Pฤ
czki, pronounced "Poonch-key" is the name of the
famous Polish jelly doughnuts. It's so good that it makes you want to go-nuts!
When I was a boy in high school being shaped up by the
Jesuits my cousin Kenny moved from Harper Woods, Michigan to Orange County,
California. He was henceforth known as the "California Kid;" so
dubbed by our Uncle Phil. (Kenny currently lives near Orange County so the
experience must have been formative.)
Uncle Phil was a baker; in fact, he owned and operated a few
Polish bakeries in the Detroit area at one point in time. I was a rather shy
kid and I remember his withering greeting. He was missing the first to joints
on his right index finger. How this happened I never learned. When I came by
his home to visit he would invariably shake my hand and rub the stump into my
palm. It was a soul draining experience. I'm sure he meant nothing by it except
to tease me. I'm glad he stopped there and didn't give me a goosing for good
measure.
Uncle Phil had a wicked sense of humor. At our summer
cottage a fly once found its way into my ear. Phil quipped, "it probably
went out the other side." On another occasion, I had persuaded my folks to
buy me a pop gun, the double barreled kind that shoots corks. I went with my mother to the Dime Store to
buy it. I was attempting to show her how it worked. The gun had to be cocked by
breaking at the breach. The spring action was very tight; and, as I struggled
to cock it, it slipped my grasp and caught me in my little private personal
part. Ouch! The store was a few blocks away from Phil's Northtown Bakery and I
was taken there first before going to the hospital. Uncle Phil grinningly
speculated that it might have to be cut off. Tough love. Later, at the
hospital, that prospect was all I could think about. Imagine this little
innocent boy nervously asking the doctor if it was going to be cut off. Phil!!!
Years later as a young man I visited with him and we had
some real conversations. He was a good, hardworking man. Phil spent most of his
time working hard in his bakery, cigar butt clenched firmly in his teeth as he
kneaded dough. He became quite well to do, living in a beautiful house on
Lakeshore Drive in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, just down the road from HFII
(that's Henry Ford II, of automotive fame).
His wife Genevieve was my father's sister. Aunt Gene was so beautiful in every way.
Always most kind to me, kind in reverse proportion to Phil. She is the only
human being who was allowed to call me Davey. (RIP Aunt Gene, 2014.) To all
others, it's David, if you please. They had a badminton court in their back
yard and I loved to go there to play. Also, to go across the street to the
Farms Pier to swim in Lake St. Clair during the summer; to skate on the frozen
lake in the cold Michigan winters.
I vividly remember one time I was invited for lunch. They
had these trendy colorful anodized aluminum tumblers. I got a nice ice cold
lemonade. Trouble was, it tasted like 50% dishwashing liquid. Big time. Tact
and timidity prevented me from pointing that out. Years later I now surmise
that dear cousin Marlene put that mickey in my drink. Marlene!!! A chip off the
old block? Well, later I evened the score. Once we went to the beach for a swim
and Marlene was going into the water just ahead of me. I was the first to
notice that her one piece bathing suit was not zipped up. Wicked little Davey
starts running after her, yelling at the top of his voice, "Marlene,
Marlene, get into the water, quick!" Everyone on the beach was put on
notice. Marlene was embarrassed, of course. (As planned.) She admonished me
that I could have been a little more discreet to tell her. She never suspected
that I did it on purpose. Hah! How's that for quick on the feet?
But, I also remember Marlene was the one who took me aside
one day to teach me the gentlemanly art of opening a door for a lady and
helping with a seat. Also, how to dance the au courant Chicken. Thank you,
Marlene! But... gotchya!
When cousin Kenny left for California his job at the bakery
came open and I stepped in. Every Friday afternoon after school I would go
directly to the bakery, arriving at around 4:30 PM working through the night
until 6:30 AM. I would take a half hour meal break at around midnight. My job
was to assist the other bakers in preparing many of the baked goods for the big
Saturday sales day. This schedule was particularly gruesome during the summer
school recess period. I learned about the blues going on the bus to the bakery
on those hot, humid summer Friday's.
