It's after ten at night. I've been writing pretty much all day. It snowed earlier, and it's still trying hard to do it some more. I've been out for short walks twice, in the trying-to-decide-if-it's going to snow or not weather. I want doughnuts. I want fresh, hot, crispy dense-crusted slightly-sweet buttermilk bars, and bismarks filled with bavarian cream.
Yes, yes, I am a doughnut addicted writer. Also coffee. Coffee and doughnuts, are sort of companion addictions. And I'm not alone in my habits; I note that almost every single Robert B. Parker Spenser novel I've ever read features the detective indulging in coffee and doughnuts. And while it's after ten at night, and my doughnut pusher of choice closes at four in the afternoon, I can't really stop thinking about the joys of a fresh bismark with bavarian cream. And cofee. Did I mention the coffee? And I gotta say, the idea of a glazed chocolate old-fashioned topped with melted Guitard chocolate that goes by a name like Death by Chocolate has definite appeal.
It's not like this is a new thing for me. I remember coffee hours after Sunday school as a thing of wonder because they featured doughnut holes. Those came from Young's Diner, which, years later in grad school, also provided endless urns of really good hot coffee with heavy cream and amazing breakfasts, all day long. But the bulk of my doughnut cravings until my college years were served by Dunkin' Doughnuts, where my particular favorite is the chocolate honey dipped crueller (now referred to a "glazed chocolate cake stick")—accompanied, naturally, by Dunkin's own coffee.
In California, Krispy Kreme is de rigeur, and I openly acknowledge a certain fondness for the fresh, warm, slightly crisp glaze of a Krispy Kreme Original glaze. I admit, my first impressions of Krispy Kreme were negative; I was fifteen then, visiting kin in South Carolina, who wanted me to know the joys of Krispy Kreme compared to Yankee desecrations served up by the likes of Dunkin' Doughnuts. My aunt, guided by my under-six-years-of-age cousins, brought home a dozen or so cake doughnuts covered with frosting, and, heaven save me, multi-colored sprinkles. They were unmentionably vile, and I think I managed to actually avoid ingesting any. But in later years, with the wisdom of age and a Krispy Kreme within walking distance, I learned the joys of a fresh Original Glaze, with hot just brewed coffee.
I should confess that, while I am fond of the Original Glaze when fresh, and of the Glazed Chocolate Cake, given a choice between Krispy Kreme in Westwood, home of UCLA and Stan's Doughnuts, Stan's will win hands down. It's the only place I've ever been able to find a cinnamon chocolate doughnut, or a chocolate jelly doughnut with raspberry filling, and they're made fresh, every day. I could order a dozen, online, and they'd FedEx them to me, overnight, but that seems a bit like overkill.
I suppose one of the reasons, aside from being tired and wanting the caffeine-sugar-fat buzz, is the weather. Were I still in New Hampshire, with this weather at this time of year (sleet mixed with rain, at present), we'd be contemplating sugaring, and that means fresh, hot-just-out-of-the-grease buttermilk doughnuts and endless cups of hot coffee so our hands and faces don't freeze right off while we're dumping the maple sap from sugar maples into vats on the back of a truck or wagon, to make maple syrup. Ever had hot maple syrup drizzled over a just-fried cake doughnut?
But I'm in Washington, not New Hampshire, and I'm still working on a piece I really want to finish. Tomorrow, though, tomorrow I'm off to Rocket Doughnuts, where there's a bismark and at least one buttermilk bar with my name on 'em. I want to at least try one of the lemon filled bismarks. And coffee.