バリー・カワグチ記者のお気に入りは、米国から2006年に日本上陸したクリスピー・クリーム・ドーナツ。子どもの頃から慣れ親しんだ味なのですが、「甘い誘惑」にかられた兄弟や同僚らとの「争奪戦」に苦しめられてきました。日本でも大人気で、店の前には２時間待ちの行列が…。ドーナツを追い求める筆者の「戦い」は続くのでした。
By Barry Kawaguchi
It’s been said that you always remember your first love. If so, then that explains my recent obsession with Krispy Kreme doughnuts. These glaze-soaked fantasies have followed me around all my life, taunting me with their promise of sweet fluffiness.
A little over a year ago, when I read that the U.S.-based Krispy Kreme doughnut chain was opening in Shinjuku, all those old memories came flooding back to me. In the late 1960s I was a child in Atlanta, Georgia, and Krispy Kreme was a small Southern U.S. doughnut company, turning sweets-loving Southerners into doughnut junkies. My older brother played Little League baseball, and as a fund-raising project, the players on his team sold boxes of Krispy Kremes. I can still remember those green-and-white KK boxes sitting so temptingly on our kitchen counter, calling my name.
Unfortunately, I had six hungry brothers and sisters, who always beat me to any sweets in our house. So, by the time I would climb a chair to peek into the KK box, it would always be empty, except for some glaze crumbs.
Gradually, we all grow out of our first love, and I moved on from my desire for the perfect doughnut. I didn’t get that familiar craving again until I moved back to the South in 1990 to work for a newspaper in Hickory, North Carolina, a small town that has a huge race-car track that everyone goes to on Saturday nights.
So, when a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop opened there, it made for big news. I wanted to join all those Hickory folks racing for the store, but my waistline at the time put the brakes on my appetite. Eating Southern barbecue and at all the buffet restaurants in Hickory had added 20 pounds to my frame, which my doctor told me I needed to lose. Sweets were a definite no-no.
After Hickory, my next encounter with the Krispy Kreme temptress came in Dallas, Texas. At my newspaper there, some kind soul one day brought a box of Krispy Kremes into the newsroom. No longer shackled by a diet, I figured just one Krispy Kreme couldn’t hurt.
I stared at that KK box, my mouth watering like Pavlov’s dog. I opened the box, but I hadn’t reckoned on a newsroom filled with hungry reporters and editors. Any free food is quickly detected and devoured, like roaches in a cheap New York apartment scurrying for crumbs.
By the time I opened the box, the only thing left were flecks of glaze.
Fast-forward to when the new Krispy Kreme store opened in Shinjuku. Now would be my chance, I thought. With all the running, jumping and falling I do each day to catch my trains, even having one Krispy Kreme wouldn’t make anyone mistake me for Asashoryu.
So, I headed to the Krispy Kreme store at Shinjuku Station, figuring I could just waltz right in and buy a box. Suddenly, as I neared the store, I saw a line of people stretching to Shibuya. I wondered if perhaps Brad Pitt or the Beckhams were in town.
But that was the line just to get into the Krispy Kreme store, a wait that would take two hours or more. It’s been the same story every time I’ve went by there the past year. The mad rush has happened at the new KK store in Itocia next to Yuraku-cho Station, with wait times averaging around an hour and a half when I pass by there on weekends.
So, no Krispy Kreme for this kid. Again. But on a recent trip to Utah to visit my Mom, as I was driving along, I saw in the distance what appeared to be a jet lag-induced mirage. A Krispy Kreme store! In addition, there was no line, no cars, in fact, no customers in the store when I stopped in about noon!
I crept cautiously up to the counter, not believing my luck, and ordered a shiny glaze-covered doughnut for 79 cents. A few seconds later, I had a mouthful of fluffy doughnut, and flecks of glaze all over my chin and shirt. I devoured that poor KK doughnut like a starving prisoner, and hurried back to the counter for another and another.
Hmmm. Maybe they are worth the wait, after all. The next time you see me in line for one, say hi. But with my luck, I’ll probably be at the very back, standing next to the guy holding up the “End of the Line” sign.
Barry Kawaguchi
本紙記者。横浜市在住の日系３世の米国人、４５歳。米・ユタ州で育ち、ジョージア、ノースカロライナ、オハイオ、テキサス州などで新聞記者・編集者として活躍した後、２００１年に来日した。
- recent…with 最近〜にハマっていること、最近の〜への執念
- glaze-soaked fantasies シュガーコーティングされた楽しみ。ドーナツのこと
- taunting…fluffiness 甘いフワフワとした感じが私を引きつける
- sitting…counter 誘惑するように台所のカウンターに乗っている
- peek into 〜をのぞき込む
- moved…for 〜への欲求から（新しいものへ）移った
- craving 熱望
- join…store その店へ争うように走って行くヒッコリーの人たちに加わる
- waistline…appetite 当時の（太くなった）ウエストが私の食欲にブレーキをかけた
- definite no-no 絶対ダメなもの
- temptress 誘惑する女性（ドーナツを女性に例えている）
- No…diet もはやダイエットに縛られるわけではなかったので
- is…devoured すぐに発見されて平らげられる
- scurrying for crumbs くずを求めてチョコチョコ走る
- only…glaze 油のしみだけが残っていた
- waltz…in 軽やかに店に入る
- jet…mirage 時差ボケによる幻覚
