I grew up in Northeastern Pennsylvania in a little town called Forest City. It's small---one square mile, about 2000 people. Let's put it this way. Most people graduate with hundreds of students. My school housed K-12 grade in one building with a total of 940 students. I believe we only had 60 some kids in my graduating class. With the exception of some people knowing about the Poconos because of their winter homes and skiing, most had no idea the area existed. At least not until NBC introduced The Office to us all. But anyway, the deal with that area is it used to be booming when coal mining was still in existence. Now that the mining is gone, it really doesn't have a "thing." It is by no means "booming" anymore, although plenty would like to get it back that way. European immigrants found their way to NEPA and started working in the mines. With them, they brought their ethnic (pronounced "etnic" in NEPA--for more PA talk go here) food. "Lean" anything is not allowed and its not a real meal unless there is a minimum of one stick of butter (not light margarine) included. We ate kielbasa (homemade, not Hillshire Farms and definitely not made of turkey), halpuki (stuffed cabbage, AKA pigs in the blanket to us), haluski (cabbage and noodles and 3 sticks of butter I think), povitica (pronounced po-tee-sa and its a very delicious nut roll), and most importantly pierogies.
Pierogies, for those of you who don't know, are pure deliciousness. Its a Polish dumpling filled with mashed potatoes and cheese, sauteed in lots of butter and onions, with more butter on top. Sometimes its filled with sauerkraut, mushrooms, cabbage, meat, or fruit. Nothing against Mrs. T's brand pierogies, but there's nothing like a real, homemade pierogi, made by some old lady in her tiny kitchen, or in the kitchen of a church or firehouse hall. (Everything happens at firehouses, as well. Everyone has a "firehouse" wedding in the banquet hall. And usually you lose a bunch of your guests when their pages go off alerting them to a call. Even though I tried to avoid it, Marshall and I ended up having a firehouse wedding.) I'm sure by now you catch my drift about just how much "bad" food we ate, especially pierogies and how all of that wonderful food set me up for multiple visits to Weight Watchers later in life.
So, now, in honor of making me the fatty I used to be, I'd like to thank the pierogi by helping make Forest City, PA, the Capital of the Pierogy Pocket 2009. Our town is in the final competition round along with 4 other cities. Each year we have a pierogi eating contest (which is actually quite gross to watch...I think this years winner ate 50+ homemade pierogies in 10 minutes) and this year they started telling the legend of Mr. Pierogi Man stories.
I'm asking that you vote for my hometown so we have a better chance of winning. The winner gets $10,000. If FC wins, they plan on putting the money towards a Living History of Forest City exhibit.
To read more, go here.
To vote, go here.
If you vote, thanks for helping put my hometown on the map!
3 comments:
Just so you know, I've never had a pierogi. I think your mom needs to make some for Brandon's party.
Just sayin.
I will absolutely see if I can make that happen. She doesn't make them by hand---she gets them from some old lady I think. I will see if she can bring some with her.
Yeah so I would never eat any of that stuff, but I voted for your lil town so y'all can win. I think the voting page is broken. It only lets me vote once every 48 hours instead of every 24. Maybe you can take me on my very first coal mine tour one day :-)
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