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I find this kind of hilarious... but true. I went down to Old Fashioned Donuts last weekend, and I have to say, they reminded me exactly of Dunkin' Donuts, the kind carefully made in a small town, say, 20 years ago, when the fresh donuts were wheeled out 20 feet from the fryers to the shelves for sale. I think the dirty secret with donuts is that they have to be freshly made. That's it. (Disclaimer: There's a huge difference from what we currently have with Dunkin' Donuts, where they're made in bulk at sites unknown, haphazardly, hours before sale. Inedible.)

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Local Beet

I didn't grow up with Dunkin' Donuts so can't say what they were like before, but I know you can successfully freeze and microwave an Old Fashioned Apple Fritter. The amazing thing to me is when you open the bag that you've placed them in inside your freezer, you can still smell the yeasty goodness like it was just prepared.

Ugh! Wendy you are killing me during my sabbatical from sweets with this memory.

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Ava-"If you get down and out, just get in the kitchen and bake a cake."- Jean Strickland

Horto In Urbs- Falling in love with Urban Vegetable Gardening

I regularly stop in the Dunkin Donuts at the Rosemont Blue Line stop. I get only coffee, but I always ponder the possibility of a pastry. They never look very good, so I never get any. I did believe, though, that they were made on-site, because the last time I had a DD, they were. Now that you mention it, though, the inside of the place never smells like freshly fried dough.

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“We all have to stand before the kitchen gods.” Chef Jacob Sahaya Kumar Aruni

I've just been learning about this (the central bakeries for DD) recently. Are there any DDs where they still make them on-site? If yes, any in the Chicago area?

I am interested in this, too. BR: do you have any reading to recommend on the central bakeries? Just two weeks ago, I formed a brand new loyalty to Dunkin Donuts. Thanks to a very fortuitous sample from a DD truck in the wee hours of a recent, soppy Sunday, I've become a coffee drinker after swearing off the stuff for about 17 years--easily one of the most significant food/drink habit changes of my life.


I get off at Rosemont a few times a year, and while the DD there at the bottom of the stairs/escalators is kind of impossible to miss, I always think of it even before I get downstairs. I think of it as soon as I see Martin Puryear's River Road Ring sculpture from the platform. It's polished wood that actually looks like metal, but I can't help but think "doughnut" when I see it--the power of DD's brand (or my love of doughnuts), I guess. This was true even before I became a DD fan this month. The sculpture wasn't there the last time I was at Rosemont; I hope it's just being cleaned.

Here's a link to one article I've read which seems to be the most informative: http://www.roanoke.com/business/wb/211376

I've done so many internet searches and can't seem to find much more than this in terms of global decisions, just local. I started searching for articles when a friend of mine in advertising said that it was a well known production change many years ago . . . and yet I had never heard of it until he told me this a couple of weeks ago. But the article at least supports the idea that a number (if not most or all) of DD locations are doing this. I feel like traveling from location to location now to inspect.

I spotted a 2004 article about the switch to a central bakery for one area around Boston, and references two already extant central bakeries for the area.
A 2006 article references expansion plans and mentions central bakeries as a part of the plan

Growing up in Charlottesville, VA, we only had one Dunkin and they fried donuts fresh throughout the day. Eventually it closed and immediately re-opened as a Donut Connection - exactly the same thing, same donuts, just with new logos. The Dunkin embroidery was literally snipped off of the workers' aprons, leaving a donut grease-free Dunkin silhouette behind.

When I moved to Chicago, I was surprised at the sheer quantity of DD outlets, and disappointed with the slightly stale to completely stale quality of the goods.

(The Dunkin Donuts shops referenced in the article BR cited opened in Charlottesville after I left. Should you find yourself in Charlottesville, Spudnuts is the place to go for good donuts.)

-Dan

There are a few kosher DDs around. Outside of NYC, most (if not all) are producing on-site.

-jbn

I'm not sure what you're saying - are you saying that kosher DDs fry on-site? My understanding is that most of the DDs in the area are merely re-heating doughnuts that were fried and then frozen at a central bakery, as described in the linked to article above. If you are aware of specific locations where they are actually still frying the doughnuts, I'd love to hear.

It took me a few reads through the Roanoke story to identify the disconnect. It's my understanding there are two models of DD baking. One is to use a central bakery and reheat on-site. The other is prepare frozen dough and then to bake on-site. The Skokie DD (3900 Dempster) is an example of this bake on-site model.

-jbn

Last Monday, I was invited by Julian Middle School in Oak Park to do a series of Career Day presentations to their students. I talked about my job as a food journalist for Wednesday Journal, the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ, and several times I answered the question I get asked most often: What’s your favorite restaurant?

