A Bit About Me

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Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".

24 January 2007

How Too Sweet It Is...For Me

The British are coming! The British are coming! Well, not really...but the first Dunkin' Donuts shop was indeed set up in Quincy, Massachusetts, which is literally a very short 'midnight ride' away from Boston...and they...not the British, but Dunkin' Donuts...has plans to 'invade' the South. And I, for one, am exceedingly glad.

Now I am well aware that Krispy Kreme Donuts has a stronghold here in the South...and incredibly sweet snacks seem to be the stuff that everyone runs on in this part of the USA. So, if you like your pecan pies saccharinely sweet and go 'ga-ga' over Little Debbie snack cakes, which have got to contain more sugar, parts per million, than pure cane sugar itself (personally, they make me go 'gag-gag')...well, then...who am I to judge? But, if you are like me and didn't grow up with that proverbial 'sugar-water IV drip' in your arm, you just don't know what it's like not to like your sweets...well, "overly sweet"...especially when you KNEW what it was like.

I'll be perfectly honest with you...a pint of ice-cream can and has been known to sit in my freezer for months - I didn't grow up with mandatory desserts after dinner...so I am really not in the habit of eating sweets. In fact it was very rare indeed for us to have cookies or ice-cream in the house...and pies were only consumed during Thanksgiving and Christmas when we visited my brother and his family. I remember drives to the beach a couple times a year where we'd stop at those soft-serve custard stands on the side of the road...what a treat! If you've never had real honest-to-goodness soft-serve custard you are definitely missing out and I haven't been able to find anything that even comes close, and not for lack of trying. But, as a child, I think everything is heightened in the memory of your senses...if you perceived it was bad, it was horrid...and if it was good...it was great! Dunkin' Donuts was no exception. Once in a while we would drive past one and then double back to get a dozen...and at ten-years-old, they were indeed the closest thing to fine French pastry I'd have ever tasted.

I don't know if you even had the commercials here...the "Time to make the donuts" guy, a Dunkin' Donuts baker who would have to get out of bed at the wee hours of the morning to start making those delicious delicacies...in fact, I believe Dunkin's deal was they made them fresh several times a day. And we're not talking just two kinds of doughnuts...we're talking 'kid in a candy store' here...and back when I was a kid (and even now)...choosing just 12 out of that vast array to go into the pack was akin to pure torture...no one human being should really be able to dole out that type of 'punishment' upon another.

So, when I read an article online at USA Today a few months ago stating Dunkin' Donuts was going to take those reins and head down south and possibly into my neck of the woods, I was in sheer bliss. Getting a doughnut that isn't sickeningly sweet in this town? One with taste...well, you know...besides 'sugar-flavoured'? One that, if you don't eat it within minutes out of the oven, doesn't turn into a sugar-glazed wad of cardboard? Oh, please tell me it might happen...please tell me it WILL happen. Please tell me that people here in the Montgomery area will give them a chance like they've done with Starbucks and Panera Bread...and, unfortunately, for us non-sweetophiles, the all too obvious, Krispy Kreme.

2 comments:

  1. Oh bliss! FInally, I can get a REAL cup of coffee. Not that over-roasted, overpriced Mad Dog 20-20 of coffe that Charbucks serves. They shopuld wrap that swill in a brown paper bag.

    Real, finely sweetened doughnuts! YES!~

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  2. Well, don't get your hopes up too high now...during my "research" writing this I've found out that not all Dunkin' Donuts stores make their doughnuts on premises...I believe those are the smaller ones, like the one which was inside a gas station in Montgomery a while back...the others, I'm hoping still do make them periodically throughout the day.

    I've never tasted the coffee they make at Dunkin' Donuts, but, again during my research on this, I read a lot of comments from people who said it really tasted great...and, in comparison to Starbucks, was quite the bargain. But something tells me it won't have the "be seen at" upscale appeal which Starbucks (at least used to be) is known for. But who knows...perhaps it can find a nice lovely niche snuggled somewhere between Starbucks and Waffle House. All I know is that I'd definitely be going there for the doughnuts.

    And I ran into someone today and I casually mentioned the whole "KK vs DD" to...and that I write a blog for the paper here (yes, I try my best to get the word out to people who might not know)...and the facts regarding the sweetness content of snacks here in general. They were definitely on my side in this as well...they could not stand to eat any of the overly sweet concoctions that seem to dominate the store shelf landscape here...and they would more than welcome another purveyor here in town which would cater to their smaller sweet-tooth taste as well. So...maybe there are a lot more people out there, who at least when given an option, just might choose the lesser of "too sugary".

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