side of the family. And they were mostly scattered all throughout Illinois. So I got to see them a lot every holiday, every birthday, every baptism, communion, all of those things.
00:11:47
Speaker
So just a lot of family time growing up. Nice. Well, that's good. I mean, it's always good to have a community surrounded by you. And at your wedding, I could tell that you came from a massive, massive family. So no doubt there. It's also, I mean, different where they came over at a much later time than typical immigration to where communities were established versus like when my great grandparents came over from Italy, they all came into Ellis Island and just droves like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Italians. And then they all moved to the exact same places.
00:12:16
Speaker
their family grew up in Charleston, West Virginia. And the town that they grew up in was at the time was like 50 or 60,000 people. And it was 99% Italian. Wow, that's amazing. You know, they had their whole community. They didn't have to adjust kind of like your family did. So it's good they had that basis. Yeah, definitely. But there is a lot of Polish people in Chicago. That's what I found out.
00:12:36
Speaker
There is. I have a feeling that my grandmother and my family may have picked it because, well, I think my grandmother picked Chicago because she knew people who had left Poland and come to Chicago. So it was very much like a comfort, but because of the high Polish population, that's actually how I got my first job
Family Dynamics and Future Plans
00:12:53
Speaker
out of college. I had a full-time offer before I graduated with my bachelor's first job in HR. I've been like 10 years of HR work now, which is crazy to say. It's going to be 20, 10 years, but my first job, I landed actually
00:13:04
Speaker
actually was because I was bilingual in Polish and English and they had such a high population of Polish speaking people in their manufacturing plant that they needed someone to translate, basically like employee relations and getting people onboarded and completing their I-9s. You had people that didn't speak a lick of English and I mean they had their green cards, they were free to work, but nobody could help them. I mean, there was one other Polish speaking person and they were just drowning. So that really opened up my eyes to like, wow, there's a lot of us out here.
00:13:32
Speaker
That's an actual, it's what you know, not who you know situation. That doesn't happen too often. Yeah, exactly. Well, so as you know, you got a little bit older, you had to deal with one cultural shift, then you had to come and do a second. What was it like moving from a Midwest city down South?
00:13:49
Speaker
Oh my gosh. You know what? It was pretty awesome. I'm not going to lie. I love Illinois. I love Chicago. I love the Southwest suburbs where I grew up, but I never went away for college. I did my undergrad and my master's degree. Undergrad was a commute living from home and my master's was online for the same school while I was working full time. I just saw all my friends who spread their wings and left the state and left their homes. I was like, I need to get out of here. Honestly, I had wanted to live in the Carolinas. Don't make fun of me.
00:14:19
Speaker
because of Nicholas Sparks books, okay? And like move like the notebook. So I'm just going to rip the band-aid off. I was one of those like googly eyed girls like, oh my gosh, like watching the notebook, like I want to live there. It's so beautiful. And I actually with my best friend, one of my maid of honors, Megan, her family took me on a family vacation one year when we were I think like high school age. And we drove through the Carolinas. They took me to Baldhead Island, which is off the coast of
00:14:47
Speaker
I think North Carolina. I just fell in love with it and I thought this is where I want to live when I'm able to. I got my first full-time job. I worked for a year and saved up and started doing virtual interviews and took myself out here. It was honestly such a shift culturally because the South definitely is different. They call it the Bible Belt. You can't go to your local Walgreens and get Jack Daniels like I could in Naperville. ABC stores were really, really new.
00:15:14
Speaker
but also I moved to a state where I didn't know a single soul. Nonetheless, I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina. I didn't know anyone except for my boss who was taking me on to work for a company in Raleigh. I made friends through Bumble BFF, which is normally a dating app, Bumble, but there's a BFF side where you can make friends, which I highly recommend. Actually, two of my bridesmaids in my wedding were friends I made on Bumble BFF. The shift was mostly, I think I noticed how
00:15:44
Speaker
I don't, I don't want to say this in like a, people are a lot nicer in this out. You know, I would go to bars by myself to meet people and to explore. And literally like I had this rule where I wasn't going to sit at the bar and stare at my cell phone. I was going to place myself and like take in the environment and just see who I run into, who I meet. And I actually made a lot of bartender friends that way, which hooked it up with like free drinks all the time. So that was nice. That was really eyeopening because a lot of people were more, um,
00:16:10
Speaker
willing to walk up to you and talk to you, girls and guys. Sometimes you can get the occasional creeper, but people were very nice and didn't look at you like a weirdo sitting alone or like, what are they doing here? Whereas in Chicago, I would probably get a lot of those looks. So I could tell off the bat it was going to be different.
