I don’t even like donuts, particularly.
My comrades already eye me with suspicion, since I’m not fond of dogs or guns, either. This donut admission may push them over the edge.
Mind you, I’m not being righteous. My weaknesses are savory – crusty bagels loaded with cream cheese or flakey biscuits dripping with butter or thick pieces of toast with cheap peanut butter melting into all the crannies.
Then, I hear the free donuts call my name. And never just one.
Resolution takes a powder. Discipline gets a glazed look. Those Weight Watchers dues I’ve paid are apple frittered away (because throwing money at a problem always solves it. Nothing un-American about me in that respect).
My all-time favorite is your basic cake donut, preferably hot out of the fryer so it sizzles on your tongue, at some dive diner or a shop that actually makes them on premises.
I was shocked to hear that most chains just truck them in from central bakeries in the next state. Shocked! Gambling, in Casa Blanca? We live in depraved times — and I am so naive. That’s why my comrades haven’t reported me to the authorities, yet. My innocence protects me. They know I believe in happy old-world bakers hand-crafting donuts for me at 3:00 AM with secret traditional recipes.
I still have a thing about Santa, too.
But I know the earth isn’t flat! There’s that.
A friend turns to aversion therapy when work-place donuts hiss temptation. Get thee behind me, Cruller! She envisions people coughing over them all morning, fondling them with grubby fingers and leaving them uncovered for flies to crawl on.
She is thin. I am not. I brush the flies away and figure a few germs are good for the immune system.
Glazed or raised? Cake or baked? What’s your favorite?
On our yearly trip to Wisconsin to visit the relatives, I used to enjoy going to any dairy and getting squeaky-fresh cheese curds. Now that they no longer make them on premises and just truck them in once a week from a central dairy, I still get them out of habit and because they’re good. But they’re no longer great, no better than the ones we get year round from the local King Soopers.
Exactly! Where’s that Thomas Hardy-esque milk maid when you need her? Drawing fresh butter and pressing curds from whey? Nope. She’s making minimum wage unloading grocery trucks out back. Sigh.
When I was a kid growing up in Fort Collins, the original Steele’s Market — damn I miss that store! — on East Mountain Avenue had a big window in the front, and inside a large vat of grease frying up fresh donuts. It was magical to stand on the sidewalk watch the nice lady — who probably had a cigarette with an inch-long ash hanging off her lip — pour in the batter and flip the donuts at just the right time.
If you’re feeling nostalgic, there’s a cute little place on College Avenue, near Los Tarascos, called Peace, Love and Little Donuts. They make the donuts right there and top them the way you want. They’re warm and delicious and tiny — think the size of the little “gems” Hostess produces — and only marginally overpriced. They’re not as good as the ones Steele’s produced back in the day, but then the people at “Peace” aren’t smoking on the job, either.
That was a great store! I worked next door at Home Federal Savings & Loan, back in the day, and would wander over there at lunch. Don’t remember the donut lady, but I was flat broke and probably avoided things I couldn’t afford, like delis and bakeries. You’d have found me in the generic aisle.
Fresh cake donut… drool… Just the right amount of crispness and yielding to warm doughiness without overpowering sweetness from glaze or frosting.
Paired with coffee? Heaven.