Doughnuts

I was at a 6-year-old’s birthday party when I realized something rewarding and wonderful about myself. It happened casually while talking to the adult parents of the children my son went to school with. The parents had gathered awkwardly in a large kitchen with all kinds of excellent foods to snack on. I was being good, avoiding the M&M’s and chips and sticking to the carrots when the host brought in three big boxes of trouble. Hint: the boxes had doughnuts in them.

Yes, I was being good, watching calories and all that health junk, but I’ll tell you this: if you bring in certain doughnuts and lay them out before me, well, you might as well be asking Charlie Sheen to just weigh some of your cocaine. One, or possibly two doughnuts were going to leave that party inside me (it was two).

Me yielding to weakness isn’t the interesting point about this story. It’s what the doughnuts brought out of me that I was surprised with. I opened my mouth and began talking to the people I hardly knew in the kitchen. It started with an offhanded comment about the doughnut shop the donuts came from, Top Pot, which is regionally popular, but in my humble opinion, a few down the list of Seattle area doughnut shops. One of the adults said, “Oh, Top Pot! Those are the BEST doughnuts!” I think is what was said.

Well, I’m sorry, but the fact of the matter is that Top Pot does NOT make the best doughnuts. To say so disgraces those fine artisan doughnut makers that know the meaning of love and respect for the fine art of frying sweet dough into shapes and varieties as numerous as the stars in the sky (there’s nowhere near that many). It’s not a matter of taste. It’s a matter of right and wrong, and YES, when it comes down to it, it IS a matter of taste.

“Top Pot is okay,” I said as I looked over the variety. “All doughnut shops have their strengths and Top Pot’s is that their maple bars are a little longer and have a generous amount of maple on top. They don’t usually overcook the doughnut either, which is good, but they brown them a bit longer than most bakeries and to me, that gives the maple bar specifically more character than their other attempts at creating a good doughnut.” I continued, “Top Pot, like so many other doughnut joints, hasn’t got a handle on their bitter aftertaste, which I suspect is too much baking soda or powder. There’s a balance there that most doughnut shops don’t pay any attention too, but I think a doughnut should have just as good a finish as it has a flavorful introduction to the palate.”

I made to bite into the maple bar I was holding but before I sank my teeth into the stiff stick of fried dough, I paused motionless with it in front of my face and let my eyes move around the kitchen to the various faces that were staring at me. Upon realizing nobody was saying a word yet looking at me as if I had just been beamed down from a spaceship, I finished the motion to take the bite. As I chewed, I carefully looked around the room at the others, “Anybody want a doughnut?”

A smart Alec woman near me was the first to pipe up. “You, uh, you seem to know A LOT about doughnuts,” she said with a wide accusatory smile. Others started shaking their heads and smiling too. I started getting weird questions about doughnuts, strange, specific questions about the making of doughnuts, varieties of doughnuts and my opinions of doughnut shops in the area. The interesting thing was, I was answering all the questions at length and with passion.

Apparently people don’t speak like that about doughnuts and the adults were interested enough in learning about them, or heck maybe they thought it was odd that one sad little man would know so much about a food that is designed for three things: happiness, heart disease and diabetes. But what was clear was that somehow, over thirty some years of living, doughnuts had become important enough in my life for me to learn much more than the average citizen about them. I had become a sommelier equivalent in the frying of sweet dough.

I don’t know when doughnuts became important to me, but I remember impressing my wife with knowing where to get the good ones and at what time in the morning they were the freshest. Wendy was halfway through an important paper at about 3:30 in the morning and needed a second wind. I took her doughnut hunting across town and we found a store that had some just coming out of the back. After feeding her a couple she got just what she needed to finish the paper, a nap. Seriously, she was typing gibberish and I had to do something. She got to wake up a few hours later with a fresh perspective and a French twist in her tummy.

In the summer of 1998 I took a job at a huge music store selling drums. Every week the staff had a mandatory meeting at 8am on Saturday. What made this meeting bearable was the fact that we had doughnuts. The first week I saw what a sad bunch of doughnuts had been selected for us and I quickly volunteered to pick up the doughnuts for the next week’s meeting. Sure I had to rise earlier, but I could pick the doughnuts out at an actual doughnut shop (my favorite at the time) instead of from a place that also sold mousetraps, bedding and paint.

