My Pierogie Pie

The only place you can good pizza from where ever you are to Japan is in Pennsylvania. End of discussion.

Ask anyone whom ever moved away from PA and came back for visit what the 1st thing they want when roll into town is. If its not a Philly Cheese Steak, its a Pizza. Even if it is a Philly Cheese Steak, the next thing they'll want is an effin pizza! Its not just one thing that makes ours stand out from the rest - its everything. Each place has its own take on delicate sauces, soft doughs, and wonderful blends of cheeses that come together to make a greasy masterpiece that around here we simply refer to as "Pie".

One of my regular haunts got rid of one of my favorite types of Pie, the "Pierogie Pizza Pie", which is simply the delectable insides of a traditional Pierogie smeared on a crust. So i thought I'd try to make one for hoots n' hollers.

We start with the potato. This is no ordinary potato, although i found it happily besides the regular batch. This specific potato couldve ended the Potato famine, all on its own, as you can see:


Attack!! Of the killer PO-TAAAA-TOES!!!

This bitch isn't getting away so easy



After I bring an untimely fate to that squirrely potato i throw in the pot to boil. In retrospect, cutting the pieces more uniform in size may have assured a more uniform cook... BUT hindsight's always 20/20, and in short...fuck it.

This ain't Kitchen Stadium.

Boil Boil Toil and Trouble!!

While i wait for that to boil, i chop up my onion, because onion goes in pierogies!! Good and good for you!

Smells like that guy at work i call "Onions"

AHhhhh, still no boil!!? I guess I'll have a sweet lebonon bologna break, i hear it makes ya smart. You cant get it most regions of our country...tell ya anything?

If it wasn't for spiced meats I'd be a vegetarian

Hmmm, still no boil??? I guess i could grate some mozzarella while i wait.

I hanker for a hunk of - a slab, a slice, a chunk of....

Next i chop up the bacon. Why bacon you ask? Bacon doesn't go in pierogie! Well fuck you. This my pie and I say it gets bacon. SO says I!!

Stock Photo

OK The potatoes are almost done so I'm ready to start frying up the bacon. Once that starts to get good and crispy i throw in the onions because I really don't feel like dirtying another pan. Anyway, the bacon grease brings out the flavor in everything. Am i right?? huh? huh? right?


Yeah, I think I'm right

OK, now that that's going - I'm gotta make my mashed potatoes. My guess is making them how you like them will make this Pie taste the way you like it. You follow? I personally have a secret ingredient that goes into my mashed potatoes that makes them absolutely SING!! Soooo if you don't mind turning around for a second while i add it, I really would feel more comfortable. OK don't look. You're not looking right? Promise you wont look?? Ok, here it goes...

ACK!! You looked!! DAAAAAH!!!

Well I guess the cats outta the bag huh??!! I add Hellmenns Mayo to my mashed taters!! I hope you're happy. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

Ya know what?? Lets put that all behind us. We're here for the pie after all, am i right?? Ok....Sooo, I smeared the smashed tater on the pie then sprinkled on a nice amount of cheese and topped it with my bacon & onions.

How could this quite possibly go wrong??

Yes, i do plan on eating those both.

So throw it in the oven and write a blog while you wait. I actually wrote this blog while i waited! See I can be productive.

AAannnnd.... here it is:

~My Pierogie Pie~

Hmmm. That doesnt look quite done yet.

do dit do doo dit do doo dit doo doo doo dit do.
Spiderman spiderman freindly neighborhood spiderman...
do dit do doo dit do doo dit doo doo doo dit do.

Ok, lets try this again..

Annnnd here it is!!! MY PIEROGIE PIE!!

Aw yeah bebe, mucho better

WAIT!! ....before you eat it I have to say one more thing. The correct way to eat pie is NOT with a fork & knife! That will certainly piss off any Pennsylvanian within an eyeshot. Its a despicable way to eat pie and if you happen to live in PA and you eat it like this......weeelll, you might as well walk around waving a flag that says "I'm not from here". Its fucking blasphemy. You look like an idiot & now you dont have any freinds. Trust me on this. Pick it up and eat with your hands or dont eat it all.

I just shove my fuckin face in it, you only live once. I gatta tell ya this is Motherfuckin delicious. Wish you all were here to share.

Get in my bellaaaaay!

Ok kids!! Thats I got time for today, I hope you all had as much fun as i did!!

Take care and remember - Eat it with your hands, Life is better messy!!

So says I!!

Waves of Yellow

I woke up early, alone in bed. My boyfriend had already left for work. I lay there for a while and remembered the anxiety he expressed to me the night before. Its not that I don’t usually go places alone, I just don’t usually go into or near the city alone, but there was someone I had to meet with. I had been summoned.

I went through the usual thoughtless routine of getting ready to leave the house. Shower, brush teeth, get dressed, make hair & face as presentable as possible without obsessing. Within 15 minutes I was out the door.

