Guilty Pleasure: Zeppolis from the St. Anthony's Feast

So good when it hits your lips

Sometimes, I feel that I straddle two worlds and fit in neither. I'm a New Yorker, and I love my native Long Island; at the same time, I've spent more than a decade away and fell in love with the flyover states.

That's probably why I'm conflicted when I realized that I enjoy Oceanside's annual St. Anthony's Feast so much.

On one hand, I'm repulsed when I feel surrounded by guys who sound like they spend their days calling WFAN to complain about the lack of power displayed by the 2009 Mets. On the other, there's nothing quite like world-famous zeppolis for which the Feast is known (at least by me). The powdered sugar...the warm, moist texture...the fat Long Islanders lingering on line way too long, eating the zeppolis before they even pay making me wait unnecessarily.

I've been to church festivals in places like Ohio and New Mexico. I've been to carnivals in the South. But they only offer funnel cakes, and those don't match up to the simple, round goodness of a St. Anthony's zeppoli. You just don't eat like this anywhere else in America.