If this morning's air smelled a little sweeter, there's a good reason why. It's National Doughnut Day, which should be a federal holiday with businesses, schools, banks, government buildings, everything closed ... except doughnut shops. We could use a break from politics; we can't do without glazed doughnuts to start the day.

I love doughnuts, they're my favorite baked good even if they're fried. The funny thing about doughnuts, though, it's hard to find a restaurant that has doughnuts on their dessert menu. I would order a couple of glazed doughnuts to polish off a fine meal but good luck with that. Doughnuts are the perfect junk food — enriched flour, hot grease, and a ton of sugar. There's nothing good about them except they taste unbelievably, lip-smacking delicious. And long after you eat them, they're still with you, if you know what I mean.

You want to be a hero at the office? Bring a couple dozen glazed to that 9 am meeting and see how fast they disappear. The board room will look like feeding time at the zoo.

Of course, the No. 1 doughnut king in Houston is Shipley Do-Nuts. Lawrence Shipley Sr. started selling wholesale doughnut in 1936. Price back then: 5 cents. Not each. Per dozen! About 10 years later, he opened his first retail store at 1417 Crockett St. in Houston. Now, seven-plus decades later, still headquartered in Houston, there are 325 Shipley Do-Nut stores throughout the southern U.S.

His mantra was, "When they bite into that hot do-nut, it will bring them back every time."

Lawrence Shipley III gave me a backstage tour of how Shipley Do-Nuts makes those sweet treats. I didn't mind meeting him at 5 am. In fact, I helped create their Chocolate Iced Cinnamon Twist cruller. They already had a plain Cinnamon Twist, plus several chocolate iced donuts. I said why not combine those two flavors? It's a natural winner. Have you never had a chocolate-cinnamon milkshake at Goode Company Taqueria? If only someone could make a chocolate-cinnamon babka, we'd be onto something.

Loyal to Local

Here's the thing about Houstonians. We're loyal to our local brands. I remember when Krispy Kreme was a national obsession with people lining up for hours for their small, over-sugared glazed doughnut. Krispy Kreme opened in Houston and ... pffft. Gone in a year or two, all of them. They put the hole in doughnut holes. Shipley crushed them. It was the same thing with ice cream. Ben and Jerry's and other national ice cream chains invaded Houston, only to be warded off by Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla in the supermarket. A few Ben & Jerry's scoop shops still hang in there, but nothing like their original war plan.

Several national bagel chains thought that Houston was under-bageled and opened stores here, with plans to open many more. They were gone fast. Still standing: the little New York Deli and Coffee Shop on Hillcroft. Their bagels are boiled and baked the old-fashioned way. But what I like even more — they make bialys, the unsung hero of the Jewish baked goods industry.

Best supermarket doughnut: Entenmann's Classic Chocolate Frosted Donuts. Eight to a box. Or one serving.

All the news that's fit to print

Here's the one time that doughnut bit me back. Several years ago, I got a call from a reporter with the New York Times. She asked if I was the guy who writes the fast food column in the Houston Chronicle. Yes, that's me. The reporter was working on a feature about the dangers of eating doughnuts in the morning instead of a more healthful, less fattening breakfast. She wanted to interview me. I said no thanks, but I have a friend who seems to know his way around the back wall at Shipley Do-Nuts. Here's a phone number for Reg "Third Degree" Burns.

A week later, I picked up a New York Times. The headline of the main story on the front page of the Health section:

"Kick the Doughnut Habit, and Make Your Nutritionist Smile"

And the lead paragraph:

"No matter which route Reginald Burns takes when he drives to work each morning in Houston, he knows every doughnut shop along the way. Almost every day, he stops for a fix: a Diet Coke and six doughnuts — any kind as long as they have just emerged from the fryer.

Six doughnuts? Almost every day? Don't get me wrong, Third Degree has horrible eating habits, but he's not searching for a "Hot Donuts" sign and eating six hot greasy doughnut almost every morning. Nobody could believe that. The newspaper article even quoted him making up nonsense.

"A hot doughnut literally melts in your mouth," said Mr. Burns, a finance director for a nonprofit organization.

My reaction when I saw Third Degree pranking the New York Times? There goes my .0001 percent chance of ever working at the Times.