Posted by Pam @ 07/13/2002 09:37 AM PST

None of the aforementioned: Doughnut Plant, yeast donuts hand-made daily with market-fresh ingredients. Wonderful because they are unlike those dreaded, too sweet, too oily, hydrogenated chain types.

Posted by freedunit @ 07/13/2002 10:12 AM PST

From the Big E (Entemann's, that is) Crumb Covered Donuts - both the chocolate and the buttermilk.
Also from that Big E there is a coffee cake that is to die for: Ultimate Crumb Lovers. (Sound like something that Barbara Stanwyck would want to sink her teeth into, doesn't it?)

Posted by td @ 07/13/2002 10:52 AM PST

Tomorrow's Sunday New York Times has a rather uninspired and poorly researched article on the declining interest in producing original cast albums. The writer mentions Bruce Kimmel in reference to his forming FA, but with no mention whatever of the fact that BK is no longer associated with that sorry enterprise. I don't have the energy to write to the Times today, but BK or someone might care to instruct them that even FA seems to be losing interest in original cast albums if Matt Zarley is any indication.

Posted by Robert Armin @ 07/13/2002 11:10 AM PST

Robert Armin, under whose byline was the article published?

Posted by freedunit @ 07/13/2002 11:33 AM PST

Barry Singer is the writer.

Posted by Robert Armin @ 07/13/2002 11:49 AM PST

I go to a French bakery in Oakland called La Farine. Their Morning Bun is to do for.

Their Chocolatine is a near-sexual experience!

Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 07/13/2002 12:04 PM PST

To DIE for vice "do." Really, BK, we ought to be able to go back and correct our idiotic mistakes! : )

Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 07/13/2002 12:05 PM PST

I hope Mister Mark Bakalor does not read that while driving; it might cause whiplash.

Posted by freedunit @ 07/13/2002 12:21 PM PST

There is simply no contest for best chocolate donut (and I'll bet your close personal friend Klea Blackhurst will back me up on this)--the former Dunford Bakery in Salt Lake City (now opearted by Dan's Foods, which has several stores throughout SLC and environs) has the most divinely decadent chocolate cake donut you have ever tasted. In fact, my wife, God bless her, had cravings for these when she was pregnant with one of our kids, and my late mother used to FedEx us two dozen at a time. If you are ever in Salt Lake City, go to a Dan's and get a chocolate donut. Their Rocky Road cakes (chocolate with almonds) are fabulous, too.

Posted by JMK @ 07/13/2002 01:19 PM PST

There are really no good donuts produced today. Not like in the Golden Age of Donuts. Why, in 1963 I must have bought and eaten at least a hundred donuts which I would consider great, donuts for the ages.

Nowaday, every bakery is interested in the big blockbuster. Every donut is a copy of some other donut, all powdereed sugar and sprinkles and technical wizardry, but without the heart, without the genius of the donuts of bygone days.

And the idiots at alt.donut.reviews make it worse with all their blathering about the magnificent taste and Minellian fluidity of the latest bland product of Enteman's and all the other corporate bakeries.

The bottom line in this field is weekly grosses. Donuts to dollars. Any interest in the art of baking has sadly been lost, and the public is too preprogrammed to know the difference.

Hmpph!

Posted by William F. Orr @ 07/13/2002 01:20 PM PST

Mr. William F. Orr, I am obligated to differ with you! (I was going to say "I beg to differ with you," but we have dogs and are trying to set a good example.) There is still an interest in the art of baking. The interest is just not at the commercial level.

Admittedly, we've had a dry run for some time on home baking. First we had "bread machines," doing all the "work" and providing people with very strangely cubical loaves that tasted...well, cubical. The popularity of these machines is fortunately waning, but the interest in home-made bread was sparked again, to a degree. More and more, on cooking shows, I see demonstrations of how to make one's own dough, and how to make bread. As soon as I get a decent kitchen (whenever that damn new house gets finished), I'll be taking the process up myself.

Similarly, we've gone from Ronco Pasta Machines to more and more demonstrations on how to make your own pasta at home, by hand. And those cookbooks, "The Cake Mix Doctor," with a Hillary Clinton lookalike on the cover? They'll be the next to become passe, replaced with honest home baking.

Doing these things yourself is fun! Which brings me to a question: I recall, from my youth, a French kind of fried sweet thing, where a tool that looked like a branding iron (but usually had a butterfly or flower design) was dipped part way up in a batter, then lowered in hot oil to cook. When the batter was cooked, it was loosened carefully from the branding iron thingie, and sprinkled with powdered sugar. For the life of me, I cannot remember what these treats are called, just that they were delicious. Does anyone out there know what I'm referring to?

