Sweet Tooth

Sep 26 2013

adventures, coffee talk, Japan 2013, My Love Affair with Tokyo, Sweet Tooth

My Love, Mister Donut

If there is one thing in Japan that I miss most, it’s Mister Donut. More than amazing office supplies, more than fancy stationery, more than MT tape…I miss Misdo (affectionate for Mister Donut).

In normal, everyday life, I think donuts are fine. Naoto and I go to Dunkin Donuts almost every day for the coffee. Sometimes I might get a donut, but it’s really just to quash a morning sugar craving (or make the sugar craving last all day, as the case may be). Dunkin Donuts donuts are not really delicious to me. (No offense Dunk…but you guys truck them in…how can you even think that’s a good idea?) But at Mister Donut, donuts are a must. They taste different than American ones. First of all, they are made fresh on the premises. Naoto and I went to the Mister Donut right at opening on our first day in Japan (hello, jet lag!) and they were filling the shelves for the whole first hour with fresh-from-the-oven delights. Aside from the freshness, the donuts are just…different. They are lighter, less sweet and have a better consistency than American donuts (bakery & Dunkin). I seriously have never had a better donut. They also have different flavors than typical American donuts. Misdo’s glazed donut is glazed with honey (not corn syrup), there is a green tea old fashioned, there are savory donuts made with puff pastry filled with a hot dog or au gratin potatoes… And, Mister Donut has new flavors that they roll out with the changing seasons. When we there there in 2011, I gorged myself on a variety of sakura (cherry blossom) donuts. This time the new flavor for fall was chestnut. Those were all amazing. Would you like to see every single donut I ate on my vacation?

Day 1: hot dog donut, glazed pon de ring, brown sugar pon de ring

Day 2: chestnut filled chocolate pon de ring, brown sugar pon de ring, chocolate glazed pon de ring

Day 3: hot dog donut, old fashioned, strawberry frosted pon de ring, chocolate frosted pon de ring

Day 4: old fashioned, chestnut chocolate frosted pon de ring

Day 5: chestnut filled with chestnut cream, brown sugar pon de ring, chocolate glazed pon de ring, strawberry dipped cruller

Day 6: hot dog donut, chestnut filled chocolate pon de ring

Day 7: old fashioned, honey glazed old fashioned

Keep in mind, I shared those donuts with Naoto…I didn’t eat all of them on my own. We had fun each morning choosing the next one to try, or going back for old favorites like the hot dog. I cannot tell you which is my favorite. It changed by the day. You just really can’t go wrong with Misdo. In “our” Mister Donut (the one by the hotel…hey, we were “regulars”!), you walk in and pick up a little tray and tongs and choose your own donuts. At the cash register, the staff transfers your donuts to a plate (and warms up your hot dog donut if you wish) and places the plate on another tray with your coffee. Then you can take your tray to your seat at a table or a counter by the window. When you sit in the restaurant, your little red Misdo cup is a bottomless cup of coffee. The Misdo staff comes around and pours refills periodically, carrying a little basket with creamers and sugars. Naoto and I drank a lot of refills, especially because we were up so early and had a lot of time to kill before places opened at eleven.

On our last full day in Japan, Naoto had to pick up his suit–He bought a suit in Japan!–so I stayed at Mister Donut alone and wrote my postcards and people watched. He was a little bit worried about the language barrier, but really, I didn’t think “more coffee please” would be that difficult to communicate. (It wasn’t.) I’m already dreaming of my next Misdo visit…

Tagged adventures, coffee, food, I *heart* Japan, Japan

Aug 13 2013

2 Comments

snail mail, Sweet Tooth, Those Were the Days

Sweet Tooth Part 2

I’ve been on a little bit of a vintage candy kick again lately. It all started with a Twitter conversation with Danielle about ZotZ. About a week later, I had a package full of ZotZ delivered to my mailbox! (Thank you, Danielle!) On the outside, ZotZ look like a regular hard candy. But when you bite into one, there’s a powdery inside made of acids and sodium bicarbonate that react with your saliva and create fizziness. It’s a little bit of a shock at first, but then you grow to anticipate the fizzy fun. ZotZ have been around since 1968, which seems like a long time considering how technologically advanced they are. They are pretty sour and a lot of fun! I’ve been enjoying/hoarding them, choosing a new bubbly flavor to try each day or so.

