Donut Decades

A hole scoop

I was banging away at the finale of my three part manifesto on the history of modern computing when I got this:

It’s a Cronut. Cro as in Croissant, nut as in, well donut or doughnut - apparently both are correct. As I ate it - and it was all kinds of delicious - I decided my impending sixth decade needs more donuts.

I tried to break the Cronut apart, but it was too dense, so I got one of those bendy plastic knives and went Paul Bunyan on it, to share the sweet caramelized chocolatey goodness. It disappeared fast.

As the sugar hit, so did the donut memories and not a bad one in the bunch.

So, I’ll write a stunning computing conclusion at some point, (you can read part I and part II here) but today lets talk donuts.

Fritters aren’t for quitters

The apple fritter welcomed me into my first donut decade. The fritter was a core part of the creativity starter pack in Seduced in the Dark:

I’d meet my friends at the donut shop below the park, where we’d always choose the cowpie sized apple fritters to munch on, eating out of greasy white bags while walking up the hill to the darkroom.

Before discovering the fritter, I got my sweet fix from the white bags and pink boxes of goodies my dad would bring home from the bakeries that lined LA’s Fairfax Avenue.

Schwartz had the best chocolate chip chocolate covered danish, Diamond had the best rugelach. Diamond also baked this odd shaped fruitcake called a football that my dad would get for my mom. That was disappointing. Like finding raisins instead of chocolate chips in your oatmeal cookies.

Canters is the last bakery standing, here it is sandwiched between Dolls Kill and RIPNDIP:

Here’s my dad waiting for his table, check his sick kicks:

If you go to Canters, get a box of Rainbow Cookies - the layers are filled with marzipan - give one to everyone you meet.

Peanut butter Rhino

Once I was old enough to have friends who could drive, we had places to go. Cruising was the goal but also walking through the crowd, looking for trouble and something good to eat. Westwood village by UCLA fit all the criteria and Stan’s Doughnuts was the destination.

Stan’s Doughnuts was across from the Fox Theatre. Remember the scene with Margot Robbie at the Fox in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? The Fox is a big old movie house like the Chinese Theater in Hollywood where I made popcorn.

Stan’s was a little place with big smells and long lines. Stan Berman was famous for his peanut butter stuffed concoction doused with chocolate icing and covered with tiny chocolate chips. I would crave it. I wasn’t the only one who wanted to eat Stan’s Peanut Butter Pocket.

Eff you I’m the King…pin!

Once during finals at Berkeley the stress got to me and I lost my everlovin mind. I wore a Burger King crown everywhere and if anyone looked at me funny, I’d bark out ‘Eff you I’m the King!’

I don’t have a photo of that, so maybe it didn’t happen? That’s also the year I shaved my head, and dropped out.

My mistake might have been moving away from KingPin Donuts. We lived large in the dorms with KingPin just up the street.

If you hit KingPin after midnight you’d catch the owner making the donuts, so you got whatever just came out of the fryer dunked in glaze and still warm. Old-Fashioned, made with buttermilk were the best, square with four crunchy peaks, a bit like a crown.

I didn’t get into the dorms until later in Freshman year, so before school started my dad and I drove up to Berkeley to find me a place to live. We’d hit the housing office bulletin boards armed with a bag of KingPin raspberry filled jelly donuts.

Those were donut salad days. Late nights, wandering about for a study break we’d end up at KingPin. Bags of donut holes to share after basketball games at Harmon Gym. Once I discovered maple frosting, maple bars and maple cakes took over the rotation.

Party Time

After we got out of the dorms, the donut crew would meet for lunch on the patio above the Civil Engineering library. There was a little sandwich shop up there and they had a tray of the pink frosted sprinkles donut which we christened the party donut. They were individually saran wrapped from god knows where, but the party donut never disappoints.

Voodoo impropriety

My nephews up in Portland introduced us to Voodoo Doughnuts. Voodoo took maple up a notch with bacon on top and captain crunch and voodoo dolls and much more.

Voodoo dances on the fringe of donut propriety. It’s the anti-establishment donut. There’s a story about my kids and Voodoo and a large penis-shaped donut that’s better left untold.

Krispy Kreme and Kool-Aid

When I worked in small shops I’d pick up a dozen donuts for the team or steal one out of the pink box in the break room, but once I went corporate the donuts disappeared - replaced with pantry’s of hot pockets and fridges of jolt cola.

Then Krispy Kreme donut mania hit. At Microsoft’s annual field conference they packed us all into a basketball arena - I think it was the American Airlines center where the Dallas Mavericks play - for 8 hours straight of rah rah speeches. Microsoft stacked the halls with boxes of Krispy Kreme and jugs of Kool-Aid to sustain our blood sugar.

Krispy Kreme is still around but meh, the mania fizzled and it’s the corporate donut, no fun. The KingPins, Stan’s and Voodoos are where the fun is.

I needed to go full circle for this story. You guys deserve accurate reporting and sometimes that takes field work. So yesterday, I checked out my local Johnny’s - where the cronut that started all this came from - but this time I got the apple fritter.

The first bite took me back. Just like I was 15 again. Let’s make some stuff! The second bite hurt my tummy. The third bite made me want to take a nap. Maybe my metabolism has changed over the past 45 years so next time I’ll get a dozen donut holes to share.