I had lots of occasion to sit and visit with Mom Zdepski. I heard lots of stories about New York and life on the farm, exhausting most of my recollections in the footnotes within my fathers text. I inadvertently gave her some material for a story she occasionally told on me. In our house, we loved Gram-Mom’s pierogi, and about once per year she would come over and we would all make about 200 which we would eat for Saturday dinner and again for Sunday breakfast. She would always leave before the boiling began, or if she stayed she would eat a little chicken or something since she didn’t like pierogi any more. At about 10 years old, I asked her if she would make me some pierogi, so she invited me to her house for Friday night dinner. My father dropped me on her porch and left for a Deacon’s meeting. Mom Z had planned that both my father and I be her guests, so I sat down alone to 40 or 50 boiled pierogi with her famous sour-cream/bacon/onion gravy (she sat to her own non-pierogi meal). Saying grace after the meal might have been better, because I packed my 10-year old stomach with 27 fist sized potato, cheese and bacon pierogi. What tickled Gram-Mom’s fancy was that I couldn’t leave the table and she had to give me 2 Tum’s. I haven’t had a better meal, or more personalized service in any restaurant in the world.
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