After arriving and putting on an apron my first task was to
peel a half dozen large Bermuda onions and chop them fine in an empty 5 gallon
can (the kind that fruit fillings came packed in bulk) with a dull table
scraper. I would season the chopped onions with salt and poppy seeds. This was
the topping for the onion buns. They were great fresh; hard as rocks the next
day. I was allowed to do this job pretty much unsupervised and was impressed
that they would entrust the blending to me. They were keeping an eye on me
though; once I put in too much salt and was admonished to ease up.
All this time the bakers were kneading dough into individual
loaves. Uncle Iggy (he wasn't my uncle, he was Ken's; but I called him that
anyway) was a stone serious tool of a man. He had a gray color about him. Austere.
I assisted him in moving various rolls and loaves to the proofing trays (which
Uncle John, Ken's father, had made special for the purpose — he was a carpenter
by trade). Iggy was quite adept at making kaiser rolls and seemed to keep the
knack of twisting the dough coil into the right shape a secret from me. He did,
however, attempt to teach me how to cut the slashes in the french loaves. I
seemed to always cut too deep and he would bluster and fume in his exasperation
with my lack of skill. I don't know if I was a good student, but I know that
you don't encourage learning by highlighting the student's ignorance. May he
rest in peace.
Then I had to help my Uncle Zawodski (that was his last name
and that's the name he was known by, "Zawodski") load the large oven
with hundreds of loaves of bread. He was a short robust man, and bald. Think
Mr. Clean. He had forearms the size of hams; very strong. He also lived in
Grosse Pointe (there's money in bread) and took great pride in his lawn. It was
manicured like a world class putting green. He had a special mower, the kind
used to trim putting greens. It was very hard device to push, and he would trim
all the edges by hand on his hands and knees. Polish folks are known as hard
workers. All his bushes were trimmed in a simple geometric topiary style; just
so. There were deer on the lawn and a gazing ball on a concrete pedestal. Wow!
When the bread was ready to come out of the oven my job was
to stand to the side at a large wood top table. Zawodski would shovel about 8
loaves at a time from his peel onto the table. That peel must have had a 10
foot handle, long enough to reach to the back of the oven. You learned right
away that you couldn't stand behind the baker when the bread was coming out of
the oven. It went so fast that handle must have been moving at 80 mph. I had a
few near misses. My job in assisting with the finished loaves was to brush some
of the tops with a corn starch and water solution. This would glaze the crust
and give it a little crispy, crackly texture. Then with thick heat proof gloves
I would stack the loaves onto wire racks to cool.
It seemed that most of the bread was Rye. Plain and Seeded.
The latter was called Russian Rye, loaded with caraway seeds. There were an
assortment of White Breads: French style hand shaped, some baked in in pans
with round tops, and some Pullman style baked with a heavy cover on top to make
a square slice. There were also the Challahs. These were in one, two, and three
pound loaves. This bread is braided from three dough coils. The dough itself
was rich in egg yolks which were delivered to the bakery in 5 gallon tins. My
job around this item was to open a tin of egg yolks, stir it up, and brush the
proofed loaves gently (Iggy would flip if I pressed too hard.) The smell and
sight of hundreds of fresh egg yolks at around midnight would make me woozy. It
was stomach wrenching. Some loaves were also covered with a streusel topping.
The bakers pronounced it "strizzle." Never knew the correct term
until years later. It was also a mystery what it was made of— tasted mildly
sweet, crumbly, with a buttery orange note. Music to your taste buds, anyway.
A vivid memory was when my brother's first child,
Christopher, was born and my dad stopped by the bakery in the middle of the
night to tell me. I was particularly impressed that he took the trouble to come
over to tell me personally.
The other bread that I would be remiss to not mention is the
behemoth, the Godzilla of all breads, the 5 pound Russian Black Bread. It was
black, man. This was sold by the pound. My job was to smear some stuff that
resembled cement on the top just before it went into the oven. It made a nice
crust. I was the pinochle of the baker's art.
