From WGRZ-TV in Buffalo and friend Andy Golebiowski: Main Ingredient in Good Sauerkraut: Love

DELAVAN, N.Y. – Every year Steve and Diane Woloszyn invite friends and neighbors over to their house to make sauerkraut for the winter. Their homestead on Weaver Rd. serves as a gathering place for friends from Grand Island to Springville, as well as neighbors from down the road, who bring their crocks to be filled with shredded cabbage. When asked what goes into making the sauerkraut, Steve answers, “A lotta love !”

Along with love, he adds caraway seeds and carrots, according to his taste, and salt to help the cabbage ferment. The caraway seeds his father taught him to add. Adding carrots was something his friend Tony Zawadzki shared with him.

For some who come together, the making of sauerkraut is a continuation of what they learned as children from their grandparents. Tony, who lives in Cheektowaga, makes the 45 minute trek every year to lend the expertise he learned as a boy in Poland. Tony says that he alway looks for easier ways to do things. Some years he used to cut through 50 heads of cabbage for the family in one sitting with a knife. This year he came up with an idea to use a bow saw instead.

“I kiss the saw for making it easy”, jokes Tony, to which 10 year-old Eric Ward responds in all seriousness “My dad actually says ‘Don’t take the easy way out.'”

Eric was joined by his brother younger brother Ryan and little Colton. Colton digs through the huge box full of cabbage looking for leaves that he offers to those working at a long table. There Eric and Ryan’s mom Kerry and Tony Zawadzki’s wife Lottie do the cutting by hand. Kerry says she never liked sauerkraut until she tried the homemade she learned to make from Diane and Steve. Asked what she likes in her sauerkraut, she points to Diane and says “Whatever she makes.”

When the sauerkraut is done, Diane will bake it together with meats and spices to make a stew called “bigos”…

A real tribute to lived tradition and family. Great job Andy!