Recently, Naoto and I were perusing World Market and I bought a couple of candies that I enjoyed as a child. The first, Chick-o-Stick–a long orange stick of candy made from hardened sugar with peanut butter and coconut. I loved these as a kid and I was happy to eat this one up again without the help of Naoto. (He hates coconut.) For those who have never had one, it is kind of like a butter finger, but sweeter and without the chocolate. Chick-o-Sticks have been around since the Great Depression…I love thinking about eating a candy that my great-grandmother may have eaten!

And of course I had to pick up some Fruit Stripe Gum. Fruit Stripe is just as I remembered…super fruity and tasty for about ten seconds, then flat, no flavor. Womp. Womp… But it’s still delicious, and well worth the $1.25 I paid. Fruit Stripe has been around since the 1960s (when apparently no one cared how long the flavor in their gum would last). It really does evoke the best childhood memories…no matter how fleeting.

We are thinking about bringing some vintage American candies to Japan for our omiyage (souvenirs associated with location, as customary in Japan). I only have a few more weeks to collect some good ones for Naoto’s mom and sisters and their families. Can you think of any “must have” American candies we should take?

Tagged food, snail mail

May 07 2013

7 Comments

adventures, gardening, Sweet Tooth, Those Were the Days

This past weekend, I met up with my parents for some garden shopping. We met in our usual spot, Peru, Illinois, which is kind of a halfway point for us. (It’s a bit of a longer drive for me, but it’s worth it because that area has great thrift stores!) We usually go to the same ol’ places but since I was on the hunt for tomato and pepper plants for my garden, they took me to Rural King–“America’s Farm & Home Store”. I did get some plants and some seeds here (more on that later) but I fell in love with the store for other reasons.

Reason #1: the free popcorn and coffee. When you walk in the Rural King door, you are welcomed by the scent of freshly popped popcorn and a pot of coffee. Isn’t that so sweet and old-fashioned? My mom and I helped ourselves to some popcorn while we poked around the candy aisles.

Reason #2: the vintage candy selection! Where else can you get seeds for your garden, parts for your tractor, food for your chickens AND old-timey gum and sweets?! I could have bought one of everything, but I decided to narrow it down to a few things (mainly because I didn’t want my candy bill to out-do my garden bill…so embarrassing…)

Here’s a rundown of my choices:

Chuckles, a sugar coated jelly candy introduced in 1921. (There is an interesting review of the Chuckles flavors here.) I am familiar with Chuckles, but I can’t remember ever tasting them, so I’m looking forward to breaking the package open this week.

Teaberry gum, my faaaavorite gum of all time. It was introduced in 1900 was popular in the 60s. (Has it been on Mad Men?) If you’ve never tried it, I think you should–it’s sweet and has a slight wintergreen flavor…it’s hard to pinpoint…it’s not super minty, it’s just wonderful. And I love the packaging and all of its vintage pink goodness. I found the commercial below and I may have spent a good amount of time this morning perfecting my Teaberry shuffle…

Clove gum is another old gum…there’s not much to say about it except that it’s reeeally clove-y. It’s not bad, but I think one pack would have been enough to walk down memory lane.

Beemans gum is from the 19th century. I’d forgotten what it tasted like. For some reason, I was thinking honey (BEEman…turns out he’s the inventor of the gum and not a bee) but it’s a nice light mint flavor…different than Teaberry, but almost as good!

And finally, Sky Bar. I’d never seen this one before and I am most excited to try it. It’s made up of four sections with four different fillings: caramel, vanilla, peanut and fudge. According to the Necco website, the Sky Bar is still the only candy bar to offer four different flavors. I had a very healthy lunch today (involving roasted cauliflower) so I doubt this candy bar makes it through the afternoon.

I think my favorite part of the old-timey candies is that their packaging is usually the original design…no one felt the need to update it to keep up with the “cool kids”. It’s charming and tasty and while I’m eating it, I just can’t help but think (in an old granny voice): They don’t make things like they used to.

Tagged adventures, food, garden, gardening, memories, shopping, vintage