Friday's Meandering Missive

I got the skinny on this deli from the Cap Times:

Madison's first Polish deli -- at least in modern times -- opened this month in Monroe Street's Knickerbocker Place, across from Bluephies and next to Yirgalem Ethiopian restaurant.

At least five Polish-speaking customers have stopped in each day since she's opened, said a surprised Izabela Kozik, 31, who added, "We didn't know how big the Polish community was."

Kozik had been planning the store for four months, ever since her parents, Alex and Janina Kozik, moved to Madison. The elder Koziks operated a store in Trenton, N.J., for many years called Polish Deli.

The Madison store, Alex Polish American Deli, is named for Kozik's father and her 6-year-old son, who share the name Alex.

The family is originally from Tychy, a town in southern Poland. They emigrated in 1988 to Greece before settling in New Jersey. Izabela Kozik moved to Madison in April 2003 after hearing good things about Wisconsin from an uncle who lived in Janesville.

Of Trenton, she said, "Too hot, too crowded. I couldn't stand it. It was time for a change."

The store carries about 30 different luncheon meats including corned beef, pork loin, garlic ham, double smoked ham, chicken head cheese and smoked bacon roll. It also has about 10 types of cheese, different varieties of frozen pierogi (Polish dumplings), juices, sweets, pasta, bread, herring, sauerkraut, mushrooms, pickles, stuffed cabbage and jam.

The deli makes sandwiches to order. They cost $2.50 to $3, depending on the size.

Kozik uses three distributors from Chicago, but if they are out of something or can't deliver, it is not unusual for her to drive to Chicago as early as 4 a.m.

The store doesn't have seating nor does it have a lot of atmosphere yet, but Kozik and her mother imbue the place with all the cheerfulness and personality it needs.

Dick Becker stopped in this week to pick up some items for his neighbors' au pair, who arrived recently from Poland.

"This is to die for," Becker said as he sampled the kielbasa, or Polish sausage.

Although he is of German and Irish ancestry, Becker said shopping at the deli reminds him of his childhood. It was his first time in the shop.

"This is just wonderful. I will definitely be back," he said.

Ann Patkowski-Ubing also visited the deli this week and spoke in her native tongue to Kozik and her mother.

Patkowski-Ubing, who is originally from Poland but has lived in Madison for 17 years, said she used to frequent Euro Food Market, the Polish deli in Middleton, which opened in 2002 and closed earlier this year. She and her husband often travel to Chicago to stock up on traditional Polish foods, but coming to Alex Polish American Deli is much more convenient, Patkowski-Ubing noted.

The deli is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It is closed Sunday. The phone number is 233-9940.

Depending on how things go, I may just be stopping in there tomorrow.

It's pretty slow today and I've started reading Quicksilver in earnest. Since it shares a character with Cryptonomicon, I'm wondering if I should read it first. Dogger said that it wasn't necessary and I'll take his word.

I read one of the articles in the new issue of The Progressive and I was more than a perturbed by it. It was a profile of some UW Nader supporters. These college folks voiced their opinion on the Nader vs. Kerry issue. A highly idealistic bunch, they were very much for the former and thought that voting for Kerry was "selling out", if you will. The article juxtaposes their words with those of the old guard of progressives, the author included, whose mantra is "Anybody but Bush".

I can understand people on both sides of this fence and it seems unfortunate to have such division here as any movement for social change needs both young & old. The older folks provide wisdom, direction, perspective, etc. while the young have energy, idealism, and the constitution for physical confrontation. The youth seem to be saying, "Hey! You said that people should take a stand, follow their consciences, do what they believe to be right. We're doing that." And the elders have gotten all pragmatic on their collective ass. "The important thing at the moment is to get the lesser of 2 evils out of office."

While I am very keen on getting Bush out of office, I am wondering what the criteria of lefty intellectuals are now for voting one's conscience. Exactly how bad does a President have to be for them to abandon a major component of the progressive movement? And I don't mean Nader specifically but a third party generally. Does it not seem logical to vote for Nader or the Green Party if one seeks a viable third party in this country? Or is the creation of a serious counterweight to the Republicrats something that can be done in fits and starts? Maybe every other election cycle we can actually vote our consciences when we can our ballots for President. When you start putting conditions on things, they tend to snowball. From hereon in, there will be excuses and admonitions to vote for Dems instead of supporting a third party. If Bush wins, we'll be told not to vote for the Nader of that time because we have to make sure no one swings into office on Bush's coattails. Then everytime there's a liberal Supreme Court justice who voices his/her wishes to retire, we'll be told to vote for a Dem lest Roe v. Wade be overturned. And on and on it will go.

You can't be successful at removing corporate influence in government if you only try to remove it once very 2 or 3 election cycles. You can't put your aspirations and conscience on hold because there are issues that are "too important" during any particular election cycle. This is politics - there will always be something important at stake. I'm as keen on seeing Dubya sent back to Texas as much as the next Zinn reader but why have we now taken the position that substantial change can only come under certain conditions in the White House? If the situation gets worse, do you lower your standards?

Well, enough of that for now. I got a chance to get some good reading done at lunch and on the bus ride home. The Power of Black Music. While the musicological sections along with transcriptions leaves me flummoxed, such passages are few. The part which grabbed me was in the first chapter and was about the “ring” and “dance, drum, and sing”. The upshot was that these things played a central role in the lives of those people who were dragged kicking and screaming across the Atlantic into slavery. The author’s description of various performances, formal and informal, reminded me of Rashaan Roland Kirk, especially bits about the use of satire and mockery.

I received another email from the shoe-whore from Tomah. (self-described) She is urging me to read The Life of Pi and has indicated that she’ll be moving from Tomah to a more urban area in the near future. So, when do we fuck?

OK, OK. You know where hot womyn congregate? On the bus. There’s this one brunette who takes the same bus I do and she buries her face in a book like I do. She’s just hot. It’s hard to concentrate on a book, at times, when I keep undressing her in my mind. And it gets more difficult now that the weather has taken a turn towards the chillier. She wears more clothes thusly it takes my mind longer to be rid of them. The Dulcinea sent me an email which gave me the warm fuzzies. It read, in part:

”Sex with you is a treat. I really do like it. It isn't hard work. You are fun. I really love that you can now come inside me without worries.”

The last sentence refers to her adoption of birth control.

Oh, here’s a classic headline from the channel3000 website: “More Political Vandalism Rocks Dane County”. How does vandalism “rock” a community? Earthquakes rock counties. Riots rock counties. Violence in general rocks counties but no graffiti. The new issue of Time’s cover story is about a possible genetic basis for religion. Of course they gave it the sensational title of “The God Gene” or something similar. Way to oversimplify genetics.

Now this is how I want my library to look: