Country Donuts

I think I said in an earlier blog that I was off donuts and onto ice cream for the summer - oh how foolish! You would think that on a recent steamy-hot day, as my friends and I made our way to St. George Stadium in Staten Island for some BK Cyclones vs. SI Yankees action, that ice cream would be on the brain, but this was not the case, for as we rounded the corner to reach our designated stadium entrance, I saw something I found very exciting.

"Does that say 'Country Donuts'?" I asked my friends, shielding my eyes and pointing across the street, while trying not to freakishly jump up and down, squealing.

"Looks like it!" They replied. Lance just laughed. Luckily, these friends were on my wavelength, and we headed over to grab some samples to take to the game with us.

"Will they let us into the park with donuts?" I asked.

"Sure, they don't care!" one friend replied.

Wrong. But I think the security guard was amused. So, despite a preference to eat donuts while watching minor-league ball and gazing out over the field to the water and the city in the distance, we gobbled our fried, frosted cakes in the blazing sun outside the stadium. Four donuts, split four ways. All of them DELICIOUS! If you do the math, that adds up to five stars to Country Donuts, with extra props for the chocolate glazed, which won the Best Donut contest of the day, though by, of course, a small margin. The others were plain glazed, vanilla-frosted raised, and chocolate-frosted raised, and they were each fresher and tastier than your average donut.

Seriously, these donuts are worth the trip. I'd put them up there with the Donut Pub, quality-wise, and if you'd heard me extol the virtues of the Donut Pub, you know that's saying a lot. The selection is smaller, but the off-the-beaten-path thrill is pretty good. Here's a map. Let me know what you think.

P.s. I'd never Yelped the Donut Pub before, but anyone who gave it less than five stars is now on my shit list, especially three-star David L., who, if you'll notice, mentions both that he can't remember some of the kinds he tried and that he rarely eats donuts! David L., please spare us all your inexpert opinions.

Summer eats

My blog! My readers, if you're out there! I have neglected you worse and worse this summer! And I have so much to say! For instance, I am currently eating a bowl of what is my favorite breakfast every summer: cereal with blueberries and peaches. I truly do this all summer every summer, as long as the blueberries and peaches are available, and it makes me happy every morning, a happiness that lasts sometimes right up until I get to work (as opposed to when I realize I really have to leave the house and GO to work)! Of course, warm weather and sunlight help, too, quite beyond description. I love summer so much I tend to spend as much of it outside doing as many various activities as possible, especially if they involve fresh and summery cocktails. I cannot count the number of mojitos I have imbibed since June, and last night, Lance took it upon himself to make a white sangria with St. Germain and about eleven different kinds of fruit - best sangria (that didn't really taste like sangria) ever!

But it is this constant activity that has kept me away from my wee, dying compy for the purpose of blogging. A lot of this activity has also involved eating and playing dress-up, but for now I'm I'm going to focus more on eating, mostly so I don't have to deal with uploading photos.

Yesterday two delightful coworkers and I decided to try out DBGB* - Daniel Boulud's new upscale-pretending-to-be-downscale "Kitchen and Bar"/gastropub/cafe or something. I think this restaurant has a bit of an identity crisis. The front room has an airiness that gives it the right casual feel, but the back room where the majority of the seating is is dark and somber, decor-wise, while not doing anything about sound insulation, so it looks like you're sitting in a modern steak-house but sounds like you're in a cafeteria. The menu is short and relatively straightforward, consisting of mostly burgers and sausages, but the waiters still emphasize the wine list and wipe down your leather placemats while rearranging your silverware between courses. Don't get me wrong, I love these hospitable touches in the right situation, but we were there for the burger - everyone was there for the burger - so messiness seemed more appropriate than fussiness, which did nothing to enhance our casual burger lunch, and it drew our attention to the service, highlighting how insufferably snooty and neglectful our waiter was. Before I talk about the food, a final pet peeve: we were offered only sparkling or still water, not tap. In a time and place where it seems somewhat common knowledge that bottled water, even spring water, is questionable in its environmental friendliness, authenticity, and certainly price, and that the tap water is some of the finest available, I do not want to have to ask for tap. Certainly not twice.

The food, though was very, very good. Since it is restaurant "week" in Manhattan and since I can not turn down an excuse to eat three courses, I ordered off the prix fixe menu, choosing butter lettuce with chives, the burger, and a ginger ice-cream sundae. The salad was delightful, the lettuce perfect, maybe a tad overdressed in a mustard and tarragon dressing, which made the chives get a bit lost, but I'm a tarragon fiend, so i didn't mind. The burger was quite an experience. I got mine with Vermont cheddar, and for the rest of the parts, they thankfully do not mess around - good quality lettuce, tomato, and onion on a sesame seed bun. This is my favorite way to have a burger - simple - but in this case it went further to show off the burg itself, which was simply the highest quality burger patty I have come across. The temperature was perfect, the patty even in its thickness, and the meat so tasty, and so lean-seeming, but incredibly juicy and texturally fine. In a way, it was almost strange - a bit like the restaurant itself - to have such a fine thing masquerading as a greasy, plebeian American classic.

Dessert was delectable, my ginger ice cream came with a berry coulis that was bright in both color and flavor and complimented the ginger perfectly. It also came with a handful of neon-green lime-flavored mini-marshmallows and about three tiny, tiny vanilla cookies, but they were mostly just fun things to find in a sundae, and didn't add too much to the overall flavor experience.

So I guess maybe this restaurant exists for people who want to have a pub-like experience without actually setting foot in a place so gross as a pub, but myself, I prefer one or the other. I might have to go back, though...there were some cocktails on the menu I'd very much like to try.

*Dear readers, I wanted to provide you with a site for this as well, but my compy is so sad that the one for Monsieur Boulud practically broke it.

Petless

Hey y'all! I can't believe I haven't posted something new in over a week! You must think I ran out of costumes. Not so. But that may have to wait until the next post, since there's something I've been meaning to write about, and it's really rather sad.

I have no pets.

See? You're already getting all teary-eyed. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause you any pain. It's not really that bad. Frankly, most of the time I don't notice the lack of pets in my life since I'm too busy dressing up and staring in mirrors for hours on end. But things are always conspiring to remind me that furry creatures can be a great joy in one's life, and that one's boyfriend is not always an acceptable substitute even if his hair is getting rather shaggy.

Item A: my friend Ixiana. She has a pet-photographing business and is ALWAYS having specials and deals for which she sends out adorable little email flyers that just kill me with their cuteness. I mean, look!


This was from the Easter special, obvi. I know it's demented, but that's one of the things I would do with a pet: put funny hats on them and then fall around laughing cause they're so freaking cute with stuff on their heads.

So if that's not torture enough, Item B: remember when I was talking about Herrell's like five thousand years ago? Well, I had a friend who worked there. Of course I hadn't remembered this because she worked summers and I was always back in the Midwest over summers, but I had NOT forgotten a few salient facts about her. 1. She was really cool and pretty. 2. She was wonderful painter with a really gorgeous style. So this particular girl finds me on facebook recently, which couldn't make me happier, and guess what she's doing these days?


That's right! Painting beautiful portraits of peoples' pets! Also she's still cool and pretty.

So tell me, what am I supposed to do with two amazing pet-commemorative options and no pets to commemorate?

Anyone out there I can live vicariously through?

Places

First of all, MASSIVE THANKS to all you wonderful readers, whether or not you have made yourself known (of course, if you haven't made yourself known there's a chance you don't exist and I am inventing you out of my legendary vanity, or that you exist and are not wonderful, but let's, for the sake of making this thank you as grandiose as possible, assume you do and are). It is bringing me great joy and excitement to write out little ditties for public consumption, and that joy and excitement are quadrupled (minimum, respectively) every time I hear from someone or just imagine someone reading these ramblings. So, thank you thank you thank you.

Now, on to the ramblings...

I get places stuck in my head like songs, sometimes. Does this happen to anyone else? It's always happened to me on and off, but it seems like it's been on, lately, extra on. Places are stuck in my head all the time these days, for reasons I really can't guess, and there's a trend, too, that I never noticed before: the same actual places triggering the same head places. An example: for the past I don't even know how many times I've "come to rest" in savasana - that pose at the end of yoga where you lie on the floor and try to do and think nothing - I don't just not think nothing, as is my wont, but I find myself envisioning Thornes, the homey-yet-upscale little shopping complex in Northampton, MA, where my friends and I used to go in college to look wistfully at things we couldn't afford. And not just a general picture of Thornes, either, no, once entering the place my mind goes straight to Herrell's, the ice cream shop around the back on the street level where they hand-chopped candy bars to smush into your hand-made ice cream on a marble countertop - like Coldstone but before Coldstone.

