I have had donuts on my mind. Or maybe it is just wanting to step back in time to about 30 years ago. The setting: the side kitchen at Howard’s Restaurant in Colebrook, New Hampshire. I was happily perched on a stool at the side counter sipping my orange juice that reportedly had ‘sunshine pills’ in them. I was 6, and I fiercely believed in these sunshine pills. To my right was a large, black tub filled with hot donut oil, aka lard back in those days. The woman flipping the perfectly rounded and browned donuts as they danced around the black pan? My grandmother. She was dressed in her work uniform which always included a colorful red kerchief tied around her hair. As I patiently waited for the sunshine pills to kick in, it was all I could do to stay safely on my stool. My eyes kept wandering from the big black kettle to the sheet pan beside it lined with brown paper and back again. My grandmother, realizing how much patience a 6 year old has, handed me a few piping hot donut holes for me to enjoy with that glass of oj. Such love. My young self thought this was magic. Though these donuts are no longer in my life I created a slightly healthier and spiced up version of a donut. It is baked and not fried in lard. The taste? Satisfying on the days when you want to take a trip down memory lane.

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