Steady Diet of Nothing

About five years ago I was pulling into the Krispy Kreme parking lot. Some old ladies in a Cadillac opened their car doors just as I was gliding into the adjacent space. Insanely, the car door scrapped over the top of my hood, lifting part of their car off the ground. Of course they were upset and called the cops. It turns out they had just gone to church and were driving up from Ocala to Gainesville just for Krispy Kreme. In between the screaming, hand waving and neck rolling it was apparent that these people took their doughnuts very seriously and maybe I should too.

As much as I'd like to embark on a "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" quest for the perfect doughnut, the truth is my favorite doughnut is whatever one I happen to be eating at the moment.

While I'm eating a Krispy Kreme glazed hot out of the oven it's a near religious experience. So airy and hot, the sugarfied goo practically dissolves in my mouth. I read somewhere that the fat that Krispy uses has a lower melting point than normal doughnuts. I'd wager that this makes them a virtual health food in the doughnut world since they won't solidify into artery clogging plaque. Be sure to remind me of that during my heart attack.

I love the "Hot Doughnuts Now" sign that lights up periodically at KK.

That would make a great protest chant:

-"What do we want?"
-"Hot doughnuts!"
-"When do we want 'em?"
-"Now!!"

There is a Dunkin' Donuts by my work. On mornings that I have a premonition that the day is going to be particularly terrible I bike over to get some. Dunkin' is pretty much the polar opposite of Krispy Kreme. Dunkin' has lots of frilly distractions like egg croissants, muffins and bags of ground coffee.

KK mainly just sells doughnuts and coffee. They have an advertisement for something called a fruit chiller but the promotional effort is so half-hearted that I doubt it really even exists.

Anyway, Dunkin' has a thicker, relatively less sweet 'donut'. Their slogan is "America Runs On Dunkin'. While this has a sad honesty to it, it is somewhat disingenuous in the literal sense. The 8 car deep drive thru illustrates that most of their customers are committed to moving as little as possible.

The other day I rolled into Dunkin' to get their flagship doughnut, the Triple Chocolate. A masterpiece. A problem with some of DD's chocolate topped doughnuts is that the chocolate does not adhere well to the dough. It comes off in a gooey mess, rendering your hands looking like what can only be described as "shit fingers". This can lead to awkwardness at work. Anyway the genius of the Triple Chocolate is that the chocolate topping is imprisoned in a delicious chocolate chip cage-like exterior.

So I'm getting my doughnut. Right behind me enter these firefighter jerk offs that I've seen there before. They are singing along mockingly to the muzak ("Use Somebody"-Kings of Leon"). Usually I'm a friend of the muzak inclined, but there was this quasi scumbag undercurrent going on. Sure enough, I went outside and they had disengaged one of the brakes on my bike. I could have skidded out into Archer Rd and been run over. Ha, Ha hilarious. I'm sure if I had ever regained control of my limbs it would have been a real thigh slapper.

But my point is this would never happen at Krispy Kreme. Sure people hang out in the parking lot late at night and solicit sex and sell drugs but that's immaterial. There is an overriding brother and sisterhood of the doughnut that precludes any douchebaggery. Which brings me to KK's Chocolate topped Kreme filled doughnut. This has a white filling that is so astronomically sweet and rich that the cashier should give you a complimentary insulin injection.

Recovering from the Kreme filled doughnut

This morning I went to the Northwood Bakery on north 34th St for the first time. The doughnuts were right on. It's the kind of place where you can walk in after a few times and just say you want your usual. Building up a "the usual" rapport with a local eatery is a key part of my dining pleasure.

One last thing, when I was about 20 my mom made a Olde English style Christmas dinner . It was not the regular turkey and stuffing type stuff and I couldn't really eat much of it. Now I had been starving myself all day in anticipation so now I was crazy hungry. I didn't want to admit to my mom that I didn't like the dinner because she went to a lot of trouble and I didn't want to hurt her feelings. So I snuck out and got in my car and drove around looking for food. The only place open was this doughnut shop on 39th Ave. I ate a dozen doughnuts in about 8 minutes. It was incredible. There was powdered sugar all over my face. Jelly goo on my lips. I washed the whole thing down with a giant glass of cold milk. Later when I got home my mom and uncle were upset because among other things I was driving around with a suspended license. It was worth it though, those doughnuts were pretty much the best I ever tasted.