00:16:28
Speaker
So is that what you like about the most, just the people? Yeah, I think so. I think that the people, I can't really speak to like Southern cuisine. I'm not a really big fan of like ride food, but they do have some good restaurants out here, but I mostly like the people. And in Illinois, it's just so flat. You can't really do anything outdoors. And so I love being close enough to drive to the beach. I spent a lot of time at the beach actually, Wilmington Beach, when I lived in Raleigh, it was like a two hour drive. And now living in Charlotte or at the suburbs of Charlotte in Fort Mill, South
00:16:58
Speaker
Carolina. We're just close enough to the mountains on the other side where it's like a two hour drive. So that was my, probably my second favorite thing is the people were great and the location was great. Yeah. You know, we saw you guys one time when we went down there, Jacob and Jen used to live there. We visited, we family that lived in North Carolina. We went to when we were young and it is probably one of the better States to spend time in for sure.
00:17:20
Speaker
Yeah, I was just telling Jake, you guys need to come visit us sometime. We had Chris and Lena stay with us, I think, one night when they were passing through, but y'all need to come back and hang out and explore some more.
Wedding Memories and Polish Traditions
00:17:31
Speaker
Our plan was we were waiting to see where Kiv ended up because he was saying that he might end up in South Carolina. So then we'll go down once Kiv comes back and then we'll just see both of them at the same time and see the new baby. So that's a good plan.
00:17:42
Speaker
All right, EJ. So we asked Jacob this question about you two being recently married and if it feels any different and what's it like? And he said, no way, Jose, it's exactly the same. Why don't you tell us your perspective? What's it like being married now? Honestly, I get this question a lot from like coworkers because they knew I was going through it. You know, it's a full time job planning a wedding, as you know, you
00:18:04
Speaker
but I honestly can't say it feels any different. Now I have two rings on my finger. Now he wears a ring and we share a bank account. That was the biggest shift. I think the biggest change and the biggest pain about getting married, in my opinion, is changing your freaking name. Ladies,
00:18:46
Speaker
having to go through
00:18:55
Speaker
name. Are you used to the new last name yet? Yeah, I'm definitely used to my new last name. I think people at work were so eager to know how to pronounce my last name that they already started me started calling me EJ Lauren even before I legally changed it. So now it's legally fully changed everywhere, but took me about six months to get that done. But yeah, it's been a breeze.
00:19:16
Speaker
Nice. It's definitely a little bit easier to pronounce than your maiden name for the non-Eastern European speaking people. Who was your favorite part of your wedding? It was a pretty big affair, classy affair. It was a nice wedding. Thanks. We're glad that you guys could be there. Honestly, I think just embracing the Polish
00:19:33
Speaker
heritage and cultural traditions. Believe it or not, early on when we first got engaged, I didn't want to get married in Chicago. I didn't want to get ready at my parents' house like you traditionally do and have the Polish band there to walk you out of the house in that pre-ceremony celebration. That's traditional in Polish culture, like the bride leaving the home that she grew up in. My favorite part, I think, was incorporating those
00:20:00
Speaker
cultural pieces. I was really worried that it was going to be too much on Jake and his family because they were just such good sports about everything and embraced it and loved it and were super happy with everything. I was super self-critical around
00:20:15
Speaker
What are our American friends going to think? How are they going to react to the music that's not in English and all this Polish food and the different traditions? I was definitely thinking about the wrong things, I think, and not realizing our friends and family are going to be happy with whatever we're happy with. Oh, yeah. I loved it. That's probably one of my favorite weddings that I've been to. Yay. I'm not going to turn down Polish food.
