NSV: Bon Voyage - On the [European ] Road with a Runner

Three weeks in Polish food heaven.

Doughy Obwarzianki from Krakowian street vendors. Smalec (old-style lard) on fresh rye bread. Late afternoon cafe breaks on the medieval Krakow rynek with some spectacular sweet pastries. Hot Paczki in the streets of Warszawa. Pierogi z truskawkami. [Pierogi with fresh strawberries.] Lody z makiem [Poppy-seed gelato.] Pure bitter drinking chocolate at Wedel. Toasting our relatives with chilled vodka and salty caviar. Enjoying every bite and every moment of our favorite restaurants and elegant old-school kawiarnie.

Victory: Arriving home jet lagged and burned out, exactly # -.2 less on the scale than the day our journey began. How to live it up and find this result? Stay tuned for my secrets!

First of all, I am not advocating the all-lard diet (although I do believe that the icy shot of vodka with my smalec & rye appetizer has magical power.) I was able to live it up without the scale going up. I am able to eat dessert without Weight Watcher's desertion. This is a first in my life. It marks an amazing non-scale victory.

1. Runner's bodies rule. After a year of lifestyle change, fitness and healthy habits, my body simply works better. It is efficient, muscular and burns more calories. It can handle a few weeks of fun. Wow! What a revelation.

2. Live it up! I had no intention of engaging in my annual and much anticipated hang-out in Poland by playing idiotic ascetic games with myself. I'm here to live and enjoy, not prove how spartan I can be with self-denial. This has never been a diet. I was not going to miss out on what I love in deference to some macho dietary will-to-power.

3. Activity. Activity. Activity. As always, we walk everywhere in Poland. With the exception of a few tramwaj [streetcar] journeys for the edification of my street-car obsessed son, we walk all day long. We walk anywhere from 2 to 5 hours a day. That's a lot of activity. At one point, I was earning about 50 AP (activity points on the Weight Watcher's plan) a week. For those of you not conversant with WW lingo, that's a lot.

4. Woda. Woda. Woda. Water. Water. Water. Like many Euro peoples, the Poles are drinking Woda Mineralna (bottled mineral water) around the clock. We do, too. On the road, it really helps with everything health and fitness related. Whether you choose gazowana or niegazowana, it's a good thing.

5. A fitness plan. Although I had mapped out runs in my favorite Polish cities, I had a backup plan for fitness. A really simple one. I threw a jump rope in the back of my suitcase. And I skipped rope (for the first time in my life!) every morning after Sniadanie for 30 - 60 minutes. Sucky? Kind of. Challenging? Yup. My legs hurt for the first 6 days and then I got over it. But I discovered that a runner can do such things. It's not a big deal when you are used to fitness.

6. A food plan. I took a little notebook, logged my fave Polish foods for reference, and kept track of my points for my entire trip. By the way, for the first time ever in my Weight Watcher's career, my weekly points exceeded their allowance. There was NO way I was going to stress about it. The deal was simply about keeping track and being mindful. Some days I had spectacular Lody Kompozycja (Polish ice cream creations). I logged the points and loved every second. It wasn't about denial but about mindfulness. I knew what I was doing and I owned it. After every meal, treat or indulgence, I asked myself, "Was it worth it?" The answer was usually yes, and I loved every morsel. No guilt. No mind games. No monkey business. "Was it worth it?" When the answer was no, there was no encore.


Upon returing home, I found it was the question on everyone's lips, "Well...did she gain it back? Did she collapse in a sea of szarlotka or start chain-drinking pure chocolate?" The answer is no.

These very ordinary concepts are my not-so-spectacular secrets for the victory of maintaining weight loss on a major European road trip. The revelation for me was that I can be en route and not unravel my fitness. A runner's healthy lifestyle gives me just enough wiggle room to live it up. So don't stress about bon voyage. It really can be a great journey.


About the Image: Layout design, photograph & digital papers (c) 2007 by Ann Hetzel Gunkel. Ribbon from Thao Cosgrove's Friendship Collection at Scrap Girls.

Notes about the Obwarzanek. This distinctly Krakowian street food is the heavenly, chewy cross between a pretzel and a bagel. The obwarzianki z sol [salt obwarzianki] are to die for. To preserve their unique flavor and regional presence, these doughy delights are currently under consideration for protected food status in the EU.

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.