Posted by S. Woody White @ 07/13/2002 02:06 PM PST

Apparently we had a major event here at haineshisway.com, but the usually reliable Mr. Craig Brockman didn't alert me in time. Tomorrow we shall celebrate, better late than never. The major event was, of course, the 250th notes. 250!

Posted by bk @ 07/13/2002 02:10 PM PST

BK, I posted a happy 250th! [See yesterday and my long motion-picture rant.] I will bitch-slap Craig anyway, just because it makes an unseemly pastime.

Craig, look at me when I’m bitch-slapping you!

Posted by freedunit @ 07/13/2002 02:27 PM PST

WFO, although you are correct about the tastes of the general public, your first statement is incorrect, as S. Woody White points out. I believe you are close enough to Manhattan to prove it to yourself. Eat a doughnut—not a donut—from mad artist Mark Isreal’s Doughnut Plant, established in 1994, now located at 379 Grand Street between Essex and Norfolk Streets, New York, NY 10002-3951, and the revelation—subtle but pronounced—will be your own. Isreal is a good name for Mark, because the pastry he makes is real, unlike most others. The last time I visited Doughnut Plant, doughnuts were available Tuesday through Sunday from 7:00 in the morning until the day’s supply sells out—which it always does—usually before 2:00 in the afternoon—and priced at $1.75 each. On that visit, Isreal had also made Mexican-style churros that were delicious. Doughnut Plant supplies doughnuts to Agata & Vallentina, Balducci’s, Dean & DeLuca, Whole Foods · Chelsea, and Zabar’s, as well, but in order to buy one, one would have to be able to distinguish a doughnut made by Mister Isreal from others sold—easy for the discerning connoisseur to do once he has had one. As I told Kerry a while back, I know from bakeries in Chicago, New York City, and Tucson.

Warning to Dunkin’ Donuts, Krispy Kreme, Winchell’s, and other such fried rings: Doughnut Plant doughnuts may give you an inferiority complex, but others still love you for what you are.

Posted by freedunit @ 07/13/2002 03:07 PM PST

Y'know, maybe it's just me and my penchant for satire, but methinks Mr. Orr's comments were perhaps tongue in cheek (with or without a donut, er... doughnut, in there, too) and perhaps in reference to yesterday's debate on fine films. Then again, I could be completely wrong. Mr. Orr?

Posted by JMK @ 07/13/2002 03:31 PM PST

I certainly took Mr. William F. Orr's post as tongue-in-cheek. My tongue is in my cheek right now - does that mean this is a tongue-in-cheek post? I look like a chipmunk when I put my tongue in my cheek. It's quite a stupid saying, really. Tongue in cheek. So, if I posted something vicious would it be called foot in groin?

Posted by bk @ 07/13/2002 04:40 PM PST

I, too, am taking Mr. Orr's comments as tongue-in-cheek, because NO WAY would he refer to our patron as a blathering idiot because he loves Entenman's chocolate donuts.

Nosireee.

I love Krispy Kremes, too....BUT ONLY WHEN THEY'RE FRESH AND HOT! They are no less lethal that way, trans fat wise, but the sensual experience of them make them worth every clogged artery that might come back to haunt you.

Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 07/13/2002 04:47 PM PST

Oy... yanno, you pretend to have a life offline for 24 hours and the bitchslaps just keep on coming. Well. Fine. Yesterday was indeed notes #250. And I was indeed errant and truant (and also truant and errant) in relaying said information to Mr. BK. I assure you, such anniversaries shall never again be overlooked by one, Craig Brockman.

I wonder if there is anyway for Mark Bakalor to do some computation and figure out exactly how many POSTS we have had in the 250 days since the site started. Maybe that could be a contest. Right now I am guessing it's in the neighborhood of 7500 posts (an average of 30 a day). Am I too HIGH.. or too low.. what says you?

As for donuts... I love the french cruellers at Dunkin Donuts. Im also a fan of their apple fritters. Entemanns Chocolate covered donuts were often found in the Brockman house and that was always a sweet way to spend a sunday morning with a tall glass of Moo Juice.

I know in wake of my lack of keeping you informed Mr BK I am not entitled to an answer.. but regarding my post yesterday about "Empire of the Sun" .. your thoughts?

