Afters is a place I’d heard about plenty of times (thanks to Instagram) but never wanted to try. You see, I’m not impressed with food fads. Or at least I try not to be (I did fall victim to a few crazed objects of taste – tiramisu and curly fries, and chicken fingers in their early days). And mash-up food fads drive me cray. Straight cray. I haven’t tasted a cronut. I dislike cookie-flavored cupcakes. I despise the idea of topping my fro-yo with anything found in the breakfast aisle – Fruit Loops, Pebbles, and the like.
I do take a brookie every now and then; but really, they’re pretty close in their DNA to classic bar cookies, a sweet treat from the 80s.
Anyway, it’s these deeply held feelings that kept me away from Afters for months after one opened in Long Beach, despite how delicious the idea – ice cream stuffed doughnuts they call milky buns – sounded; despite how heavenly pictures of their confections looked on social media. But my passive boycott would not be for long thanks to my kid and her friends and their plans to “chill” at Afters following volleyball practice (hence the name?).
I could have said no. I could have given her my debit card and had her go it alone while I sat in the car. But I was curious. I wanted to see what all the hype was about – why there were grown folks standing in line past the door, and so well behaved. So I joined Kourtney and her friends and her friends’ moms and dads (who, by the way, were my friends, so the sitting in the car thing would have proved awkward and antisocial). And being the great mother that I am, I made a sacrifice by taking the lead in line, ordering before everyone else. Which meant I received my order first. Which meant I took mine down in about three bites, done before the rest of our group had finished ordering, leaving me to wallow in jealousy that I had nothing left while everyone else ate.
Don’t judge. You don’t even know what I ordered.
See, I plain-Jane it nine times out of ten. Simplicity is a winner in my humble opinion, so I don’t need dozens of flavors and textures fighting it out for my attention. Therefore, I ordered the glazed milky bun with Madagascar vanilla ice cream – no toppings. And it disappeared so quickly because – served warmed, the glaze from the doughnut glistening in its gooeyness, each syrupy crystal dancing on my tongue as it melted, in a fierce tango along with the fluffy doughnut and the delicately rich ice cream – that shit was bomb. Had I not been with company, it’s likely I would have gotten back in line for another, telling myself it was okay because I’d wake early and run four miles; and if I couldn’t make it out of bed at dawn’s crack, I’d take a one-day meal sabbatical. These are the brain games I play with myself to justify pigging out. (By the way, my day-long self imposed fasts never make it past 8:30 a.m.; and any run I finish lasting more than a couple miles almost always results in exceptional hunger, only satisfied by mounds of carbohydrates and cheesy fats.)
So it’s probably best that, in the future, I stick with my tendency to stay far, far away from food fads. There are plenty of established choices (like pizza) to keep me my thighs thick, my belly bloated, and my cholesterol high.
Afters Ice Cream
5708 E. 7th Street in Long Beach
and other locations