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Business & Tech

Pierogi Gals Bring 'Little Pillows of Heaven' to Pointes

The savory and sweet dumplings, made from scratch in the Polish tradition, will be available for the upcoming Christmas season now that Pierogi Gals has set up a kitchen in Grosse Pointe Woods.

Local lovers of pierogi, the plump dumplings that are a beloved staple of Polish cooking, don’t have to head to Hamtramck anymore to satisfy their cravings: Pierogi Gals have set up a kitchen in Grosse Pointe Woods.

A three-woman enterprise, Pierogi Gals is comprised of sisters Victoria Les and Karen Andrews, both of Grosse Pointe Woods, and their brother’s wife, Helen Les, of Sterling Heights. Using a generations-old family recipe, the women, who grew up in Polish households in or near Hamtramck, are making pierogi available to a growing fan base just in time for the Christmas holidays, when pierogi are typically served according to Polish tradition.

The trio, who unveiled—and quickly sold out of—their pierogi at Taste of Grosse Pointe in The Village on Sept. 10-11, said they were inspired to start their own business by family and friends.

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“People were telling us for years that we make the best pierogies and that we should sell them,” said Victoria, who calls pierogi "little pillows of heaven." They finally decided to take the plunge, and spent the year and a half leading up to Taste of Grosse Pointe obtaining licenses, perfecting their recipes and getting a kitchen set up at the in the Woods.

Pierogi Gals, which does not have a storefront but will make pierogi available by the first week of December for pickup or delivery, has settled on a menu of five savory pierogi and one sweet pierogi for the Christmas season. Customers can pick from potato-cheddar, spicy potato-cheddar, farmer cheese and potato, redskin potato truffle, sauerkraut and mushroom, and blueberry. The pierogi cost $10.95 per dozen, regardless of the filling, and there is a $5 charge for delivery, which is only available within about a 20-mile radius. Orders can be placed by calling 313-885-5348 or by email at pierogigals@aol.com.

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Pierogi are very easy to prepare at home, notes Victoria, who recommends placing them in boiling water for about a minute to reactivate the dough and then transferring them to a pan to brown in butter for about three minutes per side. They are then traditionally served with sour cream or with caramelized onions.

The owners of Pierogi Gals, which is developing a wild-mushroom pierogi to make available next year, hope the Christmas season will elicit enough demand to put the women to work year-round, rather than just seasonally.

Victoria said the goal is to open a café where they can sell pierogi, along with some new items. The women are developing a noodle made out of their pierogi dough, and orange-zest and lemon-zest angel food cakes that use the copious egg whites left over from preparing the dough, which is egg-yolk intensive. The women have been working with product development experts at Michigan State University, said Victoria, and hope to retire from their current jobs and pursue their new business full-time. Victoria is a consultant, Karen is a second-grade teacher in Hamtramck and Helen works for a computer company.

The women have come a long way since December 1995, when Victoria and Karen’s mother passed away right before Christmas and the three women realized they had each spent no more than a day with her making pierogi.

“We thought she’d be around forever,” Victoria said. But while they had no experience, she said, “we had her recipe written down, and the three of us got together and tried to recreate it in order to keep the spirit of my mother with us. Since then, we’ve gotten together every year on the day after Thanksgiving to make pierogies—and now we’ve really got it down.”

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