Val's Kitchen: Not Dave's … but darn, darn good

I hate to admit it. At least once a week, I frequent the coffee place where you have to use special names for sizes instead of small, medium and large. I still don't know how to correctly order my " frappe grandecino" even though I order the same thing each time I hit the drive-thru.

Yes, I too benefit from the modern conveniences that have destroyed the old-time doughnut shops we all so longingly talk about. What can I do when I need my fix and I have two crazy toddlers with me? It's best to keep them strapped in and yell into the speaker.

I could bring them to the land of the orange and fuchsia sign where they would actually behave for the time it would take me to drink a small, weak coffee. Here the treats are much more enticing to children who are too young to remember the taste of a real hot and fresh doughnut. You know, so hot you could barely touch it, so fresh it practically melted in your mouth. The kind you used to be able to find in more than a few locally owned shops and even some grandmother's kitchens…a long time ago.

I can't even bring myself to take a bite of my son's choice: a choco-flavored frosted "donut" covered in red and blue sprinkles with the logo of a New England sports team. I want to cry when I see the sickening pink of the "strawberry" flavored one my daughter loves. Don't even get me started on the microwaved sandwiches my husband eats when he stops there with the kids. No, I just can't go there.

If there existed a real, old-time doughnut shop, one that had fresh and hot treats made right on the premises, I would visit every day. I would weather the storm and even a few toddler tantrums for some good, old-fashioned coffee and a homemade, toothsome treat. (This would mean I would have to eat salad for all my other meals, but it would be worth it.) At the coffee shop where everyone would know my name, I could choose a different doughnut to sample each day, never depriving myself of the sweet indulgence.

Sadly, there is no doughnut shop of my dreams here in Falmouth anymore. Along with most people who grew up in Falmouth in the 1970's and 1980's, I remember Dave's Donuts. Raspberry-filled, covered in granulated sugar, and lemon-filled, rolled in powdered sugar, were my favorites. My brother always got the honey-dipped and Mom ordered a plain cruller. My super svelte sister either declined the offer of a doughnut or ate just the fruit filling out of the middle (That, of course, being the more healthy and dietetic part).

The mention of Dave's conjures up memories for many. My friend Ted and his father braved quite a few snowstorms when school was cancelled for fresh hot treats. Ted's mother almost became angry with both of them for making her worry until they produced her favorite: chocolate glazed.

Before we met, my friend Jen's first job was at Dave's Donuts. During those summers, she would arrive daily at 4:30 a.m., make the coffee and prepare for madness.

"That place would get crazy especially in the summer. There would always be some jerk who absolutely had to have a black raspberry-filled for the trip back to Boston. Guys like that could see the tray was empty and how insanely busy we were, but they still insisted. So, one of us would go in the back, put the empty doughnut on the filler and squeeze in about three times the amount of raspberry it needed. The joke was on them when they bit into it while driving!"

She never did get caught.

Everyone, it seems, has some sort of doughnut nostalgia. My father, Dick, never much of a sweet eater, still waxes poetic when reminiscing about the doughnuts of his youth.

"They were sooo good! Geeze, they were hot! And the oil would seep through the white paper bag before I got home!"

That is if he were really bringing home the plain, cake-like doughnuts his mother requested from the S.S. Pierce store on Main Street instead of forgetting to wipe the sugary evidence from his mouth after squandering the handful of change at Sheehan's Bakery where they made his favorite: sugar raised. What do you expect when you send a 7-year-old to buy doughnuts?

My mother Val's memory is the ultimate. She remembers her Grammy Hampton sugaring piping-hot, round doughnut holes, tossing them back and forth on a taut tea towel covered in granulated sugar. The warmed crystals would stick like glue to the hot cake, perfect for dipping in an icy cold glass of milk. Meanwhile, Grampa would continue to cook the dough in the molten lard on the freestanding stove and remove cooked doughnuts the color of stained wood to drain on paper bags. All the kids would watch in anticipation of tasting the spicy cinnamon and nutmeg treat.

Longing for an old-fashioned experience with Dick as a willing guinea pig (isn't he always?), Val and I set out to decipher Grammy's doughnut recipe and possibly recreate a raised doughnut as well. Armed with two cast iron Dutch ovens full of hot canola oil and Grammy's own doughnut cutter, our attempt was somewhat successful and much easier than we had projected.

Dick deemed the raised recipe to be that of his memory of the S.S. Pierce doughnut: delicious but still more like cake than the true sugar raised of his dreams.

Grammy's recipe was a bit too dense, almost filling my stomach in the first bite. When I arrived home with the leftovers, my husband and son rummaged through the box as if they hadn't been fed in days. However my picky eater daughter let out a sigh and sulkily asked, "Where are the chocolate ones?"

So much for the fruits of our labor.