Fat Tuesday aka Paczki Awareness Day -- It's Dangerous

I have this friend.  We'll call her...Lindsey.  Linds and I were really tight growing up.  We were best friends from elementary school (what was it, 2nd grade?) all through high school.  My photo albums are filled with pictures of the 2 of us doing makeovers, in the plays and musicals, playing sports, traveling to San Fransico on Spring Break...we did pretty much everything together.

Lindsey is very Italian, but also very Polish.  I loved her family, still do.  I loved how close they were and since they just live down the street from me, I felt like I, too, was an extension of the family.  I mean, really, I think they would have crowned me honorary family member had I stuck around during the college years.  Or, maybe not.  hmmm  Back to Fat Tuesday. 

One fond memory I have from back in the day was when Mr. Stakoe would enter the house with a box of goodness every Fat Tuesday.  This goodness is...true goodness.  I'm talkin' smell-the-deep-fried-greasey-way-better-than-a-donut-with-powdered-sugar-sprinkled-on-top goodness.  Now, it's possible that I wasn't involved in this at their home every Fat Tuesday -- that I partook of the Polish splendor, otherwise known as the paczki (pronounced POHNCH-kee), but maybe it was the sheer delight of every. single. heavy. calorie. coursing through my veins that makes me feel like I was a part of this annual Stakoe family tradition.  And, when I'm talking about calories -- lets just look at the fat grams people.  There's between 22-56 grams of FAT in each paczki.  And if Pringles claims "once you pop, you can't stop," you gotta try a paczki.  I'm pretty sure NO ONE stops at just one ~ thus the FAT in Fat Tuesday. 

I love my home town.  I love that I'm from a suburb of Detroit.  I feel a lot of Detroit pride.  It's runs even deeper than my Michigan pride.  There's something coarse, solid, and so blue collar about Detroit that I love -- we're a really hard working city that has been through a lot.  But we push forward.  Sure we have the Lions that don't win (but we still love 'em), and we have Kwame Kilpatrick (oh Kwame Kwame, you are such a sad story), but we love our diversity and our strength.  And interestingly enough, if you google "where to find a paczki," most of the searches will pull of results in Michigan.  In fact, just today, in Flint, MI, one bakery sold 1,200 dozen paczkis.  That makes my heart sing and my arteries scream.   

I'm not saying it's the paczki that allows us to thrive, but it sure doesn't hurt.  And today, I'd love me a paczki at Stakoe's.  Those were nice Fat Tuesdays.