The next staff meeting, I was a hero. I had picked out three dozen assorted doughnuts and a couple big novelty ones that were enjoyed. The staff of 20 people were very excited at the quality and number of doughnuts and I was given great praise for raising the level of the meeting. The workers were motivated to listen and energized by the sugar. It gave them a reason to get out of bed early on a Saturday morning even if they didn’t have to work that day. But it was the NEXT meeting where they went nuts.

I remembered what each person liked, so I tailored the order for as many people as I could remember. I added doughnuts to the order that people had mentioned were missing the last time and made sure each person had their favorite and was accounted for. I displayed them before the meeting in a way that made the doughnuts accessible to where each person liked to sit for the meeting. People started coming to the meetings on time. Even the bass players came early to get their high quality little slice of life/death.

This went on for several weeks until the manager noticed I was spending close to $30 a week on doughnuts. He told me it was too much to spend on doughnuts for the crew. He told me I should just swing by a grocery store and get some day-old, pre-selected boxes of doughnuts. Grocery Store? Day-old? Excuse me? Why don’t I just open a bag of generic cat food and let the sales associates eat that, while you tell us what guitars you’d like us to sell? I mean, the manager had to know we were all musicians and those doughnuts were probably the only decent meal most of us would see that week.

I almost quit right then and there. I informed the manager that I no longer wanted to be in charge of getting the doughnuts if my hands were to be tied in such a manner. I was livid. I had inspired his troops, but I knew that the next week would be a huge mess, and it was. People were upset. What happened to the GOOD doughnuts? Why wasn’t Steve getting them anymore? The entire meeting time was monopolized with the confusion that crappy doughnuts bring. The manager looked like a fool. You cannot feed your people the food of the Gods one week and then skunky old doughnuts the next week. That’s how Napoleon lost.

I think it has become more important to me now that I’m watching my figure (The Olympics are just four short years away). I can’t just shove doughnut after delicious doughnut down my throat anymore. Calories count, whether I do or not and I have to be careful not to cheat myself out of a healthy lifestyle. I have to selectively choose the ONE doughnut that I’m going to enjoy and then sneak a second one later.

Before we go any further, I want to make one thing perfectly clear, there are pastries and there are doughnuts. Pastries are not doughnuts. Cherry, apple, cream cheese Danish varieties, turnovers, cinnamon rolls, chocolate croissants and the like are not doughnuts. They are light, flakey, frequently delicious, but they are not fried dough. Bagels may also seem like doughnuts because they are round and doughy. Bagels are doughnuts in the same way that decoy hunting ducks are water fowl. They are not, and compared to a doughnut, a bagel tastes just like a duck decoy. (That’s a betrayal not lightly forgotten.)

I have been stung by the doughnut/pastry wasp of misunderstanding. An unnamed family member told me of a bakery in Disneyworld that they swore made the best doughnuts they ever had. I was intrigued, and for months this bakery was talked up to me as all knew my affinity for doughnuts. I had assurances and confirmations that these doughnuts were the real deal, and because it was Disneyworld, I guess I let my dreams get away from me. My first morning there, I rose early to have my pick of the case (all doughnut places have a case where the doughnuts are displayed). There was quite a commotion in the bakery and I tried to get in close to see the selection. They had breads and pastries and big fluffy cinnamon rolls. No doughnut case in sight. I looked around, then up and down the boardwalk for a different bakery. No Bavarian creams? No Jellies? No twists? No glazed raised? “Excuse me, where are your doughnuts?”

“We don’t have doughnuts sir, sorry,” said the incredibly friendly bakery worker.

“BUT!” I exclaimed a bit too loudly before bringing it down to a controlled murmur, “I have assurances that you do.”

“I’m terribly sorry sir, but we don’t and I don’t think we ever have.”

The nice thing about losing your temper over doughnuts is that everyone thinks it is a joke and if you have a short fuse for certain topics, that can give you an out in case you say something you’ll regret. We laugh about it as a family now (my laughter at this story is still fake, I don’t find the situation funny). But thanks to this episode, everyone in the family is damn sure what the differences are between a doughnut and a pastry. If anyone still needs help with this, I’ll make you some flashcards too.

I have a theory of what goes into making a good doughnut and that is the doughnut maker needs to be pure of heart with kindness and love OR have some kind of psychological or emotional damage to make the doughnuts so well.

