Donut!
June 22, 2023
As many of you know, June 2 was National Donut Day. If you look closely, you can see us in line that morning at the local Krispy Kreme for our FREE donut.
While sweetened breads of all sorts have been around since ancient times, the donut is an American invention.
From where did it come?
Its origins were about the time of the American revolution, when Dutch settlers to New York brought recipes for fried “olykoeks,” or oily cakes….no holes, just a round ball.
The oily cakes had widespread popularity, but when did they evolve into donuts?
Fast forward to 1847. Merchant ships at the time included derivations of oily cakes as part of the typical sailor diet because they were easy to store, cook and eat.
Hanson Gregory, a ship captain on a merchant ship based out of Quincy Massachusetts, all of 16-years-old at the time, depended on his mother, Elizabeth, to supply the food to be stored for a journey.
To help ward off scurvy and colds, Elizabeth mixed hazelnuts and walnuts into the pastry dough and created the name “doughnut” to describe it. And Hanson, finding the doughnut cooked unevenly after being pulled from the ship’s galley bins, tried creating a hole in the middle of the “doughnut” with a round hole punch, which did the trick. The doughnut with a hole in the middle was born.
There is a Hanson Gregory Day every June in Quincy to commemorate his contribution to American cuisine.
Let’s move along to New York City 1920. Adolf Levitt, a Russian immigrant, opened up a donut shop in Harlem. The theaters near his donut shop clamored for him to make more donuts to satisfy the demand for his donuts in their concessions.
Up to that time, donuts were fried in a pan. Adolf used his mechanical skills to invent the first donut making machine. Years ahead of his time, he machine-cooked his donuts in an open store window, and crowds watched enraptured outside.
Adolf went on to sell an unheard-of-for-the-time $25 million in donut making machines around the U.S., and the donut was on its way to being an institution.
Which brings us to the late 70’s and Ted Ngoy, who would come to be known as the Donut King.
Ted came to Orange County CA as a refugee from Cambodia, gained employment at a local Winchell’s Donut, learned the trade and then started his own donut shop run by him and his family.
With the support of the U.S. government, over a period of years, Ted sponsored many Cambodian refugees fleeing from the Khmer Rouge regime there, bought donut shops and leased them to his sponsored families. By the mid- to late-eighties, Ted owned 57 donut shops up and down California.
He and his family moved into a beautiful $7 million mansion on Lake Mission Viejo. Unfortunately, someone else lives there now.
Ted was drawn like a lightning bug to Las Vegas, and the story goes every time he went to Vegas, another donut shop was sold. He ended up sleeping on a friend’s mobile home porch before returning penniless to Cambodia.
His story is told in a 2020 film named “The Donut King” currently available on streaming.
Ted left a lasting donut legacy before and since his return to Cambodia.
As a distributor of donut shop supplies to the shops he owned and numerous others in the California Cambodian refugee population, he sourced for cost-effectiveness. He discovered pink boxes were a few cents cheaper than white boxes. Ultimately because of him, the pink box is the trademark donut box in California.
Perfect for the California drive-time culture, Ted helped build the highest concentration of independently operated donut shops in the U.S. With a donut shop as close as your nearest strip mall, and with 95% of these shops currently run by people of Cambodian descent, Ted made Southern California the donut consumption capital of America.
Have your heart set on a donut now? Consume your fair share of donuts over the course of the year? If so, you may be a candidate to bridge the gap with some whole food nutrition.
Juice Plus+ Versus a Pretender
An inferior product to Juice Plus+ by the name of Balance of Nature has been advertised recently on late-night TV and in social media.
Be forewarned. It is more expensive than Juice Plus+ and is inferior in quality. Click the link below for comparisons.
LINK TO DETAILED PRODUCT COMPARISONS
Closeout Sale on the Bemer Pro Device
Snapshot of Donna’s mom, Bonnie, using the Bemer microcirculation device the other day. Bonnie has been using the Bemer daily for the last 6+ years. We wake her up and she periodically exclaims “I’m STILL alive.” We tell her we’re doing our best to keep her that way.
There is a new model of Bemer coming out in July. To clear inventory for the new model, Bemer is offering the current Pro Essentials model for $3,990 from $5,990, a $2,000 (30%) savings while supplies last.
Check the link below for sale details. The Pro Essentials is the current top-of-the-line model.
LINK TO BEMER PRO ESSENTIALS SALE
A Corny Joke
What did the lettuce say to the celery?
Quit stalking me!