00:20:40
Speaker
I don't know, like I've never been to a wedding where I don't know what the group was called, but the Polish dancers that you had show up. What I did learn
Vodka Origins and Cultural Insights
00:20:49
Speaker
about your wedding is that Polish people love to dance in a circle. That is their favorite thing to do. And let me tell you, they're going to go until they wore the soles out on their shoes for sure. Everybody gets in a circle and you run around a room like 45 times. It's like a workout.
00:21:08
Speaker
probably dance in a circle for a total of like four miles at the wedding. A hundred percent, yeah. That's honestly my favorite memory from the wedding is when everybody was like arm in arm and going around the entire like venue up top through you know chairs and through the tables like getting off the dance floor getting back on the dance floor all in dance formation.
00:21:30
Speaker
My favorite memory from your wedding is Matt Chidone, for those of you that know him, loves to get down on the dance floor. And he was getting down to Rasputin, and he was doing the same dance from Just Dance, and he blew out his pants. I remember that. Right down the side, like down his entire leg, just fully out, right at like the end of the night, too. Poor guy. He was a good sport about it, though.
00:21:59
Speaker
The good news is you guys did your reception right in the same hotel that everyone was staying in. So he just had to ride down the elevator to get to Israel. That was pretty good. The other part that was crazy, I mean, we did. So we all came in and you had it at a Polish church, half Polish, half English ceremony. And then you had the split time so that you guys could do photos. And then when we came back, you had the late night bites and the little mini sliders with the brie cheese on top, probably like 10 of those.
00:22:27
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Those things were amazing. Then the great dinner and then we go back upstairs and your guys like whole Polish late night bites. That was just like literally like a Polish butcher shop sitting there like styled and everything like a little pavilion that you could go and get stuff from and an entire table of just different Polish desserts.
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually, it's called a guralska hata. So it's literally like a hut, right? It's like a wooden hut that houses and hangs like these meats and like different cubasa and sliced deli meats and all of these Polish delicacies that are kind of more on the heavier side. They're not like sweets, but there was also some sweets table integrated in there, but
00:23:10
Speaker
But yeah, I was nervous about that because my, actually my mom really pushed for the Groska Hata. I could have lived without it. I thought it was a little bit, I was like, mom, I mean, these people are going to think we're crazy, like Polish people, like let's let it go, you know? I don't want to have to explain this over and over again, but no, it actually worked out really great. I was really happy we did it.
00:23:29
Speaker
because I think a lot of people loved it and it was a great, it was a great snack, you know, for a lot of drunk people. And believe it or not, I don't think Jake or I, Jake didn't even see it. He, he was so, you know, we were so busy. I saw it because I knew it was, you know, it was something I wanted to check out, but Jake said he never actually got a chance to walk over to it. I didn't get to try the sliders. I didn't have any of the appetizers to be honest. I feel like I didn't eat anything besides dinner that day and like, you know, just totally blacked out for the rest of the time, not because of alcohol, just because of like the adrenaline.
00:23:59
Speaker
That's definitely what it feels like going through it on your wedding day. Oh, but it was a good time. I agree. I agree. All right, EJ. Well, are you ready to get into a little bit of afternoon delights place at the table? Yes, I'm ready. Okay. Well, a little bit of history here of one of Poland's favorite drinks. Oh, okay. The history of vodka. Ah, I should have known we were going with vodka. Oh yeah.
00:24:25
Speaker
Everybody knows, you know, vodka is just a little, it's a clear liquor. It's a combination of water and ethanol. And then typically it's just solid with potatoes or corn or some type of wheat. Traditionally in Eastern Europe and everything, it's potatoes. It's obviously super simple liquor. So it can be easily combined with other flavors and it creates just a ton of mixed drinks. And that's what's made it one of the most beloved alcohols in the entire world.
Favorite Polish Dishes
00:24:47
Speaker
And as most mainstream media and movies and everything would have you believe is that there's nobody that loves vodka more than the Russians.
00:24:55
Speaker
But here's something that the Russians have been trying to keep a lid on about vodka for all these years is that it wasn't actually created in Russia That's right. Ladies and gentlemen, the beloved drink was created and the one and only Poland
00:25:09
Speaker
There's been a hot debate between the two countries for a very long time, but there's records showing that Poland started producing vodka in the 8th century, while Russia did not start until the 9th century. But Russia's argument is that Poland's first vodka did not actually use water. They used wine to distill it, which kind of made it more like a cognac. But I'm going to call Bubkiss on that statement.