I realize as I write this how few times I treated myself to this deliciousness, even when with friends who did, and that the reason was that I was always trying to avoid my one true addiction - sugar - a practice that I maintain to this day, as unsuccessfully now as I did back then. It is truly bizarre to me that I have been able to successfully avoid Mr. Softee for two summers running now and yet succumb to eating donuts nearly regularly. It is like I am constantly using up what I mentally consider my sugar allotment on donuts or, much worse, cookies or brownies left over from meetings at work, and have no room left for ice cream.

But I have been changing that this summer, indulging in ice cream more often because it makes summer SUMMER, even if most of June is rain. So maybe that's why Herrell's has been showing up in my savasana dreams. Either way, I'm sorry, donuts. I'll be back for you in the fall. And Herrell's, I'll see you in yoga.

And for my next trick...

Ya'll, it's father's day, and the weather in New York is beautiful. Do you know what the weather does not actually need to be beautiful for? Father's day. No offense to my father or any other wonderful fathers out there, but we could celebrate and love you just as much in the rain. Do you know what is harder to do in the rain? The Mermaid Parade.


So I'm going to try to make this quick because I still have to call my dad because I couldn't earlier because my phone died and I was cat-sitting at someone else's house...and Poppy, if I don't reach you tonight, I hope you know how much I love you and think you're a terrific dad.

I also love the Coney Island Mermaid Parade with all the fibers in my wee heart, but I have to say that it has always produced several challenges, first and foremost it's being held every year on the same weekend as my birthday (or whatever weekend falls closest), which means that I am either hungover for the parade or have to leave earlier than I'd otherwise choose to in order to have a bday party. Either way, I always miss the Mermaid Ball. (I know I could have a bday party at Coney, technically, but I am vain and on the one day of the year when I feel completely allowed to be openly vain, I don't want to share the glory with such fabulousness as the Mermaid Parade.)


THIS YEAR, the parade did NOT fall on my bday, lo and behold! Once again I uncharacteristically made plans in advance to go, bought a dress, the whole thing. Only this time, my chosen companion fell ill, none of my other friends, including Lance, wanted to go (who are these people and why are they my friends?), and I had last-minute guests arriving that night. Fine. I adjusted my goals, decided to go to the parade on my own, and hoped to convince the guests to join me later for the ball. Then what happened? It POURED. And was cold. And I'd like to count my blessings and be happy for the miracle of the rain stopping just as the parade started, but by that time my dress was soaked through the sequins, a serious wind was coming off the ocean, and my back hurt (due to being on my feet most of the previous day, in heels, at a stupid work function, oh, and the fact that my dress was so tight I couldn't sit on the subway). Oh the agony!

Thank god for the paraders, who are worth the trip every year. I took as many pictures as I could before my teeth started chattering, then boarded the subway to stand all the way home. I still love the Mermaid Parade with all the fibers of my wee heart, and still hope to one day make it to the ball, but I might start lobbying for it all to go down in July.


p.s. Mer-hons, no? Worlds collide.

I am not allergic to fish

I know you were worried. I was, too, after I ate a rarely-done tuna burger yesterday (a delicious, rarely-done tuna burger with wasabi aioli, natch) and noticed near the end of it that I was feeling a little flushed. Gee, I thought, next time I'll remember not to rush into finishing a giant tuna burger just because it's delicious and I have to get back to work. In general, I thought, a good reminder that I don't need to eat what's on my plate just because it's on my plate even if it's delicious.

Back at work, I run to the bathroom before returning to my desk and see that my cheeks have an unusually rosy glow, the kind I usually have to apply blush to get. Actually, on second look, my whole face looks a little red, and not even in the way that it does on the rare occasion that I do aerobic exercise. "Does my face look red?" I say to my co-worker on the way back to my desk. Her response indicates that it actually looks a bit purple and is freaking her out.

