From the Lansing State Journal: Starbucks gets in the paczki game

DETROIT – The paczki – a popular Polish pre-Lenten pastry – is putting in an appearance for patrons at about 60 Detroit-area Starbucks outlets.

Beginning Tuesday, the Detroit-area Starbucks stores will sell the deep-fried jelly-filled doughnuts. Paczkis (POONCH’-kees) pack lots of calories and are customary on the eve of Lent, the 40-day period of self-denial that many Christians observe before Easter.

Starbucks Corp.’s Great Lakes regional director, Scott Hasselbach, told the Detroit Free Press that selling paczkis is a way for the international chain to be ”locally relevant.”

Starbucks is offering them with apple cinnamon, raspberry and Bavarian cream fillings for 95 cents. Starbucks said it will take orders for boxes of six for pickup on Fat Tuesday, Feb. 20, the day before Lent.

Smacznego!