First, though, I should note that while my original sources online for June 3rd spelled the delicacy in question as “doughnut”, the official poster spells it as “donut”:

NDD2016 Poster

Of course, “donut’ is the accepted spelling for doughnuts with holes in Germany (to distinguish them from proper German Berliner doughnuts), so maybe that spelling has now been adopted world-wide as the “traditional” spelling for these things, even back in their homeland in the U.S.

Anyway, to celebrate the day, Chris and I split the following types of do(ugh)nuts:

Maple-Glazed Do(ugh)nut, Santa Barbara, NDD2016

Butternut Do(ugh)nut, Santa Barbara, NDD2016

Chocolate-Glazed Do(ugh)nut, Santa Barbara, NDD2016

Acceptable as examples of their do(ugh)nut genres, they weren’t exciting enough to prompt ideas of going back to that particular shop anytime soon. Probably just as well – it’s only a few blocks from our vacation apartment here in Santa Barbara.

On the opposite end of the food scale,  Chris and I set off the next morning to check out the extensive Santa Barbara farmer’s market.  It was filled with stand after stand of delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, and I sampled a bunch of peaches, oranges, etc. before settling on which ones buy.  It’s been great all week having some really wonderfully tasting fresh fruits and vegetables to enjoy.

Last Saturday, after our purchases at the farmer’s market were all finished, Chris looked across the street and spotted a sign for something we just couldn’t pass up: a cafe that made fresh cinnamon rolls.  Cinnamon rolls as a pastry is not something that you find in Italy or Germany, or at least not in the parts where we lived (or looked).  So, it was a treat to find a place that offered a freshly made cinnamon roll:

Cinnamon Roll, Santa Barbara

It was good, but in the end not all that spectacular. Although it was better than the coffee we got at that same place.  Of course, the cafe bills itself as having “Australian style” coffee which, as far as I can tell, involved assigning different meanings to standard Italian terms for coffee drinks, mostly involving making all the drinks bigger in size.  I’m not sure if that is what “Australian coffee” really is, but that was the impression we were left with.

Anyway, our plans for tomorrow are to visit the farmer’s market again for some more of that great fruit like we got last week.

That’s not to say that we’ll necessarily be entirely healthy, of course. You see, there are also stands that sell homemade pies. Including rhubarb, which is CC’s particular favorite. In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that we actually did try a small one of those pies last week, and it wasn’t bad. But since I forgot to take a photo of it, we may just have to get another one tomorrow… just so I can take a photo for the blog, of course.

Stay tuned.

Chris and I just arrived in Santa Barbara tonight (June 2nd), but Chris has done research ahead of time. So we have some places on our list that will (hopefully) allow us celebrate this “holiday” appropriately. Hope you read this in time so you can do the same!

To inspire you on your quest, here’s a fun doughnut photo from Will that he calls Recursive Donuts. Thanks, Will, for a fun photo – and good luck to everyone on their doughnut expeditions today.

Recursive Donuts (photo provided by Will Leben)

In any case, the main reason for the post is a photo from Volunteer Park. From a particular vantage point there you get a nice view of the Space Needle off in the distance. In fact, there is an iconic shot that you get from there that frames the Space Needle in the center of the modern art sculpture that is placed in front of the Asian Art Museum in the park. Technically, the name of the sculpture is Black Sun.

But the sculpture is referred to by locals as “The Doughnut”:

Black Sun (“The Doughnut”) sculpture

Yup, it does resemble a doughnut.

In fact, it looks just like a real doughnut that Chris and I sampled last week. Except, of course, the real doughnut didn’t provide a view of the Space Needle inside the middle like the sculpture did:

Chocolate Doughnut from “The Mighty O” in Seattle

As I said, this post was intended to be a Travel Tuesday post from Seattle. But I guess it just proves that no matter where we go or what the topic is, and despite my best intentions,  the discussion must necessarily always come back around to doughnuts.

—–

For whatever reason, this song kept running through my head when I thought about writing up this post: But the World Goes ‘Round.  Not a song about doughnuts, and not quite a crazy Broadway show tune – but it was at least written by Broadway composers, and doughnuts are at least round.  

And yes, this is another entry in the doughnut diaries. There’s a doughnut store chain in Seattle called Top Pot that supplies a supermarket here in our neighborhood with fresh doughnuts, delivered daily. The supermarket is in a building that has the “iconic” Wallingford sign, Wallingford being the name of this neighborhood:

Wallingford Sign on the QFC Supermarket, Seattle

So of course it was our duty to sample them, right?

