coal creek Coffee
Address: 110 Grand Avenue, Laramie, WY 82070
Website: https://www.coalcreekcoffeeandtap.com/
Country Represented: Poland
Special: Kamila’s Polish Chicken Soup and Grandma Eve’s Poppyseed Onion Cookies, Polish Rye Bread, and Kolazcki-filled cookie
Kamila Kudelska
Wyoming Public Radio
I'm a first generation American, which means almost my entire family lives in Poland. I grew up visiting and eating. Almost every time I arrived at my grandma's apartment, she would have a hot bowl of rosół. Basically a polish version of Chicken soup. That taste is home to me.
Ali Grossman
Co-Chair Laramie International Flavor Festival and UW Video Producer
Poppy Seed Onion Cookies and Borscht, of course
The color and scent of borscht fills me with memories of my grandmother. She immigrated here, through Ellis Island, a century ago when she was a teenager.
Although she embraced American culture, her wardrobe and cooking palate was infused with memories of Eastern Europe: rich jewel tones, large beads, poppyseeds, and beets. Whenever she came to visit, she would spend most of her time in my family’s kitchen, making jelly rolls and hamantaschen, knishes and stuffed cabbage, kugel and latkes. I cannot eat any of these foods without remembering my Grandma Eve.
As a 12 year old, I would have preferred Oreos to her prune filled cookies. In a tv dinner era, I did not understand her fascination with these foods or flavors. Our home held on to the aroma, including her perfume, for weeks after her visits.
I still love to leaf through her recipes, written in her lovely European script- the scraps of paper and cards kept in a Pedigree pencil box at my parents’ house. Each small note holds the potential to recreate or discover the flavors she loved: the cabbage noodles surely reminded her of childhood and the jello salads were a sign of her new American era.
A few years ago, I stumbled across her recipe for Poppy Seed Onion Cookies. How could a cookie contain such ingredients? What the hey? I asked my then-85-year old father about it and he licked his lips and said “Num! Num! Num!,” with child-like excitement.
Back here in Laramie, I was curious enough that I baked up a batch- more like a savory speckled scone than a cookie. I stuck them in my freezer for later transport to my parents. Something happened in the one month of chill; the flavors intensified.
Arriving back at my parents, I opened my suitcase and the scent filled their home. My dad immediately asked, “Did you bring the Poppy Seed Onion Cookies?!” He grabbed one right away. “Num! Num! Num!” he exclaimed. He then told me that his childhood friend, K, was visiting later that day and instructed me firmly, “Don’t share those with him.”
K arrived a few hours later. It was fun to hear them reminisce while leafing through their high school yearbook. K was the senior rightly expected to “make a million before he’s 30” and my dad was elected “nice guy”. Kinda true. I couldn’t resist- I needed to know…. I placed a few of the treats on the table. “Is this your mom’s recipe?,” K asked my dad.
When the friend left, my dad asked me how many cookies had been on the plate. Apparently, his friend had always taken more than his share of these treats- the passing of 60+ years had not changed his friends’ character and still irked my father to no end. I disclosed that I had indeed reserved many of the cookies. My dad enjoyed every last crumb. The house, and every item in my suitcase, held on to the aroma of onions.
I read somewhere on the internet that in the early 20th Century, Polish mothers used to place Poppyseed Onion Cookies in the pockets of their sons’ military uniforms because they lasted a long time and they were a taste of “home”.
Poppyseeds and onions run deep in my family, as does borscht. All of this is true except for the name “K”. I think my grandmother would’ve liked this.