Doughnuts of the Resistance.

I really have been better about not eating Dunkin' Donuts doughnuts this year. I've been using the specialized diet technique of Not Going in the Stores, and buying their coffee in the supermarket instead. 

I haven't lost a bit of weight, so you'd never know it anyway. And when I vacuumed out the car this weekend I sucked up a lot of sprinkles (which may be a testament more to how seldom I clean the car than to how many doughnuts I eat).

Well, I just made up for lost bites. Since anytime you write something that involves two things of a similar kind, the Headline Writers Guild insists that you call it "A Tale of Two ____," I guess this is A Tale of Two Doughnuts. Specifically the Cake Batter Donuts that Dunkin' has been selling this summer. 

What are they? They are iced doughnuts containing a filling that tastes sort of like cake, in that way things that aren't exactly cake taste like cake these days. The vanilla-frosted one has vanilla cake filling and the chocolate-frosted one has chocolate cake filling. I'd asked for a vanilla one, putting my health on the line for you, dear reader, and the lady at the counter gave me a chocolate one. When I asked for the vanilla instead, she just added it to the bag. When I said I'd pay for both, she refused. It was late in the day, and they know what happens to unsold doughnuts. Still, you don't get that kind of service at Starbucks.

Of course, this meant I had to eat two doughnuts, which tested my limits. These did have the too-sweet sweetness that a lot of Dunkin's specialty doughnuts have, but they're not the worst of the genre because the cake flavor gave the filling another element besides sugar. The cake flavor was stronger in the vanilla one, not surprising since chocolate is a stronger flavor (when things are labeled "birthday cake" as a flavor they usually mean a white or yellow cake with matching icing).

They were okay if you want to try something different, but would have been better with a more cakey doughnut, I think. I have to say that afterward I felt a little sick. I'm not the kind of guy who has trouble wiping out a couple of doughnuts, but these were a little rough, like I might feel after a disgusting display at Thanksgiving. Unlike Thanksgiving, though, the sick feeling only lasted about twenty minutes.

So it's not exactly a rave for the product, but I guess it ultimately comes down to: This is the kind of thing that appeals to people to which this kind of thing appeals. If Michael Bloomberg takes over the country, though, eating these will be an act of the Resistance. Maybe we should keep in practice, just in case.