Know Your Farmers Market Makers: The Amazing Tale of Babcia’s Amazing Pierogi

The Ticker's recent farmer’s market maker profiles have showcased some of the most well-established craftspeople at the Sara Hardy Farmers Market. But this installment pays a visit to someone who has a generations-old recipe, but market attendance measured in just months: Babcia’s Amazing Pierogi. 

These amazing pierogi are already amazingly popular, and the whole operation is helmed by Amy Henley. So popular, in fact, that they’ve already led the BAP team to their own storefront, opening soon in the Oleson’s Plaza at Hammond and Three Mile. For those wondering: “Babcia” means “grandmother” in Polish, and for the really uninitiated, pierogi are filling-stuffed Polish dumplings that can be boiled or steamed, but are often served after being pan-fried in butter.

Like so many personal projects, BAP started as an idea birthed from when restaurants were closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. “My son said, ‘I’d like to make a pierogi product where people can take it home and make a meal at home – a family dinner. Our whole thing is family getting together and having [everyone] around the table.” 

The recipe is one that Henley has been making for decades: “It’s my father’s mother’s recipe – I’m the youngest of five girls, and it was just an assembly line every year. We’d just make a bunch of them, and it’s something we’ve carried on with our own kids.  My son has always raved [about them] when he was young to everybody – he was very passionate about it … and so we decided to do this together.” 

When you consider the history and impact of central European immigrants in northern Michigan -- from the annual Polka Festival in Cedar to longtime destinations like Legs Inn, it’s a bit amazing that there’s not more here dedicated to that cultural cuisine. 

Henley agrees. “It’s amazing how many Polish people are out here – I didn’t realize what a huge population it was. It’s so wonderful to meet people at the farmers markets and have them tell us stories about how grandma used to make them or how mom didn’t give them the recipe … to be able to fill that niche is wonderful,” she says. “We’ve even had college students [tell us] how they’ve been missing them so much from home. It just feels good. It’s sort of like a warm hug.” 

BAP is currently sticking with just their handful of current flavors, though the palette of pierogi flavors is nearly endless. “You can put just about anything in a pierogi,” Henley says, “but we don’t want to have 50 flavors. We’re going to be experimenting with flavors but we’re not going to get too crazy with them.” 

Right now BAP offers a garlic-chive farmers cheese pierogi (made with milk sourced from Moomers), a sauerkraut-mushroom pierogi and one that sounds like the ultimate potato pierogi. “I didn’t just want mashed potato in a noodle. We worked really hard to make sure that it had good flavor and good bite to it,” Henley says. “We rough-mash our potatoes, we use redskins and we leave the skins in. Then we put garlic and onion in it, then cheddar cheese, then we bake it afterwards so it’s like a twice-baked potato.” 

And despite the similarities between the classic Michigan pasty and a pierogi, Henley says there’s no plans to blend the two into any sort of crossover pier-asty. “I enjoy a good pasty,” Henley says, “but, you know, I grew up with these and there’s nothing like a nice warm pierogi smothered with onions and mushrooms and a little bit of sour cream.” And coming soon: dessert. Henley’s planning to add apple pierogi made with apples sourced from Friskes plus blueberry pierogi with fruit from Buchan’s Blueberry Hill. “We really like to keep it local,” Henley says. 

BAP’s first sales outlet was in frozen form at stores like Hansen’s in Suttons Bay, Oryana and the Elk Rapids Village Market. From there it was a natural step into the winter market at the Mercato in the Commons, and then recently to the faster pace of the outdoor Sara Hardy market. “You’ve got to stay on your toes,” Henley says. “It’s interesting - where we’ve been placed at the outdoor market downtown, the neighbors that we have are the same neighbors we had at the Mercato – so you know, it does become a community.”

That community extends to where they make the pierogi themselves – BAP recently traded roles at the storefront that Buzelli Foods first set up to make and sell their fresh mozzarella and other retail goods. After starting out as renters, BAP is now the primary tenant with Buzelli’s still working there as well. Plans for the store include offering a few new pierogi flavors (“as the store opens … our first flavor will be sauerkraut with kielbasa”) plus other Polish products. 

If you have a hankering for a pierogi like your babcia would have actually cooked, not just made, sit tight: A kitchen might be coming in the future. “That is in the works … but it is not something we’re doing right at the time of opening,” Henley says while noting that they considered a pierogi food truck as an option as well. “We toyed with that idea – [but] I’m in my 60s and it’s not something I want to spend all my evenings doing [laughs]. Doing the retail is something that I can do during the day and still have an evening with my family and grandkids.” 

Making pierogi in the morning and afternoon and then hanging with the grandkids at night? Sounds like a perfect way for a babcia to spend her day.