Last week YA and I had dinner out with friends of ours. In the course of the evening I mentioned that my last program was coming up – a warehouse run for which I always buy donuts for the warehouse crew. This led to our friends sending us a Star Tribune article from a couple of weeks back that listed the top donut shops in the Twin Cities AND a lengthy discussion of their favorite donut place: Mel-O-Glaze.
Mel-O-Glaze has been around for sixty years and I’ve driven by it numerous times but never in the morning, which is when my donut-desiring genes normally kick in. Most of my routines are south and southwest of my place, so I have to make a decision to go someplace east and it doesn’t happen on a regular basis.
But after listening to rave reviews for a good ten minute, I determined to make a different decision. I went east the next morning, timing my trip to about the time they opened. This turned out not to be the best time to go…. although they were open, they weren’t really up to speed yet. An hour later would probably have been better.
There were enough to choose from however. When the owner, Paulette, came out from the back I told her it was my first time. She quickly ran to the back and when she returned she had a donut hold that she gave me as a sample. It’s easy to see how people say these are addictive. In fact, even though I’m not usually a donut-hole fan, I bought six, along with another donut for myself and one for YA. The donut holes didn’t even make it back home. So now in addition to Sunrise Donuts, Bogarts Donuts, Sunrise Breads and, of course, Dunkin, I’ll be adding Mel-O-Glaze to my roster of donut place. Guess I’ll be going east a little more often now.
Any embarrassment of riches in your world?
Trail Baboon 
Being the “opportunistic” grocery shoppers that we are, we have way too much pasta in the cupboard, along with quite an assortment of dried beans, and lentils. I ordered most from online stores, and if you get free shipping if you order a certain amount, why hold back? I still have 20 lbs of fresh yeast in the downstairs freezers. We are chipping away at it as fast as we can bake.
We have The Doughnut Hole, a local shop, We also have a business called Baker Boy, that makes frozen bakery products that are sold all over the country. Baker Boy recently patented a new way of inserting filling inside doughnuts. They sell their doughnuts to The Doughnut Hole, since the same family started both businesses. I haven’t eaten a doughnut in several years, and I can’t stand filled doughnuts. It has something to do with the texture of the filling. A raised glazed is my favorite. Your Melo doughnuts could probably tempt me, though.
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Nothing “overflowing” around here except corn and soybean fields, I suppose. However, the Kernel Restaurant on Hoffman Drive just east of I-35 has a killer caramel pecan roll that’s about as wide as a dinner plate. Gotta be 1,000 calories in that bad boy. And they serve it with a small tub of whipped butter, in case you want to make sure you get the full 1,000 calories.
On second thought, we seem to have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to charitable people who eagerly donate money to dozens of worthy causes in the area. The BBBS program is just one great example of many.
My sister lives two blocks from Mel-o-Glaze but I haven’t been there in decades. She and her ex- used to go regularly on Saturday mornings. I never met a bakery (or doughnut) I didn’t like, so I’m sure I liked their doughnuts. Chocolate-iced cake doughnuts are my favorite.
Chris in Owatonna
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We only had 11 tomato plants before the hail storm. Now we have 18. I suppose we could have an embarrassment of tomatoes this fall.
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Yeah I think so. Considering the YA and I have four tomato plants and will undoubtedly have tomatoes in the freezer this fall and winter, I’m thinking 18 for the two of you could overflow you a bit.
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Canned tomatoes
Canned tomato-basil soup
Salsa
Etc.
An embarrassment of jars
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As you should be aware by now, don’t count your tomatoes before they’re hatched
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Also recommend Yo-Yo Donuts in Minnetonka and Grandma’s Bakery in White Bear Lake (go to the bakery on Buerkle Rd, not the store in downtown WBL).
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Awesome post
Thanks
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For me the current vegan movement is an embarrassment of riches. I went vegetarian in 1991, vegan around 2004, and one was lucky to find an entree to eat at a restaurant, instead of subsisting on french fries and a side salad (vinaigrette and hold the shredded cheese!). Now I actually need to choose between options, plus there’s multiple kinds of plant milk, nut cheeses, and ice creams, even in regular supermarkets. The biggest problem I have now is that I don’t like Impossible Burgers, because the texture is way too much like meat, and they’ve displaced the good old hippie grain-lentil-veg patties from most menus. But then, there are much worse problems to have (like having to eat those veggie hot dogs that come in a can, bless the Seventh Day Adventists’ little hearts).
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Imagine becoming a vegetarian in 1972. I’m still so used to not having a lot of options that when I do have a lot of options, it kind of paralyzes me. In the restaurant we went to the other night with our friends, there were six or seven things that I could’ve gotten and it was a difficult decision.
