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It's Fat Tuesday Or, For Some, P?czki Day — Even In Seattle

Ed Ronco
/
KPLU
P?czki are a Polish pastry served traditionally on Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. They're hugely popular in southeast Michigan, among other places."

Though he's now a proud Washingtonian, KPLU's Ed Ronco is a Michigander by birth, and every year at this time, he goes looking for a particular Polish pastry traditionally sold in southeast Michigan on Fat Tuesday. 

Today is Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Or, if you’re from where I grew up, in metro Detroit, today is P?czki Day.

A quick primer: P?czki are basically, a jelly donut. The word is roughly pronounced "POONCH-key" (I don't claim to be a Polish expert, but it's how I heard it growing up). And for the love of all things holy, p?czki is plural. P?czek is singular. There is no such word as "p?czkis."

If you're from Southeast Michigan, it’s not Fat Tuesday without p?czki. So when you move away from Michigan, you search high and low for these things. Our friends at Michigan Radio put together a map for the state's ex-pats, marking bakeries around the country that sell p?czki. In our area, they highlighted Seattle's Bakery Nouveau.

KPLU's Ed Ronco and a fellow Michigan ex-pat, Shannon Houghton, strike p?czki gold in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. (Yes, they really are that excited.)

My friend Shannon and I showed up pretty early. By the time the p?czki arrived, we were not alone. I'm from Wyandotte. Shannon is from Sterling Heights. We were joined by strangers from Livonia, Grosse Pointe Park, and Allen Park — all suburbs of Detroit.

I tried for a dozen, but settled for a half dozen. Demand was high, and a good Midwesterner tries not to take too much from the buffet, after all.

For the record, the six p?czki I bought were taken to the KPLU newsroom where they were quickly cut up and devoured. By my coworkers. Not me. Well, not me entirely.

Happy P?czki Day.

Ed Ronco is a former KNKX producer and reporter and hosted All Things Considered for seven years.