Doughnuts are one of the only foods you can taste “love” in. At least I have found doughnuts to be the easiest food to detect love in. Other foods may contain it, but the simple flavors of fried dough and various types of sweet toppings and fillings create a solid environment upon which to taste the feeling in between. Sometimes there’s a sensation between the flavors that exists in between bites of the doughnut. It’s a glow, a warmth or a feeling like the last rays of sunset traveling directly into your brain through your eyes. This exists in some doughnuts that are made with love. A person who makes a doughnut this way, has the patience to make sure the doughnut is complete. They are giving and generous (extra custard, jelly, icing, sprinkles etc.). You find these doughnuts at small, independent doughnut shops.

You can also taste the love in a doughnut crafted by a person who is missing part of their soul. These doughnut makers are searching for completeness and have found the ability to bridge that gap temporarily by creating a truly delicious doughnut. Their insomnia and heartache fuels them to watch a doughnut fry just a little longer, encourages generosity with the ingredients and substitutes simple pleasures for their pain (extra custard, jelly, icing, sprinkles etc.). The answers they are looking for and the feeling they so desire also lie between the layers of the doughnut. There’s a gentleness to the doughnut flavor, it’s not harsh or bitter. The doughnuts created by the troubled contain lost childhoods, forgotten happy memories and the last hug they ever received, and it’s always delicious. If you know a confused mind or troubled soul and they are between jobs, encourage them to pour their unhappiness into doughnut making. It won’t help them, but you’ll be doing the rest of us a favor.

This little foray into the world of doughnuts wouldn’t be complete without me giving you some doughnut info from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. In no particular order, here is some useless doughnut info for you to swallow and digest:

Legendary Doughnuts is out of Auburn, Washington. They have a small store and a fancy case, but don’t let this boutique of doughnuts turn you off. They care about making good doughnuts and are attempting to elevate the conversation around doughnuts, which I think deserves some credit. I believe they are opening a second location in Seattle as well. They do fun birthday doughnuts in the shape of cakes and even layer giant doughnuts on top of each other to look like a huge hamburger and an oversized order of fires (cinnamon sticks). It’s fun AND delicious. Legendary also does an extremely smooth Bavarian crème doughnut that is made with a special filling. Most shops use custard or pudding inside these chocolate covered doughnuts, but Legendary has a unique twist on it and go the extra mile to make an excellent product.

Voodoo Donuts is a doughnut shop out of Portland Oregon. If you’re a doughnut lover go there. Go. There will be a line though, it doesn’t matter if it is day or night, there WILL be a line. Voodoo donuts are doughnuts as art, delicious art. They have created doughnuts out of all sorts of things, cereal, cookies, NyQuil . Yes, they made a doughnut out of Nyquil… and Pepto Bismol (this joke rights itself). But the doughnuts are made with love and punk rock passion. When I went there, it was a Sunday morning. I got two dozen doughnuts for a song. I couldn’t believe how little I was paying for these fun and tasty doughnuts. I let the guy just pick them for me and he did a much better job picking the assortment. When I got the doughnuts back to the hotel, my wife said, “you know it’s just the two of us, right?” I had purchased 26 doughnuts for two people. Of course I took them to the office the next day. They didn’t have a “standout” doughnut. I will say that the plainer varieties weren’t as cared for and were lackluster, but the one covered in Oreo cookies, I would have taken to homecoming (I had a crush on it). Voodoo didn’t disappoint. It was like going to Disneyland and having the person at the gate tell you that admission was only five bucks. Everything may have been cheap because it looked like nobody there has a food handler’s permit. If you go to Portland, just take 20 minutes and find the place.

Top Pot is a doughnut shop that I want to like. I really do, but I don’t. They have excellent marketing and they are extremely popular but the doughnuts are overpriced and missing something. The maple bar is decent and a solid choice if you like maple bars. I would even go so far as to compliment their crullers, but what is a cruller but an air filled piece of fried dough masquerading as a full bodied doughnut? I just erased two mean sentences about Top Pot, so I think it is time I moved on.

Western Co is another of my favorites. It’s a small chain of doughnut shops in the Seattle Metro Area suburbs. They were all erected about the same time 1976 and then abandoned for 8 years. Somehow all of them gradually opened back up and started selling doughnuts under the same name. They all seem to be owned and operated independently and feel incredibly unfriendly. It’s clear that the owners are dead people and this is their purgatory. No smiles are exchanged. In fact, I believe above the sign that says, “NO PUBLIC RESTROOM” is one that says, “CASH ONLY! NO CREDIT/DEBIT!” and above that, the sign says, “NO SMILES!” Holy Cow, do these people hate making and selling doughnuts, but they make some of the best around. Their buttermilk bars are perfect. Their chocolate sprinkled cake doughnuts are moist and inviting. Western Co does soething special to the oil that they fry them in, maybe they’ve never changed it, I don’t care, they do doughnuts right. Their Jellies are particularly good and they don’t skimp on the filling the way some places do. If you ask for an assorted dozen, they will reluctantly get a pink box started for you, but make sure they don’t just jam them all in if you’re choosing bigger doughnuts. Just because they make awesome doughnuts, don’t expect them to know how to pack them properly.