The very last thing that I did before the end of my shift
was to assist with the Pฤ
czki. In the back of bakery, behind the great oven,
there was a large vat of oil heated to fry the doughnuts. My mentor for this
procedure was one Mitchell Mazur. He was a dead ringer for Ely Wallach, and
quite the jokester. From him I learned the answer to that age old puzzle,
"how many wrinkles in a bull ass?" Trust me, you don't want to know.
(Or, bend over and let me count.)
One time, to impress me I'm sure, he spit into the hot oil
to test if it was ready. I knew that the heat would kill any untoward bacteria.
But people did seem to smile after taking a bite of Mitchell's doughnuts, so
maybe some of his jovial essence remained. When the Pฤ
czki were done on both
sides (he used a stick to flip them over) he would lift 2 dozen at a time out
with a wire rack previously set into the bottom of the vat. We must've made
some 12 dozen in all. After the doughnuts were fried I would prepare a large
bowl of sugar glaze, a bowl of granulated sugar, and a bowl of powdered sugar.
Then I would load the jelly dispensers with 1) raspberry jelly, 2) prune butter
(that's "povidla," pronounced "povidwa" in Polish — or also
known as "lekvar") — my personal fave, and 3) custard — a close
second preference. These contraptions could hold around 4-5 quarts of filling
each. They had a plunger attached to a handle and a spigot at the bottom.
I would take each
still hot pฤ
czek, spike and load each one with the designated filling and toss
them top side down into the appropriate sugar topping. This was a multiple
challenge. First the doughnuts were still very hot. And, you had to handle them
very delicately or they would scrunch up. Iggy had gone home by now but the
mere thought of screwing up brought me eye to eye with wrathful Ignatz. The
sugar glaze was also quite hot and it would cling to your fingers. Ow! Ooh!
Ouch! Almost time to go home. My one satisfaction around this was that, since I
myself like lots of filling in my Pฤ
czki, I gave every one of them an extra
goose. There's an old Polish expression which reads best in the original;
translated it goes, "making love is like making a Paczki." Think
about it. (My personal cure for premature ejaculation was to conjure up an
image of Uncle Iggy. "All night long," as the song goes.)
Now my uncle Phil was one to teach a kid the value of a
dollar. This slave job of mine paid 75 cents an hour. Probably right for a kid
in the year 1958. I worked diligently, and even felt a little guilty taking my
meal break. After a while I asked for a raise. My next pay envelope had $11.90
instead of the usual $10.50. This increment was so small I approached Phil
asking about my promised raise. His response, "I gave you one, 10 cents an
hour." Well I didn't see how I was going to get my butt to Lake Shore
Drive in Grosse Pointe at that rate. So I quit. Finally stood up for myself and
to uncle Phil. Finger! I'll give you a finger!
(Soon after this parting of ways from the bakery my
brother's friend Bob Orlowski graduated from law school and gave up his
Saturday job at his Uncle Norb's butcher shop. I landed that spot and in a year
was taking home $25 for a 12 hour day. But that's a whole nother story. Onward
and upward, however.)
Not long ago I visited Detroit and looked up that old
Northtown Bakery on East 7 Mile Road a few blocks west of Van Dyke. Still
there, now owned by a Bulgarian gentleman. All the old fixtures were out in
front. The Balkan style (I presume) merchandising of the new owner included
cheap sneakers arranged in the glass cabinet — where they used to display cakes
— soda pops, and a small assortment of what we shall leave described as
"sundries." And an indescribable third world dinginess throughout. In
back it was like a time capsule. Not much changed from when I walked out with
my 85 cent an hour pay envelope. And that familiar dense greasy, buttery aroma
of countless baked goods; the odor crammed over the years into every pore in
the walls, floor, and ceiling.
I took one look around and exclaimed, "UNCLE!"
In 2013 we revisited the Nortown Bakery during a stay in
Detroit. The same owner, only now very bitter about how the neighborhood had
gone to hell. He wouldn't let us in the back for some pictures this time. He
seemed to be wary that we would publish the scene of decrepitude in some
newspaper. He did say the roof was falling in.
You can't go home again. Alas.