00:25:33
Speaker
You see, the first ever recording of the phrase Waka, it took place in a Polish courtroom in 1405. So it has the seniority in terms of historical creation. It has the seniority backed up by legal documents. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to say that Waka is actually a Polish drink. Well, I would have told you that from the start.
00:25:57
Speaker
You know, what's really interesting is that VACU, it was actually predominantly used as a medicine and not as just an alcoholic beverage. When people first started distilling it, it was used as antiseptic and a fever reducer and a disinfectant. And you probably might have to help me with the pronunciation of this last name, but Stefan Vallamires, F-A-L-I-M-I-E-R-Z. There's an F? Yeah, at the beginning. Huh.
00:26:22
Speaker
I don't know. He was a famous Polish physician and a botanist and in 1543 he did a bunch of work on different herbs and plants and he said that vodka was able to increase fertility and awaken lust. As we know, eventually, vodka made its way out of the medicine world and into the bars and because of its low levels of
00:26:43
Speaker
fusil oils and congeners, vodka is actually less likely to get you hungover and other negative effects of heavy consumption. So everybody out there, if you want to drink and not be hungover, get out, pour yourself a shot of vodka and give it cheers to Poland.
00:26:58
Speaker
Cheers to that. So is that actually a hot topic in Poland? You guys argue with that between Russia all the time? You know, maybe not that, not that I know of like my dad, my uncles, I mean, they all drink vodka. You know, they've all growing up. It's always been on the table for like family gatherings. Shots are like a normal thing. Vodka is just, it's customary. It's just, it's not something that I ever heard was even a thing. I think in Poland you just know we, um,
00:27:25
Speaker
we've got great vodka and you know nothing else comes close and so it's interesting I have heard that though I have heard that there was some questions around where it was first created so I'm glad that you set the record straight
00:27:39
Speaker
That's what we're all about on afternoon delights. So would you say, I mean, typically American vodka is distilled with either corn or some type of rye wheat, but I think in Eastern European vakas, they still actually use potatoes. Can you tell the difference if you're drinking like an American vodka or an Eastern European vodka? I don't know if I've ever had one. I cannot. We actually, we always have Polish vodka at the house. I have some in the fridge right now. So next time you guys are coming through, we'll have to pour you some. We'll do a side by side taste test.
00:28:08
Speaker
We should. I'd be interested because, to be honest with you, I can't tolerate hard liquor as much as I used to, so I couldn't tell you the difference, but I will say, you know, like Polish vodka is usually my parents go to when they are hosting people, and I think that's for a reason. You know, we always get good responses to that, so they must know something I don't know.
00:28:32
Speaker
Well, there's only one way to find out. We're going to do a whole line of taste tests. You know the videos that you see online where people are trying to blind taste test the different pops or whatever? That would be super cool to do with vodka. Yes. That's the plan. Polish vodka slaps you in the face, though. I'm not going to lie. It can be harsh sometimes.
00:28:53
Speaker
I'm not going to lie, I'm not the biggest fan of just vodka in general. I like ramen whiskey, but I'll knock it up and give it a shot. Love it. All right, EJ, are you ready to get into this draft? I think so. All right, we've hit on some of these items already, but me and you, we're going to take a deep dive and a look into Polish food. We're going to draft our best Polish food dishes. Oh, boy.
00:29:16
Speaker
Obviously, the way the draft works is whoever goes first gets the pick, the next person gets to go twice, and we alternate until we each get five. Would you like to go first or second? I can go first because I think my food perspective will be different than what you find online growing up in a Polish household because there's going to be stereotypical Polish meals and then there's going to be traditional Polish meals.
00:29:38
Speaker
That's true. I'm gonna apologize in advance. I'm gonna try and pronounce all of the foods with their Polish name. Okay, I can help you with that. So you're gonna have to help me with that. It's gonna be bad.