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There are a number of Adventist folks out here, some who are cattle ranchers. Go figure.
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Rise and munch on the doughnuts, Baboons
I love doughnuts, but I rarely eat them because they get me started eating stuff I need to not eat. I am just now getting my energy back so that I can exercise at the gym, which is the last stage of my hip surgery rehab, and I need to eat the nutritious stuff right now.
Yesterday I was able to go participate in my Master Gardener volunteer gig in N. Mpls at a place for people with MS. Last year with the drought and a lack of personnel and equipment (the hoses broke and no one repaired them!), almost everything they planted died. This year they have staff back and when the hoses did not couple correctly, the lead resident said to the repair guy, “Well, then fix it or call somebody!” It got fixed and the irrigation system is ready to go. She recruited volunteers to build a wooden path out of used building materials that can allow their electronic wheelchairs to function in the garden. Plus she found more raised beds. They have an embarrassment of volunteers assisting with projects, tomato plants, cucumbers and squash. It is all lush and beautiful. It did me a world of good just to be there.
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Not donuts. I think I ate one donut last year, an apple cider one at an orchard.
But both Robin and I are collectors by nature, an inclination that non-collectors can’t fathom, and we are inclined toward what I call rabbitholes and my granddaughter calls serial passions. So we fixate on things that fascinate us and accumulate assortments that represent that particular class of objects. For me it’s usually books but differentiated by clusters of subject matter. Robin has collections of wooden boxes, antiques sewing paraphernalia, books, etc. one thing that differentiates our collections from many of the collections one often comes across at estate sales—those collections of elephant figurines or turtles or manufactured “collectibles”—is that the things we are drawn to are things that require research and discrimination to appreciate.
Still, I have to acknowledge that we have, practically speaking, an embarrassment of collections.
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Right now – things to do…
OT – My sister is here with her granddaughter (5 yrs.) till Thursday, so I will be on very little, and will have to read later.
Enjoy, baboons.
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This town has 2 Dunkins. When they came back (previous owner flew the coop one night.) we went there often. Then just fell off our radar and covid too. This town has only Dunkin, a Perkins, and four big grocery stores for baked goods. None of them very appealing. Maybe Dunkin but they are very sugary, and Sandy is a nominasl diabetic.. Long lines.Others are chemical-enhanced. A pair of young starry-eyeds opened a cupcake shop about 4 years ago. Cupcakes started at $3.50 each and up to $9.00. Did not last a year. Take that Hallmark Channel!
Many afternoons I bring Sandy an apple fritter from Hy-Vee or Cub. She loves them. She is very agreable in her dementia. I went to the downtown Hy-Vee Saturday and got told off by check-out clerk for “jamming up the line” with only one item. Ordered me to do self-checkout. Another clerk took my fritter out of my hand to self-checkout. I left. Went to Cub. I have had this issue before. I cook for one with lots of fresh foods. So I shop often. I told the manager to put up a sign saying “10 items or more.” But lines at self checkout are as long as old-fashioned checkout. I think lately about Sandy for quality of life as much as quantity of life.
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What is up with rude clerks like that?? I hate the self check machines; they never work right. Or for me they don’t work right. Kelly gets along alright with them.
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I never go through the self checkout. Until the stores offer a discount for acting as their temporary employee, I will continue to jam up the line.
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My son asks when they direct him, “Do I get the employee discount now?” One clerk at the Cub by me, Destyni, is the soul of calm peaceful efficient service. I try to get her line all the time. I asked her how often she gets rude customers, and she said not often. We are good buddies. She is about 22.
Why are they rude? Because they can be. I have never seen a very rude customer.
My daughter’s niece and boyfriend dropped out of Southwest State after two years. Got good jobs here, had their pick, of course. But could not rent an apartment. Show 6 consecutive paystubs and a recommendation from previous landlord or go away. They have never rented except a dorm and only did summer work.
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Right now I have too much work! I’m sitting in the ER with one of the individuals from the home I work in. I could be here for awhile.
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Stay strong.
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Thank you for being there to do this. Good luck to both of you.
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Seattle: donut and biscuit heaven,
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I have eaten at the restaurant, The Biscuit B**ch. Good biscuits.
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The January 6 hearings are an embarrassment of riches. They should be embarrassing to Trumpists but aren’t.
Semi-apology for the politics.
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No no Elise could make up the storyline. No one would believe it.
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No novelist….
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I think even Trumpists will find the image of him throwing his plate of food at the wall in anger and getting catsup all over as pretty embarrassing.
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…or manly.
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I think I have a different idea of manliness than some.
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That’s the whole crux of the Trump problem.
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Isn’t that the crux of the Trump problem?
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Sorry. WP wouldn’t post my first comment…until it did.
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