A Polish Feast

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Mmmm. Yummy Cabbage!
Quickly I will devour thee.
Polish food is good.
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Yesterday I had the privilege to attend the Annual Polish Festival in Patterson Park. It was all weekend but my girlfriend and I only attended the last day. We also only attended for a couple of hours but I accomplished what I went there to do... EAT. My girlfriend and I enjoy making and eating traditional ethnic foods. Hearing there was a Polish Festival right down the street we made it a point to go and sample the local fare. First entering the festival we tried some handmade Pierogi's. Pierogi's are basically like dumplings, pasta outer coverings with ingredients in the middle. Pierogi's are famous in Poland but they are common in all 'Slavic' regions of Europe. They advertised two flavors. The first was a sauerkraut/mushroom pierogi and the second a cheese/mash potato pierogi. We wanted to try all of them but unfortunately they only had the sauerkraut and mushroom one. It was great but I was looking forward to the cheese one. The sauerkraut really took over the flavoring the the aftertaste of the pierogi was amazing. Well worth the buy. Next we tried a local Baltimore's take on a spicy polish sausage. It was great. I had it on bread covered in onions and bell peppers. Although it was a 'polish' sausage it was still just a regular sausage you buy at any festival. Flavors were good but nothing I didn't have before. After the sausage we went to a little family owned stand and go the 'Polish Dish'. It was mash potatoes, pickles, fried pork chops, and some cabbage on the side. Everything was basic except for the cabbage. It totally made up for the $6 price and the instant mashed potatoes. This cabbage was almost a soup, relatively thick, with meat stock to it. Absolutely amazing. I need to find the recipe. Actually, I WILL find the recipe. That was too good to not have again.

There was also a Filipino stand there and they were selling the regular pinoy booth food. Rice, Pork bbq, chicken, and lumpia. What they had that really made my day though was the cantaloupe juice. MMMMMmmmmm. So good. The juice caught my eye and I had to have some. That's the first time I've had that since the old Fil-Am meetings in Italy. If you've never had it I suggest you go get some NOW.

After that we watched some polka bands, bought a belt and then left. I got a cool blue and black cowboy belt. I'll post some pics later.. or not. Whatev.