00:29:49
Speaker
That's okay, no worries. I think as far as my favorite, the first thing that comes to mind, and also a big favorite for Jake, are, it's a traditional Polish dish. It's kotlฤtฤ, it's Jimnya Kami. Kotlฤtฤ are fried pork chops. And I know I said earlier, I don't really like fried food, but these are just like lightly breaded, kind of like flattened pork chops that you just cook on the stovetop. They're super easy. Yeah. Pan fried like a schnitzel.
00:30:18
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, schnitzel hours are also a great food, but I won't go there. But yeah, kotlata and mashed potatoes were like a staple in my household growing up. Like my mom, that was her go-to. They're super easy to make. That's what I offer up to make. Like if I have to make something foolish, just because it's like the one thing that I can't mess up and don't need to FaceTime my mom for. So that's my go-to. If you haven't had it, I highly recommend. It's freaking delicious.
00:30:46
Speaker
How do you spell that? K-O-T-L-E-T-Y. I'll give it a shot. Well, my first pick is a pretty classic one. And if you know me, a potato is maybe my favorite food in any form. So when you take a little vessel that you can put potatoes in and I can shovel them into my mouth, there ain't nothing better. So I'm taking pierogi. Nice.
00:31:07
Speaker
That is my absolute favorite meal. It is one of my favorite meals across just like any type of food. Any ethnicity of food, pierogi's probably gonna crack the top 10. Part of that reason, I mean, it's a Polish dumpling, obviously, and all dumplings are great. Yeah. Asian dumplings, ravioli's just a dumpling, like an empanada's a dumpling. It's all just dumpling, and they're all amazing.
00:31:29
Speaker
So, you know, you take, you can do a whole bunch of stuff with pierogi. You can put meat in it and make it like a little meat pie or like a wild mushroom. My personal favorite is I just like the mashed potato and cheese pierogi. Fry it in a pan with like some caramelized onions and a little bit of chive, maybe that dollop of sour cream on top. That's my favorite. We go to this little Polish shop here in Columbus called Hubert's Polish Cafe. And they always have fresh homemade pierogies and they just sit and butter all day until it's time for you to come eat them. They're pretty awesome.
00:31:56
Speaker
That does sound pretty awesome. That's interesting. The potato ones, I mean they are pretty good. I usually prefer the fruit, like the strawberry or blueberry are my favorite. I was just gonna say a lot of people don't realize that
00:32:12
Speaker
We eat more than just the meat and potato ones. I grew up mostly eating the fruit ones actually. They're like a delicacy and you take sour cream and mix it with sugar and put it as a topping for the fruit ones because you're right with the kind of hardier ones like the potato or meat ones you do want to use butter and like onions but for fruit pierogi try mixing sour cream with like a ton of sugar and it becomes this delicious topping and it's like a dessert. It's awesome.
00:32:39
Speaker
That's life changing. I'm making some pierogies next weekend, maybe tomorrow. Now my next one, I told you, I love potatoes. So this one's also a potato dish. And there's no way I'm going to pronounce it right, but it's plocky, salmon. Plotsky, Jimiachane. Yeah. How does that go again? Plotsky, Jimiachane. I think that's right. It starts with a Z. Yes. Plotsky, Jimiachane. Yeah. They're potato pancakes. Potato pancakes.
00:33:06
Speaker
Yep, and they are absolutely unbelievable. You can eat them for breakfast, you can eat them for lunch. I would describe it as like a Polish hash brown. Oh, that's a good way to think about it.
00:33:17
Speaker
Yeah, you can put gravy on it. You can put, you know, other people, other different types of potato pancakes. I mean, it's a potato. You put ketchup on it if you want. Just sour cream, but, uh, it's, it's like a great combo. I like it if I do some type of, like some type of schnitzel kind of thing or like a croquette or just like, uh, just the chicken cutlet with that and like some gravy on top. That's a great combo.
00:33:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good one. My mom really loves those. I'm not a huge fan of, I don't really eat potatoes as much, but my family does and that was something my mom can make really well from scratch. Okay, nice. Give me your next two. What's your next pick?
