Doughnut Dreams

Only a few minutes to spare this week, so I’m sitting down with a cup of coffee and my favorite pastry to share some memories about the big doughnut on 7th Street and PCH I mention in last week’s post. I remember when it still had the Angel Food Donuts painted on it like the picture in the Peopletron blog. One of the posts there mentioned that the full name of the store was Mrs. Chapman’s Angel Food Donuts and that there were once seventeen of them. The chain began even before Randy’s Donuts as a drive up donut shop. Another post points out it’s now more of a coffee place than a donut shop

I remember taking my boys there in the 90s as a special treat after school. They both went to Lowell Elementary back then, about a half mile away. The lady who ran the shop at the time was Cambodian and always remembered us even though we only came in every other month or so. She would ask the boys about their grades and let them twirl around and the revolving stools. She would laugh when the boys called her Mrs. Chapman.

There were always three old guys who’d show up about the same time we would. The doughnut lady would set up their places with their favorite kind of doughnut even before they got through the door. It was a bit of small town hospitality that always lifted my spirits.

Of course, Cambodians have run most of the donut shops in Southern California since before I moved here in 1982. Metroblogging claims that 95% of the shops are run by Cambodians and that Cambodians don’t even like donuts. Now that’s just sad. The New York Times has a good article on the history of Cambodian donut shops and there’s a fascinating documentary called Cambodian Doughnut Dreams too. Since Long Beach has one of the largest Cambodian populations outside their native country, does that mean we have the best donut shops? Not to mention, we were one of the first cities in the area to get a Krispy Kreme shop.

When I was growing up in Virginia, my dad worked nights and he would come home at eight in the morning with fresh cooked Krispy Kremes. It almost made waking up to go to school worthwhile. It’s crazy to think that I never connected his bringing home a dozen of those sugary delights home in a box with my taking my boys to Mrs. Chapman’s. Well, my sugary treat is finished and I've learned a little about setting up links. See you next week!