Mmmm .... fruity donut

I have only recently discovered a donut shop whose specialty temptation involved a yeast donut stuffed and exploding with fresh fruit from California’s finest markets. I no longer look at donuts the same. When I first heard of it, I regarded it as a legend of Homer - a place of food mythology whose decadent delights lay somewhere inside the mind of Homer J. Simpson’s one-time visit to chocolate land. But, sure enough, such a place exists, known simply as The Donut Man.

Anna and I drove the twenty miles east on the 210 out to Glendora as a simple means of quieting Wyatt for a short while on a Sunday night. And when we arrived at The Donut Man and opened our car doors, the first thing to smack me was the fresh scent of donut-making. It was a smell I associate with The Donut Den, Zionsville’s donut and coffee hot spot that was the “it” place before farmer’s markets and double latte’s took over the town … such a sad age. But nothing I had ever seen or tasted at the Donut Den on a Saturday morning after the hometown football game had ever prepared me for the sight at the front of The Donut Man.

There beneath the soft yellow glow of the neon sign above me and the pale yellow light of 1970’s interior lighting in front of me were the usual suspects of donuts: cakes and yeasts, long johns and cream-filled, chocolate and maple. But just behind the cash register there was a table with multiple rows of “donuts gone wild.” From as best as I can gather, the two Latino chefs in the back of the shop had taken mildly glazed, yeast donuts, sliced them in two and stuffed them with gigantic strawberries. And over the top of the strawberries and down the sides of the donuts there was clear evidence of strawberry filling – the kind grandma might use to line one of her summer pies. Out back, behind The Donut Man shop, stood the leftover boxes and crates of strawberries – remnants of a busy Sunday.

We ate our donuts in the car with Wyatt sleeping in the back. We didn’t say much since our mouths were almost entirely absorbed in chewing and swallowing each generous bite. When we did speak, we mostly said simple things: “geesh this is good,” “kinda tastes like a great fresh dessert,” “I want to try the peach.”

I left The Donut Man wondering if I had just tasted the last of an American culinary dinosaur. Or, maybe, just maybe, I was tasting the beginnings of a new kind of donut – a fresh concoction of basic, natural ingredients … save the pie filling of course. This is a donut after all, and one that even Homer Simpson could find enjoyable.