Cake and Raised doughnuts from Top Pot

Those were pretty basic doughnuts (top one is a cake one with a  cinnamon sugar topping, the bottom one is a raised yeast glazed one. Both were OK, but not spectacular.

But then a few days later Chris read somewhere that Top Pot’s specialty is the Maple Bar.  Sso of course we had to try one of those on another day:

Maple Bar, Top Pot Doughnuts

Not a bad use of maple at all, actually. The bar isn’t filled, just topped with a pleasantly maple-tasting icing.

So in case you’ve worried about the Doughnut Diaries, rest assured that there is at least one good doughnut to be had here in Seattle.  We’ll keep trying more as we find them, even if it’s not always a food on Friday at the time.

If you guessed the end of the krapfen season in Bolzano, you’re correct, as today is the first day of Lent. And that, of course, is  the day that krapfen (“jelly doughnuts”) disappear from the bakeries in Bolzano. (Click here to access a few old blog posts about krapfen traditions in Bolzano).

In Tübingen that style of doughnut was called a Berliner. While their disappearance wasn’t quite so complete in Germany as it was in Bolzano, the special only-for-Carnival kinds of Berliners available between Christmas and  Fat Tuesday did always disappear during Lent. [Click here to see a few old blog posts about Berliners in Tübingen].

Now I don’t know about you, but this season snuck up on me this year. I’m not used to thinking about the last day for doughnuts happening in early February!  But fortunately for the Doughnut Diaries I did manage to remember just in the nick of time yesterday evening. I went to a branch of Tim Hortons, the Canadian doughnut shop, in oder to purchase a couple of their krapfen-like varieties.

Raspberry & Maple Canadian krapfen

The one on the left is a jelly doughnut, filled with raspberry jam, and covered in powered sugar.  That one was remarkably like the ones found in Bolzano and Germany (in form at least). That surprised me, as I thought North American jelly doughnuts were traditionally covered in granulated sugar, instead of powdered sugar like they are in Europe. But this Tim Hortons model was covered in powdered sugar; it was the only style of jelly doughnut they had at 6:30pm.

The other doughnut was called a Canadian Maple.  It was topped with a maple-flavored glaze, but filled with a regular (non-maple) custard creme.  Interesting to try, but not my favorite.

Anyway,  I don’t think that Tim Hortons stores are closed starting today, so I don’t think we’d have trouble finding jelly doughnuts here, even though it is now Lent.  So it wasn’t quite as critical to make it there yesterday. But it is tradition, after all – at least the tradition we learned living in Italy and Germany, and one we were happy to keep alive last night with a couple of Candian krapfen. 

For a little town, it certainly has its share of potential Monday Mysteries. Where is the “Start of the Tropics” that are promised in the town’s motto (which is “Where the tropics begin.”). For that one, I’m guessing we didn’t go far enough south; a chamber of commerce site for the area talks about the different climate zones that Vero beach straddles, so perhaps that’s the answer to that mystery.

While we didn’t make it to the tropics,  we did at least make it all the way through the small downtown area.  That part of town is the location of  the Pocahontas Park. Which is the second mystery: Pocahontas? Why is a park in Florida is named after a historical heroine from Virgina?  That chamber of commerce site doesn’t explain that one.

But the main mystery for today is really a statue in  that Pocahontas Park in Vero Beach. It’s not of a girl, but rather something else:

Horse Statue in Vero Beach

According to an article I found online, the horse’s name is Patriot. The article explains that in 2009, after a 6-year renovation project,  this 1960’s statue was returned to his corral there in the park.

However, that begs quite a few questions: Why a white horse statue? Why is his name Patriot? Why is he rearing up at such an extreme angle? Who made him originally? And why is it in this park? I still haven’t figured any of that out.

Not too many answers today, but at least you get more than two mysteries from one small town, along with more than two questions from a single Monday Mystery.

*****

P.S. BTW, we saw this statue up close when we sat at a table in the park eating doughnuts from  a place in Vero Beach called Tasty Donuts.  At noon on a Saturday they were closing when we walked in, but they kindly let us come in and buy a couple of doughnuts to go.  Nice day to sit in the park – and the doughnuts lived up to their name.  If we go back to find the tropics, we at least know of a good place to go to help fortify us on that expedition…

Now I hadn’t thought of the old movie The Love Bug in years, but the name of this bakery brought it to mind. Then I heard the other day that the star of those movies, Dean Jones, just passed away, and mentions of that movie were all over.  So, our finding this local bakery called Love Bug seemed like a sign that we had to try it, right?

