PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

As the bells of St. Peter & St. Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Carnegie ring in the 9:00 hour, Sherri Walewski ties a red bandana around her head and, like a Potato Rambo, marches into the kitchen to oversee Friday morning’s pierogi prep work.

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

A small army of parishioners is on hand to help peel, cut, boil, mash and scoop 60 pounds of Idaho spuds into hundreds of cheddar-mashed potato balls. On Saturday, volunteer “pinchers” will spend a few hours placing each ball on a thin circle of dough and pinching the edges shut. The pierogies will then be boiled, packaged and frozen for the church’s 14th annual Ukrainian Food Festival Sept. 12-13.

During 2024’s weekend celebration, they sold out of 360 dozen pierogies by lunchtime on day 2. This year’s mission is to make at least 400 dumplings, along with other Eastern European favorites such as holubsti, borscht and halushki.

Walewski takes the pierogi pandemonium in stride.

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

For three decades, she and her husband, Jeff, ran the Sharp Edge Beer Emporium in Friendship, a spot that turned Pittsburghers on to Belgian beers; it had five locations before closing during the pandemic.

Now, instead of pouring Orval Trappist Ale, she’s pouring her heart and soul into pierogies.

That same kind of dumpling devotion was on display on May 17, when the Pittsburgh Pierogi Festival returned to the SouthSide Works after a two-year hiatus. More than 4,000 people converged on the South Side to devour goods from 24 local and national pierogi purveyors. The offerings ranged from simple servings of potato-and-cheese pierogies, traditional Polish platters that included haluski and stuffed cabbage, chef-inspired dishes and potato cocktails.

PITTSBURGH PIEROGI FESTIVAL | PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

The Speckled Egg, an eatery with locations Downtown and on the South Side, teamed with Sharpsburg’s new Polish eatery, Polska Laska, on a pop-up called The Nest. Throughout the festival, they wowed the crowds with their maple-sage pork sausage served with white-cheddar-and-chive pierogies topped with caramelized onions and sour cream.

Wexford’s The Oven Pizza Co. rolled out a pierogi pie with sour-cream-and-chive potatoes, caramelized onions, bacon and cheese. Rogues Over the Top Pierogi from Austin, Texas, sweetened things up with a blueberry-and-lemon pierogi topped with lemon curd, powdered sugar and streusel.

To help attendees wash it all down, Etna’s Cop Out Pierogies joined forces with Penn Brewery — where the ’rogis are served year-round — to make a kartoffelbier brewed with potatoes. Each pint was garnished with a bite-sized pierogi.

Yinzers, myself included, spent a raucous afternoon snapping selfies with the Pirates Pierogies, dancing to live polka music, laughing at jokes told by comedian Nicholas Stevens (who donated all of his tips to the Make-A-Wish Foundation) and perusing the Pop-Up Pierogi Marketplace for everything from clothing, jewelry and home decor to soap, candles and crib mobiles.

That’s where I fell in love with Bad Pierogi.

Aubrey Gordon and James Wroblewski are chefs who also sell pierogi art from their home “out by the airport, near the Primanti Bros.”

Their motto is “Live Cheezy. Stay Greasy. Be a Potato.” (This is the foodie version of “Live. Laugh. Love.”)

The couple — she’s a Canton, Ohio native; he’s from Polish Hill — met in culinary school and went on to work in kitchens across the country before settling back in Pittsburgh.

When foot surgery sidelined Wroblewski, who served as Richard DeShantz Restaurant Group’s corporate pastry chef for seven years, he gravitated back to his childhood love of art as a form of therapy.

Shortly after he started taking commissions, a friend of Gordon’s requested a pierogi portrait.

A self-described grump, Wroblewski gave the potato-filled pasta pocked Xed-out eyes and a frown rather than a cheerful expression.

The recipient was so impressed with the angsty pierogi masterpiece, she suggested Wroblewski put the design on T-shirts and sell them. This idea gelled with his longtime goal of launching a streetwear brand. A year after the couple launched PastryKingz LLC, they’ve got that and a whole lot more.

