Failures in communication. And religion.

[omphale23]

Tonight I stopped in at the grocery to see if they had any paczki, because tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday ALREADY.

They had them last month, I swear they did, but tonight the following happened:

a) I checked the bakery. Nothing.
b) I asked at customer service. The lady blinked at me, asked me to repeat myself, and then asked me to spell paczkic) I

Comments

[pocketmouse]

(pats you on the head)

[omphale23]

SO NOT HELPFUL. I can't go in and ask for a jelly doughnut. They'll give me a jelly doughnut! And that's not the same thing at all.

Stupid city with its stupid lack of northern European pastry shops.

[pocketmouse]

That is a wholly different problem than 'I don't speak English.'

[omphale23]

Well, no. At the time I couldn't even think of the word for jelly doughnut, because it my head they're not the same thing. It doesn't occur to me to answer "jelly doughnut" because it isn't.

For one thing, fastnachts don't always have filling. And when they do, it's not like super-sweet stuff. It's more like fruit that's been mashed.

Also, none of the jelly doughnuts around here are made with mashed potatoes. Unless they are, somewhere? And I just haven't seen them?

[wordplay]

Is this place no longer open? Maybe maybe?

[omphale23]

Oh, I don't know! I might call them in the morning, although by then they'll probably be sold out. We used to get up at dawn to go to the bakery, because my mom hated to deep fry.

I could, I guess, rig something up at home tomorrow night. I think I've got yeast and sugar and eggs and flour and butter and powdered sugar. I might even have the plum jam...

[kitaloon]

The joy of living in Chicago; I could totally get a paczki if I wanted. The downside; I am on sugar detox tomorrow and DO NOT WANT. The double downside; boys in my dorm threatening to buy one and leave it outside my door tomorrow. TEMPTATION ALKJDF.

[omphale23]

You totally could! In fact, there's this awesome Polish deli on the SW side that has the best ones in the city. They're not as good as the ones in Hamtramck, but they're close.

Sugar detox? On Shrove Tuesday? That's like, the worst day of the year to not be eating sugar. Shrove Tuesday is ALL ABOUT the junk food.

[kitaloon]

If I was back home, I probably would have let myself be tempted into a delicious Hamtramck paczki when my dad brought some back from work, but I had way too much homework and classes and labwork yesterday to go out and track them down. Bah. Upon realizing it was Shrove Tuesday, I did have some cinnamon rice pudding with raisins, which was pretty delicious.

A couple guys on my floor did go out on a mysterious errand and come back with three kinds of paczki and a marzipan cake, but they refused to share. Bastards, ha.

[omphale23]

Upon realizing it was Shrove Tuesday, I did have some cinnamon rice pudding with raisins, which was pretty delicious.

The spirit, then, if not the letter of the tradition. Although it really just has to do with the sugar and stuff, and rice pudding has those things.

but they refused to share.

BASTARDS. Don't they know the spirit of the season is...no, wait. Wrong season.

[omphale23]

*sighs*

I suppose not. I go through this every year, and every year I'm surprised when the universe doesn't accommodate my longing for things made of butter and eggs and fried in lard. I dunno, I guess I just figure one of these times I'll wake up and find myself suddenly near a Polisf deli or a German market or an Amish general store, and all my weird childhood foods will be available again.

I have to work tomorrow, sadly. So I'm out of luck. Maybe next year.

[kinetikatrue]

*blinks*

I have a box containing two lemon-filled paczki and another box containing four raspberry-filled paczki (and could have had a box of bavarian-cream-filled, if I'd so desired) sitting on my kitchen counter right now. Which is to say, our Giant has been selling them for the past bit (couple of weeks? something like that) and I've been taking advantage. Not that I need to, as such, as I believe at least one local restaurant has fastnachts on the menu, maybe not year-round, but for a bit more than just the season, as it were.

Maybe Frederick's still just a bit more of a German county than MontCo?

(Also, you might have gotten less of a blank stare, if you'd known to ask for kinklings. That's the other most likely name for them to ride under around these parts. Mmmmmmm.)

[omphale23]

Yeah, Frederick has a list of bakeries that sell them. Sadly, I am in MoCo, and they're thin on the ground, here. Giant is supposed to have them, but that's where I ran into all the trouble last night.

(I can't bring myself to ask for kinklings. I start snickering every time. I mean, honestly. Who thought that was a good idea for a pastry?)

[kinetikatrue]

Stupid Giant - or, well, I suppose it has as much to do with how much of an event such things are and in MontCo they just aren't any longer, so perhaps not Giant's fault. Meh.

In other thoughts related to dough deep-fried in lard, I have decided that at some point we need to make a pilgrimage out to Krumpe's in Hagerstown to buy doughnuts at midnight, 'cos they are totes my favorites in the area and meant to be shared.

(Anyway, I grew up calling them kinklings, so while I can see why it would be snicker-worthy as a word, in my head it's just what those things are called and mostly doesn't set off my general instinct to be twelve. Eh. Still: IDEK. People and their crazy words.)

[omphale23]

*sighs dramatically*

They turned out to have some this afternoon, and I got all excited, and then...they were just jelly doughnuts. Didn't taste right AT ALL. Really, the only thing Polish about them was the label on the box.

\o/ deep fried dough from independent bakeries!

(Yeah, I know how that goes. Sometimes words are just words. Kinkling, though, is funny to me, in part because I already have other words for them. Or maybe I'm just more twelve than you are. Could be that. *g*)