Madison Park Bakery has a small case of doughnuts on display. They are made fresh by one man who starts at 4am. The bakery opens at 7:30, no matter how early you show up. They are closed Mondays, every Monday, even if that’s when you go there. They have the best glazed old-fashioned doughnut I have ever eaten and I frequently buy more of them than I should (I’m a sharer). The reason it is so good is that the baker has found the balance of baking soda, like I said above. There’s a hint of sour cream, but most of all, the donut goes down easy, moist and never dry or stale. Their custard filled doughnuts are about as heavy as a newborn baby and feel that way in your stomach (in a good way). I ate one in the morning and was told I was glowing for most of the day. The doughnut proportions are generous and the freshness lends itself to excellent flavor of all the doughnuts. I was tempted to not write anything about this shop because I didn’t want to ruin a good thing. If you all start going there, you leave one glazed old-fashioned in the case out of respect. Don’t ruin this place for me.

Frost is a doughnut joint up in Mill Creek. I’ve only had a doughnut there once and can say that the experience was pleasing. That’s all you’re getting from me.

Mighty-O Donuts are vegan organic doughnuts. I assume this is to be healthy. I’ve had them. I don’t understand the point. It feels like they are trying to make a doughnut out of something that is very different. It reminds me of those fake cigarettes people smoke that light up and puff something, but it isn’t smoking. It’s strange and odd and I don’t even like the idea of a healthy doughnut. Plus they taste like a failed experiment

Krispy Kreme is our dirty little secret. I’ll eat them, but I won’t tell anyone about it. The glazed raised right off the line are pretty darn good.

Dunkin’ Donuts should just stick to coffee, people seem to like it. Their doughnuts are not worth the calories. Just don’t eat them. Find a decent shop.

Grocery Stores make doughnuts too. They aren’t good but will do in a pinch. No, I’m sorry, these are also a waste of your time. There is neither a loving hand or troubled mind behind these, just the same sad variety day after day. You’re better than these. You have always been.

Munchers Bakery is a new joint I discovered in Lawrence, Kansas and I wanted to mention them for their enthusiasm for making a great doughnut. They have a cream cheese doughnut there that almost knocked me off my feet. I have to trick myself that they aren’t close to me so that I don’t double fist them into my craw every single day. I know they make other doughnuts, but why would I try them when the cream cheese are available? They are open 24 hours and I bet they have one right now, waiting for me… lonely, needing to be eaten… excuse me.

Donuthaus in Anacortes is a destination doughnut shop. It’s about two hours away from Seattle and I think it’s worth making the drive once in a while. I’m planning a trip there soon, like people plan trips to Thailand or to Jerusalem. Their fritters are monstrous with crispy glazed growths coming off the sides that nobody can resist picking at. They are generous with the toppings and glaze. The bear claws are modeled after actual adult grizzly bears and then doubled. They are huge and tended to with care. The chocolate and maple bars are spectacularly large and have enough sugar glaze to kill Wilford Brimley. They are open 24 hours but you must time your arrival right. If you get there between 6 and 7 in the morning, you’re going to have your pick of the best doughnuts they have, which is anything. But try to get ahold of a buttermilk bar and a custard filled. Those will impress you. But if you’re there just after a ferry comes in after 7am, you’re going to have to wait around3 or 4 hours before another batch comes out. Three in the morning is ideal. I wandered in there after a few performances up there and they always had a fine selection.

I hope you have enjoyed my odd little obsession with doughnuts. Hopefully you have. I feel like doughnuts are something we can all appreciate if not love, they span the globe and are eaten on every continent. President Kennedy once said in a famous speech: Ich bin ein Berliner, which I believe was his angle on peace in the world. Everyone understands doughnuts, and I think that’s what Kennedy meant when he told that crowd in Germany: I am a jelly doughnut.

I may not be eating as many as I used to, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about them from time to time. I’ll still make a doughnut run with any of the uninitiated if you so desire. I’ll ride shotgun to the shop, but I won’t let you eat a bad doughnut and that’s the Damm truth.