Customers can buy limited-edition prints T-shirts, hats, stickers, patches and greeting cards. Hoodies will return to the online shop this fall, along with beanies and bandanas. On the horizon are trading cards, pillows, beach towels, plush or vinyl toys and streetwear for dogs. I’ve already asked the couple to put me down for a pair of Bad Pierogi parking chairs when they become available. The company works with other local businesses including Pittsburgh Print & Ship in Sharpsburg and Revival in Lawrenceville.

BAD PIEROGI / PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

Wroblewski beefed up his repertoire by painting the surly snack as pop-culture characters such as Jules and Vincent from “Pulp Fiction,” street artist Banksy poised to throw a ketchup bottle and Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” As a horror-loving food writer, I’m torn between Bad Pierogi as the Swedish Chef from “The Muppets” and Leatherface from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

Gordon and Wroblewski want Bad Pierogi’s mean mug to be as ubiquitous as Mr. Yuk’s, a global symbol of poison prevention created in 1971 by Dr. Richard Moriarty for the Pittsburgh Poison Center.

“We just want to have fun — and more control over our lives,” Wroblewski says. “We’ve found stability in pierogi.”

Aesthetically speaking, Cute as a Dumpling is on the opposite end of the spectrum. The two companies are the yinz and yang of pierogi folk art. To put it into local chain restaurant terms, Cute as a Dumpling is to Bad Pierogi as Eat’n Park’s Smiley Cookie is to the Frownie from King’s Family Restaurant.

I’m obsessed with both of them.

In Nepal, Cute as a Dumpling co-owner Kelly Sobczak is known as “Crazy Momo Lady.” The Pittsburgh entrepreneur partners with a small group of artisans who specialize in turning Australian wool into felt and felt into adorably anthropomorphic pierogi, or, momos, as the dumplings are known in the Himalayan country.

“They made me a crown with pierogi on it. I should be buried in it,” says Sobczak, who runs the business with her sister, Sue.

The business sells the ornaments throughout America’s “Pierogi Belt,” which stretches from the Steel City to Cleveland to Buffalo, New York. They’re also a big hit in Poland.

CUTE AS A DUMPLING / PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

Every January for the past decade, Sobczak returns to the family-run workshop in Nepal to brainstorm new designs, which are then felted, stitched and embroidered by hand. The artisans, who are used to crafting decorative animals, rugs and apparel, get a kick out of making momos for the Crazy Momo Lady.

“They think it’s very odd and laugh, but we’ve upped our orders so much we provide year-round employment,” she says. “Watching them bring the designs to life with such craftsmanship is very humbling. We are partners in this. We work together and, hopefully, we will succeed together.”

Warning: Browsing Cute as a Dumpling’s website will cause acute cuteness overload!

You can make public displays of affection on Saturdays from Memorial Day through Christmas, when Cute as a Dumpling pops up in front of Stamoolis Brothers Co. on Penn Avenue in the Strip District to sell more than 70 varieties of pierogi keepsakes.

Some sport Santa Claus hats, bunny ears, mustaches and graduation caps. Others hold tiny Pride flags, hearts, shamrocks, cats, chickens, baseballs, balloons and pickles. The inventory also includes pins, ponytail holders, crib mobiles, an angel-winged Christmas tree topper and 13-piece Nativity set. The Jesus-cradling-a-pierogi ornaments are sold out, but I’ve got my eye on a pierogi in a hot air balloon.

The Sobczak sisters, who are deeply connected to their Polish roots, haven’t met a dumpling they didn’t like, so they expanded the collection to include samosas, empanadas, ravioli and gyoza (Japanese dumplings).

“Not to sound cheesy,” Kelly Sobczak says, “but these pierogies have changed my life.”

Thirty years ago, she quit her dream job with the French Government Tourist Office in New York, backpacked around the world and started a business, working with artisans from nine countries designing jewelry, scarfs, bags and shawls. Although Sobczak enjoyed the creative aspects and global connections of the gig, she didn’t wear jewelry, scarfs, bags and shawls.

“I came up with this concept because pierogies make me happy,” she says. “And they make other people happy, too.”