Donut!

[snurri]

The truth is that aside from, say, M&Ms and Dr. Pepper, I'm not much for sweets in most cases.* (You may hate me now if that is your way.) When I was a kid it was different. No disrespect to Mom, who makes some great cookies, but it was Grandma Burros that spoiled me. I used to bogart her brownies when we visited. They were a compulsion, like you get from those guys with the spiral hypno-wheels on their hats. (I run into those guys all the time. Sorry about the sugar in your gas tank, BTW. I WAS HYPNOTIZED!!) But the best, the best ever, were the donuts. Grandma made these insane cake donuts that were dense with super-goodness. They were tasty and filling but not overly sweet. She used to save bread bags and fill them with donuts, send them with my uncles when they went deer hunting (my uncles have been known to hunt via the pickup method, which involves them driving around on the property in their trucks, stopping when they meet each other to ask each other if they've seen anything. Authorities please note that they would of course never shoot at a deer from inside the car, as that would be quite illegal) and with us when we went home after a visit. Mm, those donuts. No one else does them quite as good, although Lane's Bakery in Madison comes closest.

Anyway, because the perfect cake donut is a lost artifact of the past, I'm not much of a donut guy. Krispy Kreme is just Not Right. I mean, what is that? Some kind of Wonder donut? Once in a while, though--and I'm talking every 4-6 months--I get a craving for a Bavarian Creme from Dunkin' Donuts. It satisfies some primal semi-annual need. For a couple of weeks now I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to buy one. (Yeah, just one. The counter person always looks so sad when I tell them this.) The problem is I don't want donuts in the morning. That's not the way to start out the day, with a big ol' sugar bomb. And every afternoon I stop by one of the three-count-'em-three Dunkin' Donuts franchises between the office and the train station (Chicago, fat? That's unpossible!) to ask for a Bavarian Creme. The counter person smiles and says Of course and looks in the trays, which are empty of Bavarian Cremes. Sometimes they wander in back, I guess to see if the Bavarians have left for the day. Every time I have been left bereft.

Dramatic sigh.

It's all about the quest, though. I will, before long, be satisfied in my search. And then, in 4 to 6 months, I will take it up again. This is my story.

Have you slipped into a sugar coma yet? If not, here's a video of elephants swimming. I kind of wish those guys would get off their backs, though.

*There is also the bread pudding which I make every year for Christmas Eve, which is now a controlled substance in several Minnesota counties.

Comments

[nomissnewo.livejournal.com]

People are always astonished when I say I'm not that into sweets. I mean, I can enjoy them from time to time, but whenever I eat chocolate, it often gives me this odd craving for meet, so I'll stop eating it halfway through and go search for a bloody steak.

[nomissnewo.livejournal.com]

Meat, even

[snurri.livejournal.com]

For a long time I was even less into sweets than I am now. For a long time I didn't like chocolate at all. This has changed.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Keely's, the bakery in my town made good solid baked goods that I've never been able to find the like of anywhere else. I guess they're what dunkin donuts replaced in the rest of the world, but it still seems weird that other places don't have a place that you can go to get the sensible sort of deserts--raisin-filled cookies (which I associate with torture, but which other people love) and these solid, frisbee like sugar cookies, and whoopie pies, and cakes with buttercream icing. Even the grocery stores here have snooty deserts, and sometimes all I want is comfort food.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I share your revulsion at raisin-filled cookies. Or muffins. Or Jell-o molds. Or salads. Pretty much anything, really.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

is that raisin-filled muffins/jell-o molds/etc? or just muffins/jell-o molds/etc in general?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Raisin-filled. For some reason Norwegians (or perhaps just Minnesotans in general) like to put raisins into a lot of stuff, as if it were a nice surprise rather than a mean trick.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

I knew I loved you for a good reason (other than it being fashionable to do so these days). There is no good reason for raisins to be in *anything*, so far as I can tell.

I don't think it's just norwegians, as the germans where I grew up had a thing for it too. Maybe it's just northern europeans in general.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I like raisins OK on their own. But they are not a good additive. Even in my famous bread pudding, I use dried cranberries rather than raisins.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

They are only acceptable on their own (though even then, I find dried cranberries and cherries more fun--my dad makes bread machine cinnamon raisin bread using dried cherries, and it is sooo good).

And the worst ones are the sultanas, those golden 'stealth' raisins that lurk unseen in carrot cake until it's too late for you to avoid them.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Dude, come to Boston. A Dunkin Donuts on every corner...a Bavarian Creme in every pot!

I utterly fail to Get the Krispy Kreme thing. I'm not a big donut person to begin with, and there's nothing special about those.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I am beginning to believe that nobody else really wants the Bavarian Cremes. Poor me.

Ditto on the Krispy Kreme. Is it because they leave you so not-full that you could potentially eat a dozen of them, if the sickly sweet frosting were not a deterrent?

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I want them! That's how I know!

I'm told the right way to eat a Krispy Kreme is fresh and hot.

But that goes for most baked goods, so I dunno why it's such a big deal.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Right, because most other foods are best when stale and cold.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

I prefer them because they don't taste like they have as many preservatives as the dunkin donuts do. But other than that, they're just donuts, not anything to write home about.

[shaolingrrl.livejournal.com]

Making donuts was one of my college jobs. I had the pick of the supremely fresh and hot donuts, because I made them myself. We were a small independent donut shop, and didn't have a huge variety, but. Omigod. Glazed old-fashioned buttermilk donuts eaten before the glaze has even had a chance to set. I have no need of other donuts.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Now THAT I can get behind. When I worked at the restaurant/bar in the UW-Madison student union, I definitely knew where to find the freshest stuff for my sandwich, and how to make it just right. No donuts, sadly. But we made do.