Paczki Day makes its sweet and sticky comeback

By Charles Sercombe
Take that Covid.
This year, Paczki Day came roaring back.
For the past two years, Hamtramck’s unofficial holiday celebrating all things paczki took a hit because the pandemic kept most of us at home.
Not so this year, even though Covid is still with us. With quarantine restrictions and indoor space limits lifted, thousands of paczki lovers crowded our bakeries and bars on Tuesday – otherwise known as Fat Tuesday – the day before Lent.
It wasn’t quite up to full swing – Whiskey in the Jar didn’t set up its big alley tent, and Hamtramck’s favorite party band, the Polish Muslims, remained sidelined – but it was close enough.

Hamtramck’s two main bakeries, New Martha Washington and New Palace, both within several blocks of each other on Jos. Campau, had lines stretching around and down side streets for hours on end, starting Monday and going all through Tuesday evening.
PLAV Post 10’s paczki eating contest returned featuring a special guest: Kim Russell, a WXYZ Channel 7 reporter, who managed to nibble down two of the pastry beasts.
Russell did what has become a new trend in TV journalism — actually participating in an event while reporting it.
You can see them shoveling snow for folks now, and we expect them to start cutting people’s lawns in warm weather and who knows what’s next: Change the oil in your car? Do your laundry? Install new flooring in your house?

The winner this year was a guy named Matt, who scarfed down 11 paczki. Not bad, but he has a way to go to come close to the all-time champ who managed to devour 22 of them a few years ago — and live to tell about it.
After the paczki contest, the Kielbasa Kings kicked off some foot-stomping polkas to bleach the mind of the paczki eating contest.
One of the band members segued into the musical portion of the afternoon by saying: “I’m so glad you’re ready to paczki in your pants.”
Well, um, we like paczki — not so much in our pants. But we get the spirit of the sentiment.

The best T-shirt we saw that day had this saying:
“I’m not yelling. I’m Polish.”
The youngest paczki-goers we ran into were not-quite-2-year-old twins Jack and Ernie Wilamowski, who were escorted by their parents Eric and Kayla from Eastpointe (formerly of Hamtramck).
Jack — or was it Ernie? (they’re twins remember) — took a liking to the Kielbasa Kings, and also kept a steady eye on polka dancers tearing it up on the dance floor.
Who cares, it was all a beery paczki glaze to us.
OK, time to get on the trendmill, and get in shape for next year’s Paczki Day.
Posted March 3, 2022