A Whole Lot of Holes

Crazy week. Not much time to report, and yes, it’s another post about food. What of it? I’ve got a lot going on and I’ve been stress-eating so I figured I might as well get something out of it. October always makes me think of glazed donuts, maybe remembering the party game where you try to eat a donut hanging from a string without dropping chunks of it onto the ground. Whatever the reason, I crave donuts all month long.

But I couldn’t just eat donuts for a blog post. Or could I?

I concocted the perfect plan: conduct a blind taste test to determine the Best Glazed Donut in town. I could eat donuts and also finally know where to get the best donuts and then eat more donuts! A small price to pay in the name of science.

I got a dozen glazed donuts each from Payson Market, Stokes (technically in Salem, but close enough), and Smith’s. Before conducting the experiment, my own opinions leaned toward Payson Market and far, far away from Smith’s, so I was interested to learn the results of the survey.

(A=Smith’s B=Payson Market C=Stokes)

I had my family try first.

As you can see, it was pure torture. Fritz said, “I just can’t choose because they’re all so delicious!”

This weirdo was dressed for the occasion.

This son took one bite of the Smith’s donut and said, “I can’t eat anymore of this one and I can guess exactly where you bought it.” It turns out all of our family preferred the Stokes donuts over Payson Market, which surprised me. I guess it’s worth the extra drive.

Next, I traveled to different neighbors and forced them to eat donuts. You know, people don’t really mind you dropping by unannounced on a Saturday afternoon if you come bearing donuts.

And the results? Payson Market won out over the rest and Smith’s lost big time. As my son described it: “Smith’s donuts taste like glazed white bread.”

And now in other donut-related news:

For years, our friend Gavin has been telling us about a “Payson tradition” (imagine air quotes here) of eating chili and donuts around this time of year. That’s right – chili and donuts. (He claims it’s like a Navajo taco but better.) I’m 98% sure he made this up but he’s stuck to his story for a really long time. He claims that generations of Payson children were served chili and donuts for school lunch. No one has been able to verify this.

Since it was donut week though, I took the bait. I tried eating chili and donuts. Together. At the SAME TIME. I know it sounds so unnatural that it would taste dreadful, but it wasn’t too bad. Nothing jarringly wrong about it. I just couldn’t see the point. If I want to dip my donuts in something, it’s hot chocolate. If I want to put anything in my chili, it’s cornbread. The chili was too thick or the donuts weren’t dense enough for them to really go together well.

So now that I’ve tried it and I’ve admitted to trying it, I really want to know – have I been punk’d?