OMG! True story, I wrote an essay about a trip I want to take with my big brother…
In Search of the Elusive Jelly Donut
One day I’m going to write a book and it’s going to be called In Search of the Elusive Jelly Donut. It’s mostly a travelogue documenting my search for the jelly donut from my youth.
My Dad was a cop. Cops love donuts. And coffee. Need a cop? Go to the nearest donut shop. Often you’ll find several. Once I was walking in New York City, and I heard several police sirens and saw 2 police cars fly around a corner and stop. I stopped to watch. Three officers jumped out of their cars and walked briskly into the store on the corner. I walked past and looked in the window. The officers were in line. Waiting. I looked up, Dunkin’ Donuts. I swear. I took pictures to prove it. (See below)
Anyway, back to my book.
When I was a kid my Dad (the cop) would bring home all sorts of things that business owners on his “beat” would give him. Cases of soda, boxes of lollypops, cases of Oreo cookies (another story, about the time my brother and I ate our way through a case of Oreos. I can’t quite look at an Oreo the same way anymore). Somewhere along the line my Dad (the cop) would bring home large pink boxes tied with white string, and filled with donuts. Not just one box, but several. While the cinnamon crumb and the white powdered sugar ones were good (very good), the jelly donuts were pure heaven. The dough was dense but not heavy, they were lightly frosted with a sugary glaze, and the jelly inside was amazing. Real jelly. Not the gel that is used today, and called jelly. This was raspberry jam complete with seeds. Try as I might, I have never found a jelly donut that matched this donut.
Where these donuts came from, I will never know. I have no one to ask since both of my parents are dead. I thought about asking my mother on her death bed, but by then she could only see out of one eye, and was often thinking I was my brother. I wasn’t sure I could trust her to give me the right information. She might call out “rosebud” and then where would I be?
My book, In Search of the Elusive Jelly Donut will document my travels throughout the US as I search for that true icon of American breakfast treats, the jelly donut.
