Donuts

Amanda and I have been craving donuts like it has been going out of style. Really. We want donuts furiously. It is necessary that we have donuts. I think we are just going to make them ourselves. In the cast iron skillet. But they must be apple cider donuts. The kind I used to get at Dearshorn Farms in Lancaster (not Maynard, like my dad just corrected me tonight). THere are just no good places to get donuts anymore.

My dad and I were talking tonight--and I have been thinking about this on my own anyway--about "the olden days" of donut shops (specifically Dunkin Donuts and Honey Dew) when the actual first line of business was, in fact, DONUTS....and not mocha-loca-bababooey truffle infused venti latte chocolate bombs with soy milk. Donut shops made DONUTS. And they had just REGULAR working people coffee. I have been looking all over youtube lately, waxing all nostalgic about the days when Dunkies used to have good donuts--because now they taste like fried ricecakes--and I have stumbled across a cache of old Dunkin Donuts commercials featuring "Fred the Baker" advertising how Dunkin Donuts make their donuts fresh up to two times daily....and how they have up to 52 varieties each day....and how they have FOUR types of just jelly donuts....and there is no talk about coffee. Interesting. Their focus was clearly donuts. And now it is coffee. And I wonder what that says about the changing times.....

When Sally and I lived in Rochester, NH, there was a Dunkin Donuts MOTHERSHIP store where the donuts were in fact made fresh there. They were amazing. But everywhere else now is just a little "easy up" style store with no soul. And lots of styrofoam and SUVs. Dad remembers when all the Dunkin Donuts shops made their donuts fresh--he said you could look in the window and see the guy making them. Also, he remembers going into a shop, sitting down to have his coffee, and having it served to him in a porcelain MUG. Not a throwaway plastic cup. Awesome.

Does anyone remember when Dunkin Donuts used to have their special "theme" donuts for the holidays? Halloween used to bring tons of cool donuts. And I even remember a special Spiderman and Superman donut they once had. And jellysticks had jelly. And vanilla cream donuts had so much cream that I couldnt finish it. And what about their "minis??" Remember those? I do, and mostly because my Nana Courtney used to love going to get the minis--5 for 99 cents. She particularly like the eclairs.

I have raved about Honey Dew several times on this blog....and I still maintain they have the best coffee and (pretty good) donuts (considering what they are....a chain). But BEFORE they were a chain, my Dad and I used to go down to the Honey Dew in Easton by the Village Store (which later became Pizzeria Angelina) and sit on the stools and drink coffee out of plastic mugs with the Honey Dew bear on it. Kristin worked there too. But at a different one.

I like "donut shops." Not "coffeehouses" or "barista bars" or "espresso junctions" or stuff like that. I like good, blue collar donut shops. Where did they all go? While Dunkins and Honey Dew were the big ones, some of my friends and family might remember Mister Donut, Supreme Donut, and The Nickelodeon (in Brockton). All these places "did" donuts.

Come back donut people!