00:33:52
Speaker
All right, well, I will start with goumpki, which are these, imagine like a burrito, but the outer shell is made of like steamed, uh, oh my gosh, cabbage. And so it's a cabbage shell that wraps
00:34:08
Speaker
It's this mixture of meat and rice and sometimes mushrooms. You can eat it with a red sauce, like a tomato sauce covering it. My favorite is a mushroom gravy sauce, but go lumpki are probably my second favorite most sought after meal that I ask my mom for anytime I'm visiting.
00:34:32
Speaker
I think I got that on my list. G-O-L-A-B-K-I. Yep. I've had those before. Yes. Aren't they delicious? They're pretty good. I'm not like a big... So Brianna loves them. She loves cabbage. I'm not a huge fan of cabbage. So usually I just kind of break it open and eat the inside. She eats the whole thing. All right. Let's pick number three for you. Number three is barst chervone. So red barst.
00:34:56
Speaker
or most people like borscht I think is how you say it in English. It is a beet, red beet soup. I actually just used my mom's recipe for the first time and made it for Christmas for Jake's family and they came to visit while he was at the firehouse and we just got back from our honeymoon so I couldn't.
00:35:13
Speaker
I'm going to swing a trip to Chicago, but yeah, it is a really, really delicious soup. A lot of people think like, ooh, beet soup, like I don't know if that's my jam. Trust me, it's like spiced correctly and it's like, I don't know if you'd know that it's beet soup besides it being this deep red color, but you make the barst and it's got like a vegetable broth in it as well. And you actually make ushka or like pierogi dumplings that are mushroom filled for the holidays over Christmas.
00:35:43
Speaker
and you basically eat it like a soup, like a dumpling soup with basch. So that's another favorite of mine. Okay. I've never had that. I did see it online. We'll put it on the list to make for sure. I don't know if you know, but we do a lot of cooking. Oh, I'll have to send you my mom's recipe. Yeah. I feel pretty confident that I can make all these. Well, my next pick, I'm taking a little bit more of a sweet turn here. I'm taking the Potsky.
00:36:08
Speaker
The A in Poland would normally have a tail on it, which makes the O sound. Well, for those of you that don't know, it is a Polish donut. Okay. And I love donuts. I don't discriminate based off of name or country or flavor. It's fried dough with glaze and a fruit filling. And it's truly amazing.
Book Recommendations and Conclusion
00:36:25
Speaker
I get them. Usually every single year, they're always in all the stores around Lent because it's like a big thing in Poland. One day, maybe I'll visit Poland. Uh, I'm going to try and pronounce this holiday, but it's
00:36:45
Speaker
It's a fat Thursday. Just festival before Lent. If you're Catholic then you know typically before Lent or during Lent you're supposed to fast.
00:36:52
Speaker
And way, way back when, it was very similar to Ramadan, where you didn't eat during the day. And because you don't fast, this is the last party where everybody eats before you start really getting into Lent. And people just gorge themselves on punskis. And I'm going to go there and I'm going to eat so many of these little freaking donuts that I enter Polish folklore. Like, people are going to talk about me about this mythical creature, this man from America that came over and ate 40,000 donuts during Fat Thursday. You know, I don't think it would come as a big surprise to Polish people.
00:37:26
Speaker
No. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. There's a stereotype about Americans. Yeah. That's not just a Polish thing. That's an everywhere thing. Okay. Well, my next pick, I am going to take a Polish Kielbasa. Okay. I don't know if I pronounced that one right either. Kielbasa. Yeah, that's good.
00:37:47
Speaker
So if you ever play golf with me, you know that I'm never going to pass up a hot dog at the turn. And if there was ever an option on the golf course to get a kielbasa at the turn, I would take it pretty much every time. I mean, it's basically just, it's just a Polish brat. I love brats. I love hot dogs, but a lot of times with the kielbasa, you know, you always serve it in a sandwich form, peppers, onions, sometimes they'll put like some type of gravy sauce on top of it. I mean, I'm all the way down for it. Or you just do kielbasa with mashed potatoes. And that's just, it's just a solid, pretty simple meal.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah, can't go wrong. Honestly, it's a good one. All right, what is your next pick? My next pick is also another soup. I grew up eating this. My dad likes to make this on Sundays, for breakfast actually. It's common to eat this soup for breakfast. It's called Zurek, Z-U-R-E-K. It's a light colored soup. God, I wish I knew exactly like what the contents were. My dad always made it and I buy these packets from our local Polish store here in Pineville area.
