Two weekends ago, I decided that our family was going to have a monthly mandatory “field trip”, an educational outing that combines a bit of local history with a sprinkle of fun. Our inaugural excursion was to Lou’s Living Donut Museum near downtown San Jose, California.

The original Lou was one Lucius Ades, a decorated World War II B-24 pilot. To Lou, today’s American donut, different from its European cousin in that the center of the donut is removed prior to frying in order for the fluffy treat to cook evenly and thoroughly, is a unique symbol of quality, community, and patriotism. During World War II and subsequently the Vietnam War, the “Donut Dollies” of the American Red Cross drove old GM trucks to within a mile of the front line. At 4 a.m., these college-educated women (always at least 25 years old) got up to prepare donuts and coffee for the battle-weary troops, providing warm smiles, conversation, and the uniquely American treat that provided a lifeline to home and family. Returning home after piloting more than 30 successful bombing missions, Lucius worked at a variety of local companies including a grocery store in Oakland and a donut shop in Willow Glen. In 1955, he broke away from the donut shop and, with the help of a G.I. loan, started his own donut business at its original location on East Santa Clara Street. Lou’s Donut Shop was born.

Photo © Richard D. LeCour

In May 1981, when Lou decided to retire, he sold his business to two of his longtime employees, brothers Charles (“Chuck”) and Richard Chavira, both hired when they were high school students. The Chavira boys (Chuck having graduated from high school 25 years ago now) and their parents, Ralph and Connie, keep the philosophies of Lou alive by creating the fluffy pastry products entirely by hand, by using only the freshest and highest quality ingredients, and by continuing Lou’s crusade of tying patriotism with the glazed confectionery.

In 1995, forced to move from the original location because the building was considered unsafe in case of an earthquake, Lou’s opened up in its new location on Delmas Avenue, sporting an exhibit of World War II memorabilia, reprints of old newspapers and magazines, and models of military aircraft in varying shapes and sizes.

When our boisterous family arrived at Lou’s Living Donut Museum on a blustery, drizzly, spring Saturday morning, I asked about the tour that I had prearranged via telephone a few days prior. I was directed to speak with a quiet, unassuming, rather skinny man dressed in bakery whites. He took us into the next-door Donut Museum, gave a brief informative lecture on the history of the donut and a biographical sketch of Lucius Ades, and popped in a 15-minute video on Lou, his donut shop, and the role of the donut in World War II — interspersed with lots of flag waving and good old-fashioned patriotism.

It wasn’t until afterward that I discovered that the antisterotypical skinny baker who had given us the personal tour was, in fact, Chuck, the same Chuck who (with his brother) had originally taken over the donut business from Lou more than twenty years prior. I interrupted Chuck’s late breakfast of a bowl of Cheerios (which not so coincidentally look a LOT like little donuts!) to ask him a few questions. Because of my own experience working in a bakery at about that same time as he started, combined with my current culinary endeavours of manufacturing my own line of barbeque sauces and rubs, Chuck and I had a lot to talk about, quickly sliding into easy conversation — the importance of high-quality, specialty ingredients; the varying qualities afforded by the hand-creation of products versus today’s more prevalent high-tech automation; and the overall attention to detail of a finely crafted product.

I won’t stop loving warm melt-in-your-mouth Krispy Kremes, but Lou’s donuts provide a noticeably high-quality alternative to engineered cookie-cutter products. I was particularly impressed with the intricate, multi-faceted flavor and the fluffy, bread-like quality of the devil’s food donut, created with a direct descendant of the original yeast culture used by Lou almost fifty years ago, and also on the same equipment Lou once used.

High quality. A friendly atmosphere. Darn good donuts. It is no wonder that Lou’s was the recipient of the Official Donut Shop of the California Highway Patrol award.

Update

Lou’s Living Donut Museum closed its doors in July 2006, citing family illness. Chuck, pictured above, lost his lengthy war with acute pancreatitis in May 2011. He was 51.

Photo © Guardian News and Media

On Tuesday, coalition forces entered the center of Baghdad to find a jubilant crowd of Iraqi citizens trying in vain to pull down a metal statue of Saddam that had been commissioned to commemorate his 65th birthday.

Unveiled less than a year ago, the statue was eventually pulled down with the help of a US tank. The cheering crowd pulled the disembodied metal head around the streets of the capital, spitting on it, and, what I remember to be an ultimate insult in Arabic countries, hitting it with the soles of their shoes. The liberating US soldiers were cheered, given flowers, hugged, and praised by the Iraqi people.

I’m hoping that the local reaction was real and heartfelt, not for the benefit of the incoming, conquering troops or the press. It seemed genuine, and I was very happy to hear reports of Iraqi-Americans both discount non-liberation reasons for the invasion and provide full support for the troops.

On the other hand, I listened to an American citizen on the radio today that had served as a volunteer human shield in front of a water treatment plant in Baghdad. She droned on about how the Bush administration had wrongly presented the Iraqi people as the enemy, and how well she has gotten to know them as a wonderful people. I, too, have no quarrel with the people of Iraq. What angered me in this case was the false premise for her argument; the administration has always focused on the removal of the regime — in support of and in the name of the people — other more pronounced reasons aside. Iraqis were never posed as the enemy.

War is not always the best answer, but good will hopefully and eventually come of this once the war is completely over. Then will come the daunting task of rebuilding and stabilizing the region, a task I believe the United States working alone will fail.

A recent visitor from the UK cited a BBC study that showed that the four main networks in the United States (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) covered only two or three non-American news stories each month. Even those had an American interest. The reader then posed the question as whether the study seemed correct. While I personally felt that that was certainly the case, I thought I’d do a bit of unofficial, unscientific surveying of my own, not just on the four networks. And I came to similar abysmal conclusions.

Now, perhaps my timing could be better, as international news is currently dominated and eclipsed by the War in Iraq — conflict, invasion, exercise, liberation, action, whatever you want to call it — and seconded by the recent manifestation of SARS, but there is very little to glean on other worldly events.

The major networks covered only Iraq and SARS. CNN’s coverage of the world in my Palm Pilot includes only the brief news of 950 civilians killed in a massacre by unknown perpetrators in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nothing more. The CNN International Edition included news of a Russian school fire that resulted in the deaths of 21 students and one teacher, as well as reporting financial difficulties of EasyJet, Europe’s biggest budget airline, and report of an Indian MiG-21 fighter plane crashing into a milk processing plant.

The BBC News, also on my Palm Pilot, did surprisingly worse, covering nothing but the War in Iraq. The London Times covered the same events as CNN and CNN International, but also included the jailing of two Cuban dissidents and the arrest of a spokesman for Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change. The Sydney Morning Herald also focused on the Iraqi War, mentioning in additional only that gorillas and chimpanzees in west Africa were dwindling due to outbreaks of the Ebola virus.

Perhaps print news had better world coverage. I checked the San Jose Mercury News for any signs of international news. A story on a missing dolphin was quite interesting, but even that was related to the Iraqi War as the Atlantic bluenose dolphin in question worked for the US Navy as a minesweeper. On I went. War. War. Turn the page. War. War. War. Turn the page. War. SARS. War. The last piece of international news was the unfortunate tale of three Kenyans who died trying to rescue a woman’s cell phone. Not rescue the woman, just her phone. The bodies turned up four hours later; the cell phone never did.

Apparently, the only international news that’s fit to print nowadays is calamity and tragedy, and the only viable alternative to traditional news outlets is Public Radio International on National Public Radio, the most-frequently tuned station in my car that often gives a more personal perspective to the world.