Go to the Polish food store next door to Polonia restaurant on Blalock and Campbell on Saturday morning at around 10 a.m., and you can get your paczki hot out of the fryer. Polish paczki are jelly donuts made with an extremely rich pastry and a fruit filling -- this week the paczki at Polonia are filled with rose hip jam. They sell for $1.49 each at the store. Paczki are also served for dessert on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Polonia restaurant for $2 a piece.
In proper Polish, the singular is paczek, and the plural is paczki, but Polish-Americans usually call one donut "a paczki" and two "a pair of paczkis." Mardis Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is known in Polish neighborhoods as "Paczki Day," and in some cities with large Polish populations, there are Paczki Day Parades. There is also a famous annual paczki-eating contest called the Greater Chicago Paczki Challenge.
I think I could eat quite a few.