00:38:43
Speaker
where you can literally just like pour them into a boiling pot of water and it flavors it the way that it should. But it's common to chop up cubasa and put it in the zurac and also hard-boiled eggs chopped up go in the zurac and then you eat like usually if you take like a piece of like rye bread as your side and dip it while you eat that's pretty common as well it's just delicious so that's that's probably my next pick. Okay give me your last pick.
00:39:11
Speaker
All right, my last pick now that we're, Easter is upon us. This is a very, very common Easter breakfast food. And actually just, this may have also been at our wedding. It's a really great appetizer type food. It's a really great meal type of, I mean, you can have it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It's called Sawatka Yajanova, and which basically means vegetable salad.
00:39:33
Speaker
but you have to think about the vegetables are mostly all cooked, right? They're all like boiled. So, and like think of like a frozen vegetable bag of like peas and carrots and well, we also have apples in there. So I know that's not a vegetable, but you add the apple stuff.
00:39:48
Speaker
separately, like sometimes pickles as well. So it's just like a wild mix of like different things, also with like mayonnaise and mustard. And I know this all sounds really wild. But trust me, if Jake likes it, okay, like he's all about Sawafka, especially like Easter. It's very common to eat Sawafka for breakfast on Easter Sunday. It is frickin delicious. I like to put it almost like a I like to scoop it on like a piece of
00:40:12
Speaker
bread and almost make a sandwich with it, like a chunky Sawatka sandwich and put deli meat on top of that and it is so freaking good. I actually, arguably, that could have been my number one. Well, my last pick, I'm ending on another sweet note, a little Polish cookie called Kowatski. Kowatski, yep. That's a common one. Yeah, delicious. I never had these until your wedding. Okay, yeah. They're a big, very popular.
00:40:36
Speaker
Yes, very great little cookie. It's the fluff, light pastry dough. And then you just put a little bit of fruit jam or spread on each side with the powdered sugar. I mean, I was housing these between the Polish cancer. I love it. That's awesome. Glad you like them. I didn't know that was your first time.
00:40:54
Speaker
That was my first time having those cookies. I did look online to get the names of some of these items, like the Polish names, but everything on my list I've had before. I didn't just pick Polish food that they said online was, oh, this is the best Polish food. Good. Well, that makes me proud.
00:41:11
Speaker
EJ, are you ready for some afternoon delights book club? I sure am, but don't make fun of me because I'm not a huge reader. I am. I'm trying to get better, but not going to have a lot to contribute here. That's okay. I'm not a big reader either. It's whatever book you think that anybody's going to love, doesn't it? It can be what you're reading now, what you've read recently, or it can just be your all time favorite book. What would you recommend to the people?
00:41:35
Speaker
Okay, well, Jake showed me this book and I'm not going to say Red Rising because that seems to be a common one on your podcast. It's called Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. He may have mentioned it on the show when he was with you, but I love that book. I could reread it over and over again, kind of like a sci-fi, like thinking about concepts of the universe and like Schrodinger's cat
00:41:59
Speaker
and kind of incorporating it into a fun fictional story. So definitely recommend that one. And then another one is The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein. That one's kind of more of like a for all my girlies out there into self care. It's a great book to kind of like getting shifting your mindset to like the law of attraction towards like the law of attraction and kind of that concept. So those are my only two.
00:42:23
Speaker
Well, Evelina, you were a great guest. Thank you. It was really fun chatting with you this morning. This started off my day on a high note, so I appreciate it. Well, that's good. We're just here to help bring smiles to people. That's what afternoon delights is all about. So kicking you off this weekend on a good note brings a smile to my face. Well, thanks, Matt. It was really great catching up with you, and we hope to see you guys soon.
00:42:47
Speaker
Same here, same here. All right. Well, thank you out there to everybody listening. We really appreciate it. And I'm your host, Matt Lattimer, just reminding you that it's a good day to have a good day.
00:43:12
Speaker
So long, farewell, I'll be to St. Andrew. I do, I do, to you and you and you.