I never have a good answer for that question because on any given day or in any given mood my favorite restaurant could be fancy French or street-vended Mexican.

The middle schoolers I spoke with, however, had an unequivocal favorite food: Smurfs.

Sold at Lindberg Park, I was told, Smurfs are snow cones (raspberry blue, I’m guessing) with Sprite added.

According to the kids in the classes I spoke with, this after-game snack is “the most awesomest” thing one could ever eaten.

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“We all have to stand before the kitchen gods.” Chef Jacob Sahaya Kumar Aruni

For the brief period that Mado was open, this was an easy question for me to answer!

Not necessarily raspberry.... The other night I drove in to a Sonic for a frozen limeade and, my cup informed me, among the flavorings you can have added to any drink there is "blue coconut."

The rest of the list is: cherry, vanilla, cranberry, strawberry, lemon, lime, chocolate, watermelon, grape, orange, Powerade (also blue) and pineapple.

I had a plain lime Real Fruit Slush. I am not sure that this is flavored entirely with fresh limes (I detected what seemed to me to be the taste of lime concentrate), but there were definitely lime wedges in the cup. The other flavors are lemon, strawberry and lemon-berry.

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LAZ
Dining Chicago
Index to LTHForum Recipes, 2004-2008

LAZ, I guess blue coconut makes about as much sense as blue raspberry.

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“We all have to stand before the kitchen gods.” Chef Jacob Sahaya Kumar Aruni

A few trends that come to mind, all mostly good:

Microbrews moving from bottles to cans, especially 16 oz. cans.

Breweries in Chicago in general. Metropolitan and Half Acre kicked it off, and Finch's is the latest. There are a few more getting ready to start selling soon.

British restaurants and food - Owen & Engine, Bangers & Lace, English, and Blokes & Birds (this leads to the sub-trend of ampersands).

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It is VERY important to be smart when you're doing something stupid

- Chris

There is some justification (beyond a flaccid following of wowit'snow trends) to account for this: beer keeps better when the light is kept out (clear/green bottles the worst; brown bottles better; cans best).

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“We all have to stand before the kitchen gods.” Chef Jacob Sahaya Kumar Aruni

Related, I don't know if a sample of two constitutes a trend, but beer-flavored frozen desserts seem to be gaining traction: Three Floyds Milk Stout at Black Dog Gelato and Ruth and Phil's Haymarket Fear American IPA sorbet, the latter seen at City Provisions.

Also, flavored/"gourmet" popcorn is back. Is Graham Elliot still serving it? I noticed last week that Sticky Fingers Popcorn opened on the Mag Mile. A few weeks ago, I went to a party that showcased a number of food trends: tea-infused cocktails, giant bowls of three different kinds of bacon (homestyle, praline and Szechuan pepper) and three kinds of flavored popcorn (curry, bourbon vanilla and I can't remember the third). It actually all worked quite well for party food.

Sticky Fingers Gourmet Popcorn
174 N Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL, 60601-7554
312-263-5663

Yes, last night was parmesan, black pepper, and summer truffle butter.

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-Josh

An amuse bouche at breakfast is called a Bloody Mary - Scott Manlin

Brave hosts ... I long ago swore off serving popcorn at parties because it gets everywhere.

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LAZ
Dining Chicago
Index to LTHForum Recipes, 2004-2008

During cocktail hour before a corporate dinner at Table Fifty-Two, I saw a guest being served a Coke in a Mason jar.

-Dan

speaking of pretzel rolls, I saw Pretzel croissants at trader joes the other day. I did not buy them but wonder what they are like.

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Toria

"I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it" - As You Like It,
W. Shakespeare

An unholy chimera of elemental salt, browning butter, and hydroxide wash which draws your essence into its unrelenting dark gravity with a million-layered roar?

i think most is true except the million layers. pretzel bread is dense and cant imagine this hybrid. kind of like crossing a german shepard with a chihuahua.

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Toria

"I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it" - As You Like It,
W. Shakespeare

I saw those pretzel croissants at Trader Joe's too...my mind went blank, and the next thing I knew, I was standing in front of my car, holding grocery bags, with the dark brown croissants staring up at me.

They had the fluffy, layered texture of a giant American croissant (like what one might get at Costco, or Corner Bakery), but the flavor of pretzel bread. I don't know what sort of unholy alliance Trader Joe's hath created to bring such a mutant hybrid into existence, but I thought they were delicious.

It's a Push-Cart Push Pop Pop-Up.

-Dan

The topic of microbrewery trends has come up in a few different friend circles recently because it seems that everyone is making sours these days. They are the barrel aged stout of 2k8 or 2k9.