Last week I heard an interview on the radio: some guy had put up a gourmet donut store smack dab in the worst part of Vancouver. He was passionate as hell about donuts. He had a donut Doctorate.
Remember the cupcakes craze? It seemed like anywhere you went, there was a fancy store with fifty flavours of rich, velvety cupcakes sitting in the window. Then the market got a little saturated as the imitators popped up to cash in, and now cupcakes are sort of done. Shame really, because I liked them. But I have a monstrous sweet tooth. Donuts are taking over where cupcakes left off.
So I had to check out Cartems Donuterie, which was the store right in the centre of hell. At least, that was what I thought. When we walked down there, I was shocked to discover that gentrification had come to the Downtown East Side.
It’s still full of clinics, shelters, needle exchanges, and welfare hotels. There is still the infamous safe injection site, which our government hates. There are still vast herds of wandering and tweaking drug addicts with weeping sores and their pants falling halfway down.
But a few years back, the old Woodwards Department store was rebuilt into a mall, community centre, and living space. There are two beautiful towers of condos, and there is a drug and grocery store at the bottom, along with a JJ Beans, which makes some of the best coffee in Canada. People moved into these condos – young working people with jobs and dreams. Businesses – the sort that work more on inspiration and style rather that profit – came after them.
It’s one thing to open a business within a covered building such as wood wards. Another thing entirely to open your magnum opus right on Hastings, next to the clinics and the open-air drug market that resembles a watering hole in the African Savannah. These places aren’t pawnshops and drug paraphernalia stores – instead, there is Ella + Elliot, an upscale baby store. There is the Acme cafe, which looks like a swank eatery you might see in downtown London. I walked by a lot of these labours of love – gyms, bistros,catering companies. And what’s worse – few of them show up in Google Maps!
Cartems Donuterie is at the intersection of Hastings and Corrall, kitty-corner to Crabtree Park, which is a patch of concrete with never less than ten people stumbling and flailing within its borders. It’s small – just a counter. It resembles and ice-cream parlour. Underneath the glass are rows and rows of gourmet donuts, at roughly three dollars apiece.
The kid with me ordered the triple chocolate – a cakey ganache with chocolate icing, studded with what looks like cocoa puffs. It was delicious and rich, but I had to go the safe and boring way, and I got the cinnamon, which was just a donut covered in sugar and spice. Good, but plain and simple is not what this place is about.
The next day, we returned and got a half dozen. I had two children with me this time: the first ordered his favorite – triple chocolate, and the other ordered the Campfire – a ganache/chocolate-icing monster covered in pieces of marshmallows. I also ordered these -
the earl grey
1. The Earl Grey – a donut made with Earl Grey-tea infused butter, covered in icings and decorated with what looks like rose petals. Not sure how they did that, but I nearly wept at the flavour.
2.Citrus Dust – a fabulous moist donut sprinkled with lemon zest sprinkles and sugar.
3. Strawberry/balsamic – another thick dense donut covered in a sugary, strawberry-vinegar icing. My wife closed her eyes in ecstasy as she tasted this thing.
I didn’t have it, but this is called the Maple Bourbon
Being not as adventurous as I like, I ordered the Cinnamon again. Not sure why. I kept it for the next day. All the donuts are big, and look very elaborate.
As we walked back, two men passed by us. One looked… crafty. Like he was down here up to no good, and liked it. As if he thought nothing could stop him, because in this place no one ever felt strongly enough to bother.I wanted to say this to him:
‘Look, after a hundred years of misery, it’s finally happening for this neighbourhood. It won’t be police or welfare or government handouts that lift this place out of the depths, but energy, creativity, an influx of people who want to make a home they love. It’s happening, and it’s more subtle than you think you’re being. It’s happening under your nose, and soon you’ll have no place to profit off misery. They’ll be less chance to pimp, to sell crack, and to sell cheap and salty Chinese cooking wine.
‘And it starts with these. I can get a Strawberrry-balsamic ganache not 100 feet away. Change is coming when I walk by your crappy little open-air drug market and buy gourmet donuts. Nice knowing you!’