I didn’t talk to anyone on the bus; it was full of faceless people – people I didn’t want to notice me. This was not my routine, this was not what I would normally do on a Friday morning and I felt like I was intruding on their routines, on their lives, as they went to work or school. In an effort to be as inconspicuous as possible I took a book out of my bag, lowered my head and began to read. After what I guessed was an hour into my hour and a half trip in noticed the sun was finally coming up and the world had that pretty purplish hue that gets on a cold morning in the fall. I was thinking it was going to be a nice day.

As I looked around me I suddenly noticed most of the passengers were gone, so I took the time to see if we were passing anything familiar. I wanted to have a better idea of where I was exactly.

As I turned around I noticed a girl sitting across the aisle & one seat behind me. As fast as I noticed her she jumped at me with a hand outstretched. I recoiled against the bus window feeling groggy & my vision blurred. I guessed that was probably from reading on while in motion & I probably needed coffee. As I tried to refocus I first noticed that the girl was wearing a very yellow shirt. A true no-doubt-about-it yellow, think Big Bird. It was all I could see for a long moment.

Then she was smiling at me. She had a very large round face. She was young and not exactly pretty. She looked like the type of girl her peers might avoid, a loner. As I fully refocused she looked expectant at me, and right then I decided I wouldn’t be snobby and I would talk to her. I hadn’t been raised to be anything less. We ended up talking and joking around the rest of my trip. It felt like we were in our own little bubble, our own little world. Soon our bus got off the highway and the exit took us to a slightly urban town.

It was somewhat of a typical small town outside of the big city, the type of town that has little or no money for upkeep. Everyone had to tend to his or her own area with pride. The streets were old and even though they were inviting, as we rode closer to my destination I could almost feel the unsavory underbelly of this quaint town waking up.

Finally it was time for me to get off the bus & I politely said goodbye to the girl. As I walked down the side of the road getting closer to my destination, I felt good about being nice to her. Still there was something about her I found unsettling and could understand why she might avoided by people in general.
The address I had with me led me to a small cottage that sat back a little bit off the road with a gray gravel parking lot in front. It was the last house that my eyes could see on the road and all I that followed behind it was green. The house wasn’t in great shape. The faded yellow paint and green trim was chipping, the door was dirty and splintered, but the windowsills had yellow & orange marigolds in long bins beneath them, thereby brightening up the entire structure.

I couldn’t help but pat myself on the back and quietly laugh at my boyfriend for having no faith in me as I walked briskly towards the building. He was so worried I would get lost – but here I was! I felt empowered and free as I took in a long deep breath of the country air. The sun was almost up now and just as I suspected earlier, it was going to be a beautiful day. Carrying that bright and clear disposition with me I walked through the parking lot, up the small steps of the cottage & without any hesitation I opened the door and paraded right through...

The front room was a dark, seedy, smoky bar that seemed longer and wider than the building itself could quite possibly accommodate. The front door opened directly in the center. It was chock filled with strange and drunk people. Hmmm, were they even people? Before I could take another look or step a short and stocky woman dressed in orange and gold wispy gypsy garb walked up to me and took my hand. She said nothing but gave me a welcoming smile as she led me to my right, weaving through customers and past bar stools to the very end of the impossibly long bar where she pulled me into a quiet room. This woman was definitely a witch. She was also the person I was to meet. She was indeed my destination.

The blurry vision I experienced earlier returned to me in waves as I sat in front of her impromptu desk. It was cluttered with crystal balls and scarves, little bottles filled with potions and scraps of paper with filled with scribbles. She sat down and we began to talk business.

Then suddenly our meeting was over, we were shaking hands and she was quickly leading me back to the bar. I knew we had discussed and agreed on something, some sort of terms…. but what exactly?? I felt dazed and sick to my stomach. As we neared the front door she was distracted by a few patrons, so I sat near the center of the bar, safely near the front door and waited for her to give me further instructions. Truthfully, I really didn’t want to start my trip home yet – hadn’t I just arrived? How much time had passed? I was just deciding to stay as the bartender's attention fell on me. He was coming towards me wearing a tight black tee that showed off his muscular physique. He was absolutely gorgeous. Yup, I could just stay here all day and gaze into those dark eyes. Abruptly there was yelling behind me and to the left, the beginning of a scuffle? We both turned our attention to see a man wait, no- a Mole? Yelling at an….Aardvark???

These weren’t people. Sure they were dressed like people but they certainly were not. The Mole man was covered from head to toe in sweater like scrunched up cloth, only his dark eyes were free of any material. With a quick glance I realized he was one of the most normal and human looking out of the whole group - what kind of bar is this? They appeared to be a gang of some sort having a squabble over ranks. A human Panda sat down next to me and I realized whether I liked it or not it was time for me to take my leave. I didn’t belong here and I certainly did not want to be around to see if their squabble escalated. Quickly I ducked my head down avoiding all eye contact and moved towards the door. I didn’t turn back as I closed it behind me and entered the gravel parking lot.

