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The Cock-n-Balls Doughnut
Something is not right when you end the night saying, “Man, I wish that man hadn’t given us those free doughnuts.”
This is what Dolores* and I found ourselves exclaiming last night, and it was indeed alarming - especially for me - to regret having received free food. We were returning from a concert at Mississippi Studios, where the Sassparilla Jug Band had rocked our worlds, and we were on a mission for late-night delectables. We decided to search for the oft-heard-of but never-before-seen (by us) Voodoo Doughnut Too, the east-side branch of the famous Portland doughnut shop. We discovered the place just off of 15th and Sandy, brightly lit and hopping with hungry hipsters.
Dismounting from our bikes, we were approached by a tall man with long hair, glasses, a white coat, and a fedora. He greeted us cheerfully and asked if we would care for a free Portland Creme in honor of Voodoo’s 20th anniversary. He said they had been giving away doughnuts for the last few hours and had even been riding around downtown in their doughnut-mobile distributing the goods. Well, we are not fools. We accepted the free doughnuts. It seems we had unwittingly stumbled upon what should have been a joyous occasion of happenstance.
The problem? Dolores did not want a cream doughnut. Dolores does not even like cream doughnuts (This is because she doesn’t like pudding. Weird, right? Who doesn’t like pudding?). What Dolores wanted was a cake doughnut with coconut topping. As for me, I wasn’t even in the mood for doughnuts. I had been planning on indulging my craving for Rovente’s pizza.
Nevertheless, we were brought two Portland Creme Doughnuts, and the rest played out as follows: I stuffed the doughnut in my mouth and devoured it in seconds. Dolores, prim and proper as she is, ate hers slowly, eating around the cream and squirting it onto the paper wrapper. I then ate the cream from her doughnut off the paper (solely out of concern for wasting food), which made Dolores gag with disgust. I had to explain to D-Lo that the cream was the best part, at which statement the two girls sitting on the bench nearby expressed their agreement. Then the two girls and I shared a moment of silent bonding in which we thought about how weird Dolores was for not liking cream/pudding.
The point is that neither of us really wanted the doughnut, yet both of us ate the doughnut, after which we both felt decidedly gross and unsatisfied. But we weren’t about to reject a free doughnut, right? And we weren’t about to spend money on other food now that we had giant, fried, chocolate-covered blobs in our stomachs, now were we? So we sadly biked home, feeling like the little ingrates we probably are. Then we watched The Office, but even that couldn’t keep us from thinking angrily, as we drifted to sleep, “Thanks for ruining our plans, Happy Doughnut Man.”**
So what can we learn from all this?
First of all - and this is incredible coming from me - it might not always be wise to accept free food simply because it is free. Sounds crazy, I know. But if I could replace that free doughnut with a $3 slice of Rovente’s, I would. Alas.
Second of all, we may need to do a full-out evaluation of the Voodoo Doughnut establishment. Here’s the thing: it is a wonderfully unique, crazy place. If you can eat the Tex-ASS in under a minute and a half, it’s free; if it’s your birthday, they’ll give you a free Cock-n-Balls doughnut (I happily helped polish off my friend’s on his bday); they have a bacon doughnut; they have a Mountain Dew doughnut; the Memphis Mafia is in itself a smorgasbord of deliciousness (it’s a banana fritter with peanut butter, chocolate chips, and drizzled chocolate glaze); you can get married there (for serious); and they have vegan doughnuts. Voodoo is the place we take our friends when they visit, because it is novel and creative and so darn Portland.
BUT. If you want a light and tasty ring of fried dough, Voodoo might not be the best place. Don’t get me wrong, it can be fantastic, especially if it’s 2am and you’ve been fully enjoying the night (you know what I mean). But the doughnuts tend to be heavy and sit in the stomach the way a moderately dense rock might, were you for some reason to eat a moderately dense rock. The icing is very thick and generally excessive, and sometimes this is exactly what you want. But all in all, you might regret eating that doughnut when it’s the next day and you’re putting on a swimsuit (although, of course, you don’t care about body image because you’re well-adjusted and don’t care about that kind of thing).
So what’s the alternative?
Allow me to present to you Moody’s Donuts. [This is where Dolores gets mad at me for exposing to my millions of readers a cherished secret, like the time I blogged about the food cart festival and then when we got there the line was so long we didn’t even try to get in. Her fears are well-founded, given this evidence of my blog’s wide-reaching influence on its vast readership, and so I apologize, Dolores, if Moody’s becomes overrun and explodes out of its cute little shack.] Now then. Moody’s is on 25th and Belmont in a little shack behind the Rocking Frog Cafe. It is only open Saturday and Sunday from 9am-2pm, but they make right in front of you a simple and satisfying doughnut - light and fluffy on the inside, warm and slightly crisp on the outside. What more can I say? I like it more than Voodoo. There. I said it.
True, Moody’s cannot replace Voodoo as your late-night doughnut supplier. But if we’re just talking about quality doughnuts, this is the place.
And now I can’t believe I’ve written so much about doughnuts, so I’ll wrap it up. I’d like you all to consider several things:
1) What is a doughnut?
2) What are the cultural implications of doughnuts?
3) Is the doughnut paradigm outdated?
4) A doughnut hole makes something out of nothing. Discuss.
Thoughtfully,
Your Portland Twenty-something
*If you are a first-time reader: Dolores is my housemate and non-sexual life partner.
**Interesting side note: Turns out Happy Doughnut Man was Voodoo co-founder Tres Shannon! He seemed extremely pleasant, if kooky.
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