For Christmas this year, we made baskets from Jim's family made up of neighborhood favorites: Zywiec, Zubrowka, Torcik Wedlowski, sparkling lemonade, candies from Slodycze Wendel, kielbasa, and babka and makowiec from the unbelievably stark but excellent bakery Rzeszowska Bakery.
This slim, unassuming place where nearly no English is spoken smells of piping hot baked goods all day, and I was lucky enough to get the cheese babka right from the oven. I am waiting for the day she has cinnamon available, but there's no rhyme or reason that I've discovered about what why or when they bake what they do and there is usually no more than two or three things available at any one time. I just have to be patient, because if the cheese version tastes this good, I simply can't imagine the cinnamon.
Less patient people who don't live in Greenpoint can get the delicacy from Dean and Deluca. A generous co worker brought some in to share and I admit it's delicious, but at 24 dollars for two, it's also (like most anything in that store) over priced. But I have it to thank it for leading me to Rzeszowska Bakery as it got me researching where to get the city's best (cheaper) babka and not surprisingly?- it was right around the corner. It just goes to show that there's always something to discover when you live in the city and it's one of the reasons I love it so.
Aside from babka they were also serving makowiec for Christmas, an extremely popular poppy seed bread that was traditionally made for Easter but has since become a Christmas specialty too because people love it so much. (Thank you to Dora for all the helpful information!) This bread has a drier, cake like texture, a chocolate swirl and the poppy seeds almost taste like coconut.
But what do you think?