Transcripts

[FACTORY MACHINE RUNNING] SPEAKER: At the corner of Carnes and Underwood, a mini factory in red and yellow called Tom Thumb Donuts, Tom, no relation, tells us the story of Colonel Tom Thumb, a 39-inch-tall man known around the world in the early 1900s, the term Tom Thumb synonymous with miniature.

Here, a row of cubes line the countertop, each a self-contained bakery. Tom calls it Baker in a Box. The glass walls draw spectators who watch as every couple seconds a little canister of batter, like a miniature cannon, fires out fat Cheerio rings of raw dough. The workers call it donut goo. The rings splash into hot oil, 99% soybean, and begin their journey through the canal in a circular parade.

I watch a ring as it bobs along the inner path, bubbling as its bottom bakes. Then, halfway along the spiral, a rotating spatula flips it out over for the final exterior lap around and out, up a wee conveyor belt to a peak above their soy sea level to drop down to where the worker scoops them up, each uniformly golden brown, into a basket, into sugar laced with cinnamon, into a bag, into our hands.

Do I enjoy these morsels that much more because I watch them evolve from raw donut goo to final complete treat? Don't they say, the journey is just as important as the destination.

[JOYFUL MUSIC]