The Doughnut Prince of New York
Four is the magic number
I awoke on a particularly wet Saturday morning in November with just one thing on my mind: doughnuts. Specifically, maple cruller doughnuts. Maybe you’ve had a maple cruller before, but you can forget all about it: I’m not talking about your maple cruller, I’m talking about the maple cruller that God makes. A crispy outside balanced by a light, fluffy-yet-doughy inside, held together by exactly the right hint of maple, drenched in glaze. It’s as if I’m biting into the section of clouds reserved for angels to dance on.
My long relationship with Starbucks has taught me that any edible item with the word pumpkin, gingerbread, spiced, maple, or rainbow in its name means it won’t be around forever. The moment I discovered the maple cruller, I started a countdown toward the day when it would inevitably disappear. As the weeks passed, my panic increased. I started nagging the staff, my anxiety and despair driving me to obsession, I had to know: When would maple cruller season be over?!?! “We don’t know,” they cried, week after week. “They don’t always tell us!”
This sounded suspiciously vague to my ears, especially for a store so dedicated to its craft that they close their doors the minute the last doughnut sells. I couldn’t get answers so I had to take matters into my own hands. I started getting four maple crullers on every visit.
I wasn’t going to stockpile them or anything — God’s donuts are best enjoyed immediately — but somehow I felt better knowing that I was in possession of a large quantity of maple crullers every time I left the store. My logic went like this:
- Four fit in a box.
- Four fit in a box.
- Whatever other doughnut I might get, I’d be thinking about the maple cruller anyway.
- One day I would have no other choice BUT to choose another doughnut; and
- Four fit in a box.
Developing an addiction can be a slippery slope: One day you’re casually buying a doughnut, noticing it’s delicious, then suddenly, you’re waking up on a wet Saturday morning in November in sheer panic because you’ve slept through all the alarms you’ve set and now it’s 9:28 am and you might have missed the crullers!
It wasn’t until I became an addict that I learned I was competing with a bunch of savage soul-spinning early risers. On multiple occasions I’d stumbled into the shop around 10 am only to hear, “Sorry, already sold out!” So on this day I haphazardly threw on clothes, grabbed my umbrella, and ran out the door.
The home of God’s maple crullers has two locations in New York City, but one of them is subway stops away so it may as well not exist. The other location is technically in my neighborhood, if by “in my neighborhood” I mean seven blocks and five avenues from my apartment.
The home of God’s maple crullers has two locations in New York City, but one of them is subway stops away so it may as well not exist.
Seven blocks is nothing. Chronic pain notwithstanding, I can walk seven blocks in 4 to 6 minutes, give or take traffic lights. But five avenues: Five avenues away is far. New York avenues are code for a deceivingly long tightrope disguised as a sidewalk. And when two of those avenues are uphill, well, maybe you start to understand how fucking good these maple crullers are. (Just as a point of reference I once counted nine Starbucks between me and the crullers.)
So there I was on that raining November morning somewhere between a jog and a sprint with a box of maple crullers on my mind. Seven blocks and five avenues later, out of breath and damp, I was at the store…and the maple crullers were not.
But Cici and Tara had good news for me: For the first time I was early and my beloved maple crullers would be arriving in the “second drop” in approximately half an hour. Cici told me I should wait and Tara nodded encouragingly. I couldn’t decide whether they made me feel like more or less of a junkie.
“Maybe have a coffee?” Cici suggested. By their lack of movement, I assumed they were implying I could have that coffee someplace else, which to be fair, the store is incredibly small, there is barely enough space to order, let alone sit and wait.
I found a nearby Joe and the Juice and got a triple more-on-the-dry-side-please cappuccino; then I grabbed a comfy chair near the window and began to wait. Waiting has never been an easy task for me. One year for Christmas my mom got me a picture book called “Waiting Is Not Easy!” (I was thirty-two.) I could pretend I’ve developed patience but honestly for my whole life I’ve had a very similar mentally to Golden Ticket winner Ms. Verruca Salt: “I want it NOW!”
Waiting has never been an easy task for me. One year for Christmas my mom got me a picture book called “Waiting Is Not Easy!” (I was thirty-two.)
As I sat in that Joe and Juice I definitely did not think about how this was the first time I could remember waiting almost patiently and it was for a box of maple crullers. Finally, nearly 30 minutes had passed. My beloved batch of maple crullers should have been successfully delivered. From God himself. But if I’ve learned anything in life, besides that waiting is not easy, it’s that just because it should have happened, doesn’t mean that it did.
So, I called.
“Hi,” I said, when Cici answered the phone. Then I realized I knew her name but was pretty sure she didn’t know mine.
“It’s…the doughnut prince,” I improvised (besides a king doesn’t wait for doughnuts), “and I just wanted to see if…you know…if the, um, the things…have been delivered?”
Why did I have to make buying doughnuts as shady as dealing drugs? Who knows but Cici just laughed and said sweetly, “Yes, they’re here!”
I was around the corner in seconds and Tara pulled out a box as soon as I barged into the store. My stash secured, I thanked them profusely and scurried the seven blocks and five avenues home, thinking about nothing but my precious precious maple crullers — would this day be my last with them? I resolved, as always, to savor every single God-given bite.
That was months ago and while the season for all things maple has come and gone, God is still delivering the maple crullers. I’m guessing that means I’m not the only New Yorker who will go to ridiculous lengths for these crullers, which could make me feel better but actually doesn’t. How many of us obsessed cruller freaks are there? I briefly relapsed into some bad behavior demanding answers and Tara offered to add my email to “the list” so I could get a heads-up if/when the crullers were going to finally be taken off the menu, but after some thought, I politely declined.
The maple crullers may have finally done what my mother and twenty years of school could not: shown me that there are things worth waiting for. I know there are no guarantees in life: One day I might show up and find the maple crullers are gone for good. But I don’t want to live with that anxiety hanging over my head so I’m surrendering myself to the universe. Each weekend morning (so far — knock on wood) I’ve been deliriously happy to see my beloved crullers, then I chat with staff about how they are instead of demanding answers they don’t have. It’s made us all a little saner, I think, though every so often I can’t help myself and I order eight instead of just four. And sure, yeah, I still get up earlier on Cruller Day than I do when I have to go to work, but all things considered, I’m feeling like I’ve got this situation mostly under control. And as part of my new approach to facing my fears, plus the four sessions of therapy I’ve dedicated to this topic, I have no problem naming the place where God chooses to lay the all-mighty maple cruller on this earth: The Doughnut Project.
