March 26, 2009
I guess you could say I am fascinated with donuts.
Loved to eat them regularly years ago, abstained through one Lenten season and then never indulged in them again. Not once!
That is, until quite recently when I fell off the proverbial doughnut wagon.
The fall was delicious, by the way.
It is possible that I may have overdosed on doughnuts on a recent trip to the Boston Bay area to visit family. Never in my wildest dreams, did I expect to return home from the trip dreaming, thinking, drooling, longing for, and absorbed with the thought and consumption of doughnuts.
Here is how this happened.
My son picked me up at the airport in Providence and was driving me back to his home in Boston when he suggested we stop at "The Dunks" for coffee and a snack.
"What is The Dunks and why no Starbucks," I asked, already beginning to worry about no Espresso in my immediate future.
He answered carefully, knowing he was on slippery footing with me when it comes to coffee, "Mom, out here we go to The Dunks ((Dunkin' Donuts). Come on and give it a try."
Bravely, I stepped to the counter and ordered a cup of coffee, not specifying any particular flavor, just black.
"Wait," my son interjected as though a major emergency was about to occur, "you have to tell them no sugar because here black coffee always comes with sugar unless you tell them differently."
That would have been a major emergency indeed for this plain, black coffee lover.
"You have to be kidding," I blurted. "This isn't the South, and this isn't sweet tea. It is coffee for Pete's sake."
People were staring now.
Surprisingly, I did not care about coffee anymore because I was now fixated on the doughnut counter that offered an array of sweet confections I had not allowed myself for years. I wanted a doughnut, but I did not want sprinkles or cake or jelly or sweet fillings or any kind of icing.
I craved a plain glazed doughnut with my plain, black coffee.
The ensuing fall into doughnut decadence was one of the most pleasurable experiences I can recall; it had been a long time for me. For those of you who enjoy doughnuts often and frequent doughnut shops daily, my tale of abstention and return to sin will sound strange and unbelievable.
Yet, it is true. I had not consumed a doughnut in years.
From the moment the sweet spherical piece of dough hit my palate, doughnuts never left my thoughts for long thereafter.
Honestly though, how could they?
There is a Dunks on every corner in Boston, in every train or bus station and in every market. Sometimes, we stopped at The Dunks under the pretense of buying a bottle of water on our walking tour of historic Boston. Always, we visited The Dunks to smell and savor those sweet, deep-fried circular pieces of heaven.
As we drove to the airport for my departure, a billboard proclaimed "I love donuts.com".
"Me, too," I sighed.
I am a fallen woman.
