Running to Eat: The Paczki Avant-Garde

Being a runner allows me to really enjoy things that I love, to wit: paczki (the filled puff of Polish pastry dough.) During this most recent trip to Poland my family uncovered the ultimate paczek.

Understand this loud and clear: we are paczki people. We love paczki. We've had hundreds of paczki. We savor the subtleties and make mental notes. Heck, even our last dog was named Paczek in honor of this heavenly bit of plush dough. So when we say we've found the ultimate paczek it comes from a place of profound paczki connoisseur-ship.

Here's how it happened. We wander into an alley in Warszawa off Nowy Swiat. This narrow strip of ulica Chmielna is like any other. Except suddenly, I find myself following a scent, feeling like I'm floating on the aroma of paczki in the air. It hits all of us at the same time. "Dave, why am I floating on the smell of paczki? It's like a dream." "I don't know--but I smell it too." We follow the magical scent like someone in a cartoon, nose floating after the trail.

Then we spot it. A line of people queued up from here to eternity at an unassuming window. Cukiernia Pawlowicz. Gorace Paczki. [Pawlowiocz Sweets Bakery. Hot Paczki.] Our pastry-based dreams have come true! Out of this window, ladies are selling hot paczki. Hot. Plush. Sweet and un-bee-lievable. Paczki with rose-petal marmalade and coated in sliced almonds. Paczki with budyn (a simple pudding.) Paczki with forest fruit marmalade. Paczki from heaven.

Our excitement builds, we order (only PLN 1,70 for something this spectacular?!) one for each of our crew. The lady wraps them in a whisper thin paper sack, suitable for immediate on-the-street consumption. My son steps back after one bite, suitably dramatic for the momentous event and proclaims, "This paczek is out of this world. This is the best paczek I've ever had in my life." And although he's not quite six years old, he's had a lot of paczki in his time. And he's right.

Dead on. These are the very best paczki on earth. After 40+ years of paczki passion, we've found the holy grail of paczki. That this qualifies as a major life event in our clan means we are either elevated foodies or total losers (maybe both).

But really, these are the very best paczki on earth. We return to this spot, to this magical window of bakery bliss, every day for the rest of our stay in Warszawa. We call our relatives on the komorka (cell phone) and order them to the spot where we stand. We call my cousin on his komorka and entreat him to meet us in the alley. All must share in the paczki passion.

In celebration of this miraculous metaphysical paczek, I invent a new fictional punk band name for myself (an old habit of mine, by the way. Creating fictional band names for myself, despite the fact that I'm decades past being in a punk band or any other kind of band for that matter.) I have it now--the ultimate name for my ultimate band.

T-PAG: The Paczki Avant Garde. T-PAG. Has a kind of Tupac hip-hoppy ring to it. T-PAG. Has my initials in it, The Paczek of Ann Gunkel. Yes, my dream band about this dreamy pastry is The Paczki Avant Garde. T-PAG. At the forefront of paczki research. I've suitably marked this random discovery of the best paczek in the universe with my pretend punk rock tribute.

And this, by the way, is why I don't diet. This, by the way, is something I have no intention of skipping. This, by the way, is what makes life so fun. And this, by the way, makes every last bite worth the daily workout. It's the very best reason I can think of for running to eat.


Note bene for you who are not wise in the way of paczki. Paczek (punch-eck). Singular. Paczki (punch-kee). Plural. The "un" sounds is nasal as this is a diacritically marked Polish "a."

Layout Design & Folkloric digital paper (c) 2007 Ann Hetzel Gunkel for Scrap Girls. Photo by David Gunkel.