Mayhem ensues; I'm getting recommendations from everyone on the floor, I'm having to tell my brief tuna burger story repeatedly, assure people repeatedly that no, I have no other symptoms and no, I don't have any allergies, and purple? Really? Meanwhile, I can't tell anymore what's an "allergic reaction" and what's embarrassment. A nurse on staff recommends I go out for some Benadryl, which I do, and according to the instructions, take 2. "You took two?!" my boss asks when I give her the update. I nod. "You're going to be asleep in an hour." I am shocked to hear this. "Oh, I say, I guess I should have gotten non-drowsy...I just didn't see any on the shelf." "There is no non-drowsy Benadryl," she says. She is disappointed. Understandably - it's only three o'clock. And I am further embarrassed for not knowing this, and defeated, since I had evening plans I was looking forward to. Later I found out that the friend I'd been to lunch with who had the same thing, also got flush and, what's more, sick to her stomach, which is a fate I avoided.

So I went home early, slept for two hours, and was fine. I had read on the internet that there are some types of fish-related food-poisoning that mimic an allergic reaction, and I was clinging to this hope because there are certain things that getting older has brought to me that are unpleasant (needing more sleep, carpal tunnel) and I know there are more to come, but if seafood allergies was one of them, I would truly have a nervous breakdown.

GOOD NEWS! I am not, as you may have guessed from this post's title, allergic to seafood. How do I know? I just had sushi for dinner.

It's Honfest, hon!

Some of you might have heard mention of my unnatural love for the city of Baltimore. Well, hon, this is the icing on the cake. (Above, me and a pack of young hons, brown-bagging it and wearing a necklace I bought at a vintage booth and later realized was a belt).

I don't remember how I stumbled upon knowledge of Honfest, but I knew I had to go. This was what, three years ago? It was at the height of my lust for Bawlmer and I was devastated that I had - typically - just missed it. Another year passed, and something came up that prevented me from going, probably one of those weddings people keep having. Then a curious thing happened. I was writing a blog post, yes the very same blog post preceding this one, yammering about how rarely I actually find out about and then attend these annual-type events, when suddenly said yammering reminded me of my most egregious case of annual event non-attendance, Honfest. You, good readers, might not have been able to tell, but WHILE COMPOSING THE PREVIOUS POST I was also finding out that, lo! Behold! Honfest was in TWO DAYS!

I did the only rational thing I could think of - I set off a flurry of texting that resulted in sudden plans for me and Lance to take the bus down on Saturday, stay with some friends, and Honfest it up.

Honfest is in the Hampden neighborhood where, as our host jovially put it, the freaks live. The nabe is a good part of my reason for loving Baltimore and the presence of the freaks is surely a good part of why. So after arriving on the bus, we traipsed across the Johns Hopkins campus to Hampden and encounted an enormous street fair. At first I was disappointed - Honfest is just a street fair? But it was a fabulous street fair, which lots and lots of fun artsy-crafty booths, Bawlmer kitsch, and stands selling crab cake sandwiches with giant tins of Old Bay seasoning as the only condiment. Also, funnel cakes, re-named for the occasion.


Part of the problem with my obsession with Baltimore, hons, and Honfest, is an inability to fully describe what they are, much less why they are so great (yes, people know what Baltimore is, but often in only the crudest sense). There were many varieties of hons at the Honfest, from young rockabilly hons to the truest type of hon - the woman in the purple housecoat with matching fuzzy slippers and rollers in her hair that, despite all the purple and despite the festival, seemed to be merely in her usual get-up. As if, should you walk through Hampden on a different day, you would see her wearing the same thing, hanging up laundry and saying "Hot enough for you, hon?" while her younger floozy sister was down at Cafe Hon wearing a slightly sexier version of the same outfit and asking patrons "you need more coffe, hon?"


That, anyway, is my own interpretation. The other part of the problem is almost too shameful to admit. We'd missed round one of the Best Hon competition on Saturday, but we were sure that on Sunday, which was the day of the 2nd, final round, we'd finally see some hon action that would elevate Honfest from a streetfair to an EVENT (the two stages had otherwise been filled with kid dance troops or folk singers - not bad, but not EVENTful). Sadly, when the time came for the competish, the only thing I could see getting elevated was hair. I waited in line for an hour for this beehive, and missed the Best Hon getting crowned, but it was worth it.


And it didn't stop me from brazenly getting my picture taken with the Hon of the Year. Note her flamingo gown.

I love the flamingo butt.

So the mystery remains on what makes Bawlmer's best hon. Is there a talent portion? Do they have to answer a question about hons and politics and world peace? There's only one way to find out, and that's to return next year. Baltimore, I'll see you soon.