The sun was out now and it smelled like afternoon as I walked out of the parking lot and down the shoulder of the road. After a short while I reached an under pass where the bus I had rode earlier had gone over before exiting the highway. Suddenly a wave of anxiety and fear washed over me like I just drove into a pool of it head first. I walked under the highway; after all I couldn’t take that route home. I would instead have to find a way home through this strange town.

Here hidden from the light there were ragged people laying all around and begging for money. Their whispering conversations between the steel that held up the road above echoed around me gave and left me cold. I yanked up my hoodie and pulled out my cell phone from my jeans pocket to call my boyfriend. Walking was not a good idea – in fact what was I thinking?

A woman and man hurried past me and I called to the woman to ask her exactly where I was. She got very close to my face and said she would only help me if I did something for her. "What? What? What do you want?" I asked, as felt my anxiety heighten. I knew I shouldn’t be walking this way, shouldn’t be yelling at this woman – I knew I was getting myself into trouble. "Buy me pack of cigarettes up the road here,” she said gesturing with her head. "Fine" I replied. This was getting ridiculous.

I dialed my boyfriend's number as she nervously paced in front of me. What was her problem? I didn’t want her help. I didn’t need her. My boyfriend knew where I was. I would go back to the cottage and he could pick me up there. Why tempt fate? I shouldn’t continue on this road with this woman. She listened as I told him my plans and gave me an aggravated wave of her hand then stomped away. I was happy she was gone and we were going in different directions.

On the other end of the phone my boyfriend told me I could handle this. Shit. Maybe I should have kept her around? He was busy watching a TV show about ants and making hats with newspapers, I would have to drive myself home, he informed me. I hung up the phone on him angrily and saw my car in a parking lot next door to the cottage. What the hell? Wearily and without questioning it I got in, started my car and then slowly backed out of the parking space. I was worn out and I needed to get the hell out of this place, stat.
I was just about to pull onto the main road when my phone rang. It was my boyfriend again. He as upset and his voice was very strained. "You've been bugged with magic! How could you not know that?! Why wouldn’t I come and get you?! When have you ever seen me make paper hats??" he yelled frantically. "Stay where you are, I'm on my way. Are there any humans near you?" he asked. "No. None's here." I replied while getting out of my car. I left it there halfway out of the parking lot with the driver’s door wide open, headlights on. I immediately started down the road towards the interstate for the second time. What the hell was going on here?? What ever it was I wasn’t hanging around to wait and find out - but I was getting tired of walking back and forth! I made the decision to wait near the exit, not quite as far as the underpass – I would have to find a place he wouldn’t miss me while driving by. I just needed to get away from this cottage!

Once again anxiety and fear gripped me without warning and I spun around to see if I was being followed, but no one was there – the street was completely and totally empty. I turned back to the road in front of me and in a blink of an eye it was covered in heavy white snow. "No one's here, everyone's gone," I said to myself, forgetting there was a cell phone connected to my ear. I slowly pulled the phone from my ear and I gawked at the snowdrifts pilling up along the roads shoulder where I was just walking mere minutes ago on a spring day. I was now in the middle of this small street in this small town feeling very, small with all this big snow. It was fully knee deep and as I trudged along, the white flakes continued to fall and swirl around me relentlessly. Then, flashes of the day began to scatter through my mind.

Reading on the bus. A yellow shirt. Purple hues. Warmth. Orange scarves. Agreements. Moles and witches. Homeless beggars. Walking in the dawn. Walking in the sun. Walking in the snow. Who was friend and who was foe? How did my car get here? Should I turn back again and ask the old gypsy witch for help? I needed help. Could I trust her? I had to trust her. I looked down at my hand and saw I still held the cell phone. Shit, this isn’t my fucking phone. Fuck. Still undecided but desperate, I took 3 slow steps backward then turned to go back to the cottage through now even deeper snow, and there she was right behind me.

It all happened so fast. Her large round face smiled at me, but the smile did not touch her eyes. I was relived and then horrified so quickly it seemed to be the same emotion. This girl in front of me standing in my path, this girl from the bus, she reached for me in a quick and short bust of energy as all of her stubby finger made a throwing gesture at my face. "Dice" she spat decisively and my vision immediately blurred.

My head spun as I tried to regain my equilibrium. She had reached for me before; she had reached for me on the bus. No, this wasn’t the first time I heard her say that to me. I've been under her spell all day. "It was she!" I yelled to no one. There were no mole people. There was no snow. Where was my car? This isn’t my phone. Crumpling into the snow (that I knew could not be there) I moaned and breathlessly asked, "What do you want from me?" She came closer then knelt down over me with an expectation I couldn’t quite grasp.

I was right she really wasn’t pretty - but I had definitely misjudged her age. She was older. She was wiser. She was evil. For the last time vision blurred and the last thing I saw were waves of true no-doubt-about-it yellow.

The End.