My wife, Diana, loves donuts. Any kind of donut. Take some dough and fry it, and she’s there.
I liked them a lot more when I was younger and fried food didn’t bother me so much, but I can still go for a donut every now and then. When I was growing up in Mattoon, IL, the place to go was Mister Donut. I was (and am) particularly a fan of almost any kind of filled donut, but Mister Donut Bavarian Creams were always my favorite as a kid.
Today, only one Mister Donut remains in North America. Fortunately, it’s within 90 minutes of my house, in Godfrey, IL, near Alton. It’s as good as I remember it, plus they have a Strawberry Angel to go with the Chocolate and Vanilla that I grew up with. The Angels have more of a whipped cream filling, as opposed to a custard.
Though my wife prefers raised dough, I am also a fan of cake donuts. Regular, chocolate, iced or plain, I love them all. A particularly yummy local treat is the Apple Cider donuts from the Apple Barn in Chatham, IL. If you’re in the neighborhood, go get you a dozen of those. You’ll thank me later.
Donuts on road trips are a family tradition of ours as well. From the bag of chocolate iced donuts we keep in the car for the trip (affectionately referred to by my family as “plastic donuts”) to Krispy Kreme sightings, it seems we are always on the lookout for a good donut. I think it’s no accident that my wife was born on National Donut Day (June 7). Since we are frequently on vacation around her birthday, we are always on the lookout for birthday donuts.
Last summer, Diana and I vacationed in Estes Park, Colorado. For those of you that know, Estes Park has the busiest Safeway store in America. This store sits in the shadow of the Stanley Hotel, which was already famous, but made even more so by the fact that it was where a young Stephen King stayed when he was inspired to write The Shining. (I was a bit surprised to see that the hotel is up on a hill right in the middle of town, since the movie leads you to believe it’s isolated.)
Safeway is not afraid to get outside the box (see what i did there?) with its donut flavors. A couple to note are the Fruity Pebble and, my personal favorite, maple bacon. Yes, that’s an entire strip of bacon on that longjohn.
What are some of your favorite donut memories? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss out on any of the yums to come here at Low-Rent Foodie!