Your window to eat an 18-inch Polish French bread pizza in a Cook Country Forest Preserve is closing.
Late last month, when I wrote about Justyna Haluch, the zapiekanka queen of Schiller Woods, I didn’t know that beginning next Friday, November 22, she and her cousin Damien are decamping from the parking lot and relocating to the Christkindlmarket . . . in Aurora.*
“Co ma piernik do wiatraka?” you might ask. Indeed. What does gingerbread have to do with a windmill?
She gave me this news when I asked her if she wanted to pull the truck up in front of a certain Avondale dive bar and sell her iconic open-faced cheesy, XXL Polish street food for an evening crowd that may not get out to the Woods during normal zapiekanka hours.
“Zapiekanka? Nie,” she said. But, “Kuchnia Polska? Tak.”
Make it so, I said.
So this November 18, Haluch is rolling her other I Love Grill & Lemonade food truck up to Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at Frank and Mary’s Tavern in Avondale.
I’ve learned over the last month that, apart from zapiekanka, there isn’t much Haluch can’t do with her two-truck fleet: festival lemonade stands, ad hoc beer gardens, Christmas cookie grazes, stół wiejski (aka the Highlander “meat hut”), and an array of traditional Polish home cooking.
And that’s what she’ll be serving, hot off her white step van bedecked with brilliant floral wycinanki folk art.
She’s bringing a combo platter with pierogi, sausage, kraut, and pickle, all gilded with bacon bits.
She has a meat and potato and cheese pierogi combo, with bacon, green onion, pickle, and sour cream.
She’s throwing down a kiełbasa quartet with regular smoked Polish sausage, parówka (the Polish hot dog), kiszka (aka blood sausage), and biała kiełbasa (a white sausage, like a weisswurst).
And for dessert, sweet cheese blintzes with fresh fruit, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup.
Put that cold war nostalgia behind you. Put the cold night behind you. This is a Foodball of abundance, beginning at 5 PM, Monday, November 18, at 2905 N. Elston in Avondale.
Meantime, check out the full winter 2024 Foodball schedule below.
*The zapiekanka truck might show up at the Woods on Tuesdays during this period. Check the ILG&L Facebook for updates.
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