I know what you’re thinking — and you’re right, there doesn’t ever really need to be a reason for us to agree to try a doughnut. So the other day we sampled a couple of the Love Bug regular doughnuts — er, donuts, as they call them there. The following seasonal special pumpkin cake one was pretty good:

Pumpkin Spice Love Bug Donut

These two glazed raised ones weren’t bad, although not as good as the cake donut. However, I found them rather more photogenic than the pumpkin one:

Chocolate & Maple Glazed Love Bug Donuts

Note that the maple one on the right is not one of the Love Bug’s  “signature maple bar with bacon” items. Yes, that’s would be a doughnut with bacon.  Hmm. I guess that’s a very trendy thing in the U.S. right now, as there are several donuts with bacon on Zagat’s list of 14 “must try” donuts.  But I’m not convinced.  As I much as I like sampling doughnuts, it still might take something as an extra incentive to get me to agree to try a bacon doughnut…

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P.S. Dean Jones, in addition to starring in a bunch of Disney movies in the 1960s and 1970s, was also a Broadway star.  Here’s a clip of him performing in a scene from the  1970 Sondheim musical Side by Side; the clip is from a concert reunion of the original cast done in 1993.  Enjoy.

Dunkin’ Donuts, to be precise.  For those of you not in North America, Dunkin’ Donuts is a major international doughnut chain that predates the Krispy Kreme brand I talked about last week, at least for me in the northeastern U.S.  Chris actually knew that Dunkin’ Donuts was founded in Massachusetts; I just knew that when I was a kid in New Jersey, there were Dunkin’ Donuts shops around.

BTW, some of my long-time readers may recall that in Germany, a “Donut” is specifically a doughnut with a hole in the middle, whereas a filled doughnut, e.g. a jelly doughnut, is called a Berliner in Germany. It was once explained to me (by a German) that a Donut is an American-style doughnut, which always seemed funny to me, as places in America — like Dunkin’ Donuts – have both styles of doughnuts.

But I digress.

Doughnuts came up again today for an unlikely reason. As I mentioned earlier this week, Chris and I have been doing a number of routine doctor’s appointments here in Florida. Today we had sort-of back-to-back medical things planned. First up was going to get routine blood work done for cholesterol testing, which requires fasting.  However, by the time we had the blood drawn, we only had about 20 minutes before my next appointment. Which meant that we needed to go somewhere to get something to eat fast.   And the quickest place in the neighborhood turned out to be a Dunkin’ Donuts.  Here are the two types we tried; FWIW, the Butternut was much better:

Butternut Dunkin’ Donut

Chocolate Glazed Dunkin’ Donut

Now, is it me, or is there something odd about going to get your cholesterol tested, and then immediately having a doughnut? But it was really the closest place for a quick snack in between doctors visits. And then, on the way back to our new “home”, we realized that we actually are mid-way between 2 Dunkin’ Donuts locations.

That’s a sign of something. I’m not sure what, but something.

At the very least, it’s a sign that the perfect theme for today’s Food on Fridays post should be a doughnut…  or donut …;-)

The other day we stopped by a 21st century American doughnut institution: the Krispy Kreme store here in Melbourne. I’d blogged about it 4 years ago; you can read about that visit here: https://22bz.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/playing-at-parenting-101-food-in-america/

This time around, Chris and I were on our own and only popped in for a quick visit. We were in need of  a quick sugar fix after spending hours doing errands and grocery shopping – and Krispy Kreme doughnuts are nothing if not a sugar fix.

We each just got one doughnut; as I wrote in that old post, I prefer my doughnuts filled in general, and also chocolate glazed, so we got one of each type:

Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Melbourne, August 2015

However, even though they looked slightly different from the basic Krispy Kreme doughnut style (refer back to my old post for a photo), they tasted the same: just pure sugar, no other flavor, even though the icing was nominally chocolate and the filling nominally lemon.

Ah well, once will do me for quite some time, I think. But when in America, you need to stop by the Krispy Kreme store at least once.

Well, at least, you do if you write a blog that has a Doughnut Diaries theme on occasion.