Other cities go all out for Mardi Gras, but here in Chicago, Louisiana-style celebrations and Latin-American Carnivale fiestas take a back seat. In our town, the Tuesday before Lent, this year March 8, is Paczki Day! Here are a dozen spots for Polish pastry perfection.
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In 1942, on a squash court in Hyde Park, Enrico Fermi and his colleagues cooked up an “atomic pile,” a roughly spherical stack of graphite bricks layered with uranium. With this pile, on Dec. 2, the physicists achieved the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, an event that led to the atomic bomb and nuclear energy. At some point after that, an enterprising Chicago baker dubbed his latest layered creation the “atomic cake.” Every neighborhood in Chicagoland has a hot-dog stand, a gyros place or an Italian beef joint. Often, the menus aren’t much different from one to the next — typically encompassing all three Chicago favorites. So how do you tell which is which? By the sign outside! In New Orleans, the Tuesday before Lent, this year Feb. 16, culminates a riotous season known as Mardi Gras. Here in Chicago, some celebrate Louisiana-style, but to a million or so Chicagoans, Fat Tuesday is Paczki Day (say “POONCH-key”). They’ll be lining up at bakeries to buy dozens of rich, plump Polish-style jelly doughnuts, and [...] |
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