Posted by Craig @ 07/13/2002 04:49 PM PST

I don't like donuts.

I bought a couple of new DVDs
Are You being Served: The Movie
Watcher in the Woods with the two original endings
Just One Time
The Best of Boys in Love

Ok your turn

Posted by Michael Shayne @ 07/13/2002 05:11 PM PST

I thought we were discussing doughnuts, now it is tongues in cheeks. Things get so complicated so quickly, and foot in groin sounds extremely painful, by the way (BTW). I hope no doughnuts’ feelings were hurt. I posted the warning so that they might understand they still have their places and not feel bad. I offer doughnut therapy if any are in need.

Posted by freedunit @ 07/13/2002 06:09 PM PST

I got distracted I came here to discuss Vanilla Coke. For some reason, it sounded like a good idea to me and I decided to try it. Call me gullible. No, don’t. The store had only twelve-ounce cans, no bottles, so I settled on one can for seventy-five cents. At first there was no bouquet; then there was the bouquet of candle scent. The initial taste was quite different than regular Coca-Cola, rounder, but not really better. Then the complex flavor hit my taste buds. It can be best described as vanilla-esque. A few sips later it was clear: Vanilla Coke tastes like Coke with Chapstick. Down the sink it went. Only very rarely do I drink carbonated beverages and so-called “soft drinks.” I will not be drinking Vanilla Coke again. If I am going to drink a cola, which, again, is very, very rare, I strongly prefer Coca-Cola to Pepsi and most others. Probably Royal Crown Cola would be second to Coke for me. The best Coca-Cola was the pre-New-Coke, no-longer manufactured Coca-Cola. Absent that, the Kosher-for-Passover Coca-Cola is the best. It is made with only sucrose, not fructose, and is noticeably crisper. It has a snap that the corn-syrup version does not.

Posted by freedunit @ 07/13/2002 06:19 PM PST

Aha Freedunit. I knew it! You are a cokehead. Say hello to my li'l friend!

Posted by Scarface @ 07/13/2002 06:23 PM PST

Kevin Spacey -- does anyone know where the hell his career is going since "American Beauty"?

I saw "Pay it Forward" -- it was sweet. I'm not sure what to think of the off-camera hijinks between Spacey and co-star Helen Hunt, which seemed to coincide with Hunt's separation from hubby Hank Azaria (they lived together for years and years and years. Then they got married and PFFFT!)

Has anyone seen "The Shipping News" or that other one in which Spacey may or may not be an aliena? Are those films any good?

Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 07/13/2002 06:30 PM PST

I remember a time when Dunkin' Donuts was a dream come true -- and it was an event to go to one of the stores and buy a dozen filled donuts. The fillings were (or I recall they seemed to be) yummy. Now there's not a filling around anywhere in the U.S. that I've liked.

That doesn't count the baker's chocolate inside the Chocolatine which is to die for it's so good.

BUT I did find a filled pastry in Italy with a lemon custard that was a culinary orgasm unto itself.

I'd love to know how to create that lemon custard!!

Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 07/13/2002 06:33 PM PST

It has been a glorious day in Oakland CA today -- the sun has been warm, but the breezes are all the cool offshore kind that make summer here very tolerable.

I went to a produce market and bought a melon, three pounds of yellow summer squash, two pounds of beefeater tomatoes, a half-pound of mozzarella, three pounds of white peaches and a loaf of cranberry/orange bread.

At some point today, I decided nothing would do but that I have barbecued chicken for dinner, but I didn't want to cook for myself. I bought a half-chicken at Emil Villa's, along with a pint of their oven-baked beans, a side of slaw and yummy, yummy, yummy I've got love in my tummy.

I realize it's food and not love -- JUST food -- but it sure does make me feel GOOD!

I plan on re-watching my DVD of MGM's fantastically fantabulous college musical delight "Good News" -- "Pass That Peace Pipe (and bury that tomahawk like those Choctaws, Chickasaws, Chattohoochees, Chippewas, and those Chichamecks, Cherokees, Chapultepecs, and those Chakootamees, Chepacheps 'n' Chicopees, Chocktohs, Changos, Chattanoogas, Cheekaros do-o-o-o!)

Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 07/13/2002 06:44 PM PST

I'm not a big doughnut fan. I do love cakes and pastries (I spent some time in Paris and Honfleur so I'm a sucker for good, real French pastry) but doughnuts are not high on my list. I will try Freedunit's favorite, Doughnut Plant next weekend. I want to go to the Lower East Side location instead of Whole Foods in my neighborhood. I'm looking for the real experience. I'm off tomorrow evening to see Barbara Cook at Lincoln Center. So excited. I haven't seen her live since the 1980 Carnegie Hall concert which I saw on a fluke because a dear friend was working for the producer (Arthur Cantor) at the time and I was able to sit in a box on the right side in Carnegie Hall and watch the entire evening. We then retired with the others to a penthouse on Central Park South for the party! Oh, my! I had just been in New York for two weeks at that point. I was in heaven and it made up for the mugging that happened one week earlier. Twenty-two years later, I'm Still Here so I might as well try the doughnuts on the Lower East Side

Posted by Ben @ 07/13/2002 07:00 PM PST

Happy 250th notes! (It's today because "Notes 204" is both errant and truant.)

Posted by Paul Fairie @ 07/13/2002 07:12 PM PST

I do indeed know exactly how many comments, with a running average per column, we've had since day one at any time.

Posted by Mr. Mark Bakalor @ 07/13/2002 07:12 PM PST

Mark-
So are you going to post the answer, or might that be a question for a contest?

Posted by Craig @ 07/13/2002 07:23 PM PST

They're all Krispy Kremes which are the closest I can get to the doughnuts of my youth which I can still taste in my head.
-Glazed Raspberry Jelly filled
-their Plain glazed raised donut
-glazed donut with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.

Other than individual bakeries, old favorites were the red jelly filled and the Buttermilk donuts at Dunkin' Donuts.

Oh dear. There's not a Krispy Kreme real close. I don't really feel like driving all that way, but now I may have to.

Posted by Kerry @ 07/13/2002 08:35 PM PST

One summer when I was going to college, I had several jobs before finally landing a full-time gig at Pizza Hut!

I have one part-time job in an ice cream factory/warehouse that had me working from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. The ride home took me right past a Krispy Kreme. I used to stop and buy a dozen right out of the glazer!

I'd scarf down about two on my ride home, eat maybe two more with coffee. My mother would be getting ready for work and I'd put a couple in a bag for her to take to work. The rest would be consumed after I woke up in the afternoon. God! To be YOUNG again!

When I got my job at Pizza Hut, it seemed to be fate. I hated pizza. Oddly, we were allowed to make a pizza at the close of each day to take home with us...free (at the rates they paid us, you can bet we earned them). I developed a taste for pizza because of that...and my favorite is sausage, green (bell) pepper and onion. Back then, there was only one crust, so you didn't have a choice of anything but toppings.

Only one other really bad "fast food" vice I have -- White Castle! When I'd go to White Castle (I lived in Indiana for five years and they're everywhere), I'd buy no fewer than a dozen burgers, onion chips, french fries and a large chocolate shake. That would set me back about $7. I usually went to White Castle after a night of partying/bar hopping. Sooo...I'd take my White Castles home and sit and watch the late, late horror show on TV while scarfing those delicious burgers down! I put a squirt of mustard only on my burger...and I don't eat the cheeseburgers.

Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 07/13/2002 10:03 PM PST

Ron Pulliam, hijinks of Kevin Spacey and his Pay It Forward co-star off-screen? Together?!? I do not know what you are reading, but unless by hijinks you mean dinner, THROW IT OUT. For Mister Spacey, you have the wrong film and the wrong member of the company. For his co-star, why bother? So egregiously over-rated and not talented is she. I do not know from Chocolatine, but I sure hope that is baker’s chocolate—whatever that may be—and not Baker’s Chocolate, which is an inferior retail product of grainy chocolate liquor that leaves a terrible after-taste. Cupcake Cafe uses it to its tremendous detriment.

French pastry can be magnifique. I wish I did not know from Italian and other Mediterranean pastries. As a rule, I do not like them. Speaking of rules, there are strict dessert rules: cheese is not a dessert item, and fruit does not mix with chocolate. Do not tell me about cheesecake, which is neither cheese nor cake.

Ben, keep in mind Doughnut Plant doughnuts are of the old-fashioned variety: They are hand-sized fried cakes with the day’s selection of toppings. The basic yeast-cake pastry of every flavor is the same plain doughnut, only the glaze or coating differs, but ever so wonderfully. All ingredients are fresh and high-quality. Mark Isreal uses only Valrhona chocolate and, for example, if he is making raspberry-glazed doughnuts, it means raspberries are in season and he has just selected them himself from the Union Square green market. The chocolate and banana-pecan were both excellent. Have a great time at Barbara Cook’s Mostly Sondheim—wonderful performer, wonderful program—especially the a cappella encore.

