Fresh donuts

There's a wonderfully detailed article about breakfast and all sorts of delicious looking breakfasts available in the New York magazine. The series on breakfast includes a interesting piece about why we should eat breakfast but it also notes how often most adults skip the meal. Another follow up deals with all sorts of breakfast cereals, and there's a piece just about coffee. While I agree that in the US, breakfast is primarily a solitary chore to cook and eat, leading one to grab and go, part of the problem may lie in the less than appetizing options for healthy breakfasts. Why should it be limited to cereal and milk, or a bran muffin? I love Asian breakfasts - congee with toppings, soup noodles, chinese crullers with soy milk, a spicy bowl of pho, fried rice! Eggs, meat, vegies, pickles even. Garlicky, fruity, hearty. You can eat it leftovers, but better to eat something fresh and newly made no? A favorite breakfast is garlicky fried rice, a couple of yokey eggs, and crunchy dilis or dangit. Have some hot chocolate with it too!

On a recent market trip, I went to a few suki's - the coffee stand, the piaya man. Now, I was reading a recent post about the best piaya in town. My favorite piaya is the freshly made disks at Salcedo. Go around 8, and you'll find the piaya guy cooking them fresh on the flat cooker. Hot and sweet, they match the acid bitterness of the coffee bought a couple of stalls down. On this visit, I was buying empanadas (also a good breakfast option!) for my folks when I saw the vendors cooking up hot and fresh doughnuts, 8 inch logs of doughy goodness, dropped into a baking sheet of sugar before wrapped in wax paper for the customers waiting. One lady before me bought 10 of them! I was determined to try them out, for what fresh donut doesn't taste wonderful? I'm not one for the overly sugary doughnuts of many large multi-national brands, but something made right in front of me, and eaten hot is always a great way to start the day. I bought three, one for me and two to give to my parents. The doughnut is not round, it's a log. It's puffed up from the cooking, and dangerously hot to the tongue. But after a few moments after its sugar dressing, melted a bit on the surface, I take a bite and have that moment of mouth-stomach-brain contentment. What does it take to make someone happy? Sometimes it's just as simple as frying some dough and dusting it with sugar. Add a cup of coffee, and watching other people walk by. It's not rocket science, and it doesn't get any better than that.