Dunkin' Donuts

No, this is not going to be an article about the chain of doughnut shops.  I can probably count on one hand how many times I've been to that place.  Instead I thought I'd write about doughnuts in general.  I had a few as a snack last night and my wife made fun of me... telling me they were a breakfast food.  Ohh, I beg to differ, sweetheart!  You can't pigeon-hole doughnuts like that!  They are a sugary, delicious treat, no matter the time of day which you are enjoying them.

So, the reason I used the title 'Dunkin Donuts' and I never eat doughnuts from there is:  I am definitely a dunker!  Whether it's the small kind (donettes) or a large doughnut I have to break into three pieces, a doughnut just isn't a doughnut for me unless I'm dunking it**.  My dunking medium of choice is milk... ice-cold milk.  I even have to pour a cup of milk and put it in the freezer for several minutes just until the point of frosting-over before I will even think about dunking a doughnut in there.  I know some people use coffee, and that sounds fine too, but I choose milk... every time.  Being that I am slightly lactose intolerant, I also have to take a dairy digestive supplement to help me get the milk through the old system.  So, back to the art of the dunk.  How I do it depends on the doughnut.  If its a mini (donette), I will take a bite first, then dunk the rest so the milk gets into the dough.  If its a larger doughnut, I will simply break it into pieces (usually 3) and dunk them individually.  Regardless of the size, the idea here is to get the milk in contact with the dough to moisturize it a little bit.  For optimum effectiveness, I will dunk the doughnut and then scoop some milk into it like I'm using the exposed end as a ladle.  Then I let some milk soak in and go back for another scoop....  what this does is it allows the milk to percolate down into the piece of doughnut and the whole thing fills with milk, providing a burst of deliciousness with each corresponding bite.  So, now you are a party to my technique - feel free to share yours, or your thoughts on mine.

Let's move on to the complaining portion of the article.  Why is it that we as a society had to shorten the word from doughnut to donut?  We totally isolated the whole meaning and intent of the word when we dropped the u-g-h.  It is fried dough, so why wouldn't we want to remember that?  Just typically American laziness.  This is also something that irks me about the names of doughnut establishments, such as 'Dunkin Donuts' or, well... all of them.  I get it, its cute, but it still irks me and I just had to share that.  Oh, I also hate when people pronounce it "dough-nit"... like "don't it"...  This drives me nuts (no pun intended).  It's "dough-NUT", with a U!!!  Misspelling and mispronunciation are pet peeves of mine.

** I should note, in the interests of full disclosure and honesty, that I will eat a Krispy Kreme sans milk because they are so soft and delicious already, they just don't require the help.