Paul Fairie, you are correct that 204 is errant and truant, but at this site even the errant and truant are counted. Ask Craig as I bitch-slap him.

As for the number of posts, it is easily tallied.

Posted by freedunit @ 07/13/2002 10:07 PM PST

I am not really a doughnut/donut fancier - the hole is probably more wholesome.

Ron

My FIRST DVD purchase was THE SHIPPING NEWS. I saw it at the movies where it was not a box office success. (In Australia at least). I had read the book a few years back and I think it is Spacey's best role. He is seems to even be thinking slowly like the character he portrays. The movie is probably too slow for the maintstream movie goer but it is worth every minute. I loved Spacey in Midnight.... and also in American Beauty. This is superior AND had Dame Judi Dench.
I watched Mulholland Drive last night. It certainly stays with you. It certainly did not "drag" for me and I found it fascinating. I need to watch it again with the knowledge of the ending. I suspect my interpretation of most scenes will be altered somewhat. Amazing film. (I did not watch Twin Peaks)

Posted by Tom from OZ @ 07/13/2002 10:17 PM PST

I'm having a doughnut Twilight Zone moment! I've been in this weight-loss program for almost a year (though you won't be able to tell by this week.) Today's totally random topic is doughnuts and I have had more in the last three days than I've had in the past 11½ months. FIVE, count 'em, five in three days! So far, I've had one large bar-shaped doughnut (like a maple bar but without the maple), filled with Twinkie-cream-like substance and dusted with powdered sugar; two, yes, two Bismarcks (chocolate covered, custard filled - one of my favorites); one Old Fashioned (they're called something else on the East Coast - another of my favorites); and one that looks like it's made from apple fritter dough without apples or cinnamon and in the shape of a slug body without the head. (It really is better than it sounds, I just don't know how else to describe it.) The store I get them from sells all doughnuts for 20 cents each after...some time in the evening. I just had to partake. It was too good a deal to pass up. However, I've probably had my fill of doughnut calories for the next year, but they were worth every bite! Well, that's my confessional.

Posted by George @ 07/14/2002 12:35 AM PST

S. Woody White: My Norwegian grandmother used to make those deep-fried pastries when she visited at Christmas. She called them "rosettes" and said they were Swedish. And then she used the same oil to make the most mouth-watering-icious pastry in the whole entire world: fåttiman--allthough I am not sure of the spelling. It was Norwegian, made from a slightly different batter, whose recipe passed away with her at 96. Flat strips, tied in a knot, popped into the hot oil and then covered with powdered sugar.

Of course, every year it was, "Grandma, please come see us for Christmans!" My mom occasionally made the rosettes but never tackled the fåttiman. I know what I'll be ordering when I get beyond the Pearly Gates.

freedunit: Cheesecake? Cheesecake, you say? You obviously have never had my mother-in-law's cheesecake! Agreed, most of what passes by that name might be better described by Anthony Newley's classic song "Chalk and Cheese", sung by the inimitable Joan Collins as Polyester Poontang in Can Hieronymous Merken Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?--but, as Max Shulman used to say in those cute Kimmel-style cigarette ads (!) in college newspapers in the fifties and sixties, I digress.

And my mother-in-law, who is of Slovak origin but married into an Italian family and learned their ways--thinks cholesterol is an essential vitamin. Unfortunately, at 82 she bakes no more, and her one (of five) baking-enthusiastic daughter lost her enthusiasm with her divorce and no longer strives to reproduce her mother's masterpieces.

You just ain't had cheesecake, freedunit.

Posted by William F. Orr @ 07/14/2002 02:30 AM PST

I have had cheesecake by the alleged best of the best, and the fact remains that cheesecake is neither cheese nor cake. Also, I believe you do not have a mother-in-law. An important, political distinction needs to be made until legislation catches up. The terms mother-ex-law or mother-out-law may be used, depending on one’s view of the party.

Posted by freedunit @ 07/14/2002 07:47 AM PST

Mother-in-common-law?

Actually she introduces me as, "My son, my adopted son."

Posted by William F. Orr @ 07/14/2002 09:10 AM PST

Certainly not mother-in-common—or any other—law. Try mother-by-adoption, mother-in-fact, mother-by-proxy, or foster mother, if you cannot use the more accurate mother-ex-law, or more accurate and humorous mother-out-law.

Posted by freedunit @ 07/15/2002 11:26 AM PST