I did not grow up on doughnuts; we were not a junk food household.  I’d have them occasionally, of course.  I was always jealous of a friend whose old man would disappear the mornings after sleepovers and return to leave a box of Krispy Kreme on the kitchen table to greet us on the way from the bedroom to the den to catch Saturday morning cartoons.  I came to adore Krispy Kreme (at the store, you could watch a massive, sweating, silver machine turn out newborn doughnut after doughnut after doughnut).  I also worked briefly at age 16 for Dunkin Donuts (who trucked their doughnuts in from some unseen source twice a day) and eventually came to lament that Dunkin secured a niche on the country’s coffee addiction train and spread its subpar sugar rings across the national landscape, forcing Krispy Kreme to the fringes.

Living in New York City, I have been lucky enough to discover the Doughnut Plant.  Eating at the Doughnut Plant was my first step to experiencing the doughnut as art; they do things like stuff handmade doughnuts with homemade peanut butter and glaze them with homemade jam, buy bushels of in-season lavender from the farmers market for a beautiful gray-blue glaze, concoct tres leches cake donuts and other artisanal delights.  Stumbling upon this place was like stumbling upon El Dorado when the most precious metal previously known was tin.

But gold isn’t the only precious metal (it’s softer than Sabbath) any more than the Doughnut Plant’s gilded doughnuts are the only doughnuts.  The hands-down, full-on, good-goddamn-a’mighty culinary work of art at the Bonnaroo Music Festival this year was the Amish Baking Company’s doughnuts.  Continue reading →