Donut!

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.