Hole foods headquarters

Some foods have holes in them. Often a circular shape with a hole in the middle is purely symbolic, as in the Paris-Brest, a pastry shaped like a bicycle wheel, concocted to celebrate a race from Paris to Brest that was a forerunner of the Tour de France. Mostly, however, a hole in a food serves a purpose, as in a Bundt cake, whose hole helps ensure that its typically dense batter gets baked all the way through.

Of all the foods with holes, perhaps none is as iconic as the donut. Sure, other nations have their specialty versions of fried dough, but none is properly a donut. That's because most of them are not shaped like a ring with a hole in the middle, a uniquely American innovation. Truly, as the comedian Chevy Chase has pointed out, a donut minus the hole is just a Danish.

And the best place to get a donut is Los Angeles, long known as the donut capital of the United States. Fueled by an influx of Cambodian immigrants the city has the highest concentration of donut shops anywhere in the nation. Moreover, a recent visit to Sidecar Donuts in the City of Angels reconfirmed my belief that the best donuts in the world are to be found there.

An array of donuts from Sidecar donuts, the very best to be found in Los Angeles and surely a major reason the city is widely considered the donut capital of the country.Submitted by Tom Harte

Though Sidecar offers innovative and imaginative donut flavors, like the incredible eggs Benedict donut which encases a poached egg enrobed in hollandaise sauce, it doesn't rely on gimmicry. Their butter and salt donut doesn't look out of the ordinary, but is absolute perfection. No wonder Sidecar has been singled out for praise by Food & Wine. Their donuts constitute compelling evidence that L.A. is the national hub of hole foods.

However, there is another delicacy that rivals the donut in culinary significance and, perhaps surprisingly, it too makes the case that L.A. is the headquarters of hole foods. It looks like a donut, but is decidedly not one. Nor is it American in origin. Rather it is a centerpiece of Jewish culture — the bagel.

We have come to expect the best bagels to be produced where there is a large Jewish population, particularly New York. But just recently even the New York Times had to admit that today's California bagels surpass those in the Big Apple, effectively refuting the old canard that great bagels must be made with Brooklyn water.

After recently sampling numerous offerings of California bagels in Los Angeles, I have to agree. More like Montreal bagels — smaller, crustier, sweeter, and baked in a wood-fired oven — they are phenomenal. With the right toppings, they can be an entire meal.

So there you have it. California has the best donuts and the best bagels. And that's the hole truth.

If you can't make it to Los Angeles to get the genuine article, these homemade California Dreamin' bagels come pretty close to the West Coast version, which even the New York Times says are better than those found in the Big Apple.Submitted by Tom Harte

California Dreamin' Bagels

A reasonably close approximation of Golden State bagels, this recipe is adapted from The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

• 1 tablespoon granulated yeast
• 1 tablespoon Kosher salt
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• 5 tablespoons non-diastatic malt powder, divided
• 1-1/2 cups lukewarm (100 degrees) water
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 4 tablespoons honey, divided
• 4-1/4 cups bread flour
• Sesame seeds

In a large bowl, combine yeast, salt, sugar and 3 tablespoons malt powder. Mix in water, egg, oil and 2 tablespoons honey. Stir in flour. Cover with a clean towel and let stand for 2 hours or until dough rises and collapses. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Dust surface of dough with flour and pull off a 1-pound piece and cut into 6 equal pieces. Dusting with more flour, stretch and shape each piece into a ball, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let rest for 20 minutes. Bring a stockpot of 4 quarts of water to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and add remaining 2 tablespoons each of honey and malt powder. Punch a hole in each ball of dough and stretch and shape into a round with a large hole. Drop bagels in batches in simmering water mixture for 30 seconds per side. Drain on flour-dusted baking sheet, then dredge both sides of each bagel in sesame seeds. Bake on a baking stone on the top rack of oven at 450 degrees for 20-25 minutes until well browned. Serve warm.