I Doughnut Know What All The Fuss Is About!

As I’ve mentioned a few times here, I go to the Los Angeles Country Fair every year. Well, this isn’t a life-long habit, but more one that started when I moved to La Verne ten years ago. La Verne is in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, just a few miles from Pomona where the fair is held. I love the county fair environment I think that is from my upbringing.

I was raised in Muscoy, an unincorporated area of San Bernardino County, just outside of the city of San Bernardino. Berdoo, as those who live there have been known to call it, is celebrated for only a few things: Frank Zappa wrote a song about it; the Hells Angels motorcycle gang was founded there; it has been the drug-trafficking capital of Southern California more times than anyone would like to admit; the first McDonald’s was built there by the McDonald brothers; and each year the National Orange Show is held there. I grew up going to the Orange Show every year; it was a part of my life.

My brother Keith scared me shitless on the double Ferris Wheel at the Orange Show. Keith and I spent hours looking at the model cars at the hobby show at the Orange Show, I went down my first Giant Slide at the Orange Show, drank my first Orange Julius, saw my first stock car race, saw the Circus of the Fantastic (a sideshow with sword swallowers and fire eaters and the human pin cushion), spent hours watching the caricature artists, road my first roller coaster all at the Orange Show.

My brother Keith and I were in the 4H club; Keith raised a lamb and grew vegetables and I baked cookies and made lamps and all of our endeavors were entered into competition at the Orange Show. My lamp was so good it won a special award (a set of socket screwdrivers that I had for years). Like I said, I love the county fair environment (though the Orange Show was not the County Fair, it was the same breed of animal).

I don’t make it back to San Bernardino for the Orange Show anymore, but I do go to the LA County Fair. This may sound odd, but one of the reasons I love going to LA County Fair each year is to eat something strange.

This started two years ago when I tried deep-fried Twinkies and deep-fried Oreo Cookies. Neither impressed me much; the Twinkie was mushier than I expected with a heavy sauce that detracted from the taste of the Twinkie and the Oreo was even worse. But they whetted my appetite for the next strange food. Last year we tried deep-fried Snickers Bars. Now this is a winner! It looks like a corn dog sprinkled with powered sugar, but the batter is much sweeter. The Snickers is a molten mass of chocolate and caramel and nuts. They are heavenly. This year I tried the Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich. I kid you not.

The Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich is a fried chicken patty with a slice of cheese wrapped by a large Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut. In concept, this should be a winner, but the reality leaves something to be desired. I think the idea is great. I have a theory that really great, addicting food can be made with the combination of sugar and fat (think chocolate) and a fried chicken sandwich in a doughnut fits quite well with my theory. The problem the Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich has is that the chicken sandwich is horrible. It's a small, flat clump of flaked-and-formed chicken dipped in batter and deep fried. It needs real chicken, or at least better chicken, 'cause the idea works for me just like chicken and waffles.

Years ago my brother-in-law and his wife lived in Hollywood, just northeast of the intersection of Sunset and Gower. On Gower, just a half block above Sunset was a little place called Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. It took them a few years to get up the nerve to go there, but one night they saw Los Angeles Laker basketball stars leaving the place with huge bags of food and climbing into a limousine and they thought, "Ah, what the heck, if it's good enough for Kareem we ought to give it a try." They became addicted.

Roscoe's serves amazing fried chicken and extraordinary waffles, and they serve them on the same plate, together. And they are a wonderful treat for your taste buds and as addictive as chocolate. Once you bite into the sweet waffle, drenched in maple syrup and the hot seasoned chicken, the fat juices dripping off and coating your fingers, you will be hooked too. It's fat and it's sugar together, the two things your body craves in one tasty meal. It is also some of the best fried chicken I have ever eaten and that is where the Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich falls flat on its face.

Maybe by next year they will have perfected the sandwich by using a decent piece of chicken. I will be looking for it. Oh, the guy in the picture is Charlie Boghosian, creator of the Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich and the Deep-Fried Twinkie and the Deep-Fried Oreo.