Tomorrow is Paczki Day

As there is Festivus for the rest of us, so is there Paczki Day for those discerning enough to avoid NOLA on Mardi Gras. Who will have the worse hangover is open to discussion.

Paczki Day started in Poland as Fat Thursday. The cakes were made to use up all the stuff that was supposed to be avoided during Lent. When the tradition transitioned to the USofA, the little jelly bombs took the Fat Tuesday spot.

Never satisfied with just a little nosh and burp, the Midwestern folks have taken the humble paczki to levels previously unimagined, unheard of and maybe best left unexplored. There are Paczki Festivals, Paczki Races, Paczki Costumes...I'll bet there's even a Barack O Paczki somewhere out there.

Nowhere is this day taken more seriously than at the honorary ancestral home of the paczki, Weber's Bakery on Archer Avenue. While you can get your paczkis at the local grocery ("Jools") or faux paczki at the Dunkin' Donuts ("jelly donut", puh-leeze!), or at any number of perfectly respectable paczki palaces throughout the paczki world, if you want to be in the big leagues of paczki, you want to be in the game at Weber's.


Weber's is closed today, Monday, in anticipation of Tuesday's Great Paczki Rush of '09. The bakery will open tomorrow, Tuesday, at 4:00 a.m. ( I am not making this up) and they will offer no fewer than 14 varieties of paczki. Their two parking lots will be packed with Buicks long before dawn.

Here, directly from the Weber's website (no, it is not paczki.com) are the offerings:

We offer 14 varieties of Paczki:
Custard w/Chocolate Top
Custard w/Powdered Top
Strawberry, Jelly, Apricot, Cheese,
Prune, Poppyseed, Lemon,
Apple-Cinnamon, Pineapple,
NEW: Blueberry w/ Powdered Top,
Fresh Strawberry w/ Chocolate Top*
Fresh Strawberry w/ White Top*
*Sold in units of 4 only!
1 FREE with every dozen Tuesday only!

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If you decide to go, and Weber's on Paczki Day is something everyone should experience at least once in a lifetime, be ready, go early and do not be denied in your quest. You will experience the elite of the paczki consuming world, stout women in babushkas, sensible shoes and grey wool coats, women with a steely glint in their eyes, big forearms and no reluctance to use a glower and and a hip check to preserve their place in line.

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Tread lightly, friend, lest you awaken the beasts within ...and find yourself defeated, crushed and paczki-less, for these women live to compete... in this place... and on this day.

It is the Super Bowl of Cake.

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Prepare yourself to enter the sugar sprinkled, jelly packed, deep fried version of the Soup Nazi's lair... who's next how many what kind next-next-next!!!

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Weber's Bakery, 7055 West Archer Avenue.