Snow Donuts

At age fourteen I moved with my parents, brother and sister from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to a winter sports community in upstate New York. My sister and I cried for a thousand miles until we opened the car door and were hit with the cool crisp November air at our dinner/motel stop.


Refusing to talk to my parents, I marveled at the strangeness of being so far north where my parents had purchased a gift shop as an alternative to my dad earning a living of extremes as a stock broker. We were all planning to learn to ski and, in general, spend more quality family time together.

Even though my parents tried to prepare us for the “cozy” temporary rental house while dining in our majestic gated Florida house gradually becoming empty as we organized our possessions into labeled boxes, we hadn't pictured the inadequately heated trailer expanded with homemade construction.. The evening we arrived I curled up in a sleeping bag on the linoleum floor and wondered about ninth grade at my new high school.

In the morning we looked out the grimy windows to discover that not only were we in a field of actual accumulated snow but we were also looking at what my dad described as a “highly unusual phenomenon.”

“It happens maybe every twenty or thirty years when the snow, temperature and wind are just right.”

“The circles?” asked my ten year old sister.

“They're called snow donuts. There has to be fluffy newly fallen snow on top of hard packed snow and a cold dry wind.

“How do you know so much about snow?” I finally spoke to my dad.

“My parents took me on a ski vacation when I was about your age.”

“That makes you an expert?”

“After the vacation, I had to write a research paper for high school and I chose snow. That ski vacation was the first time I had ever seen snow, just like you.”

“What are you talking about. We've seen flurries.”

“Let's go play in the snow donuts,” my ten year old sister and eight year old brother put on their snow suits, thick books and ran outside.

“Don't eat the doughnuts,” said Dad.

“Don't knock them down,” admonished Mom who whipped out her camera and stood in the open doorway taking pictures in her bathrobe. A tidal wave of cold air rushed into our makeshift house as I hugged my coffee mug.

Reluctantly, I agreed to go outside, dig up one of the smaller donuts and put it in the freezer.

That winter I discovered the high school where the hallways were not jam packed with baby boomers. Most of the small population of white students were on teams of skiers or skaters. I tried skiing with my family and spent most of the time in the lodge with hot drinks while my younger brother and sister made progress first with lessons then by watching their school friends on what seemed to be frightening slopes. They had both made friends quickly while enjoying school recess on the sledding hill or skating pond. I tried getting on a snow mobile with a boy who drove through a fence. We were unharmed but I decided to never get on another snow mobile after reading about an electric wire fence decapitation. The snow mobiles were quite noisy.

I helped Mom and Dad clean and rearrange the gift shop. They seemed to talk to each other and laugh more than when they lived in Florida as a stay-at-home Mom and a stockbroker. Evenings in the expanded trailer, they looked through whole sale catalogs and made lists of gift shop items. They typed up a newsletter and press release together. In the shop, Mom and Dad served coffee, tea and Mom's homemade muffins, scones and cookies. They were both happy to chat endlessly with customers whether or not anything was purchased Working in the gift shop with my parents two days after school and on Saturdays was warmer than our poorly insulated trailer. I liked meeting the tourists who came for the skiing mostly from Canada and heavily populated areas south of us.

In the evenings, at home, I often retreated to my room in the trailer addition while my parents, brother and sister read aloud, played board games and occasionally watched one of the two TV stations. I wrote letters to my friends in Florida while smoking stolen cigarettes near a crack in my window even though my parents were not likely to notice the smoke because everyone smoked everywhere back then.

During this time, a woman came into the gift shop who was wearing a long coat instead of a ski jacket. She had messy curly shoulder length hair under a felt hat.

“Are you OK?”

I paused before replying with the question, “What do you mean?”

“I forget that in America you say how are you?”

She was helping her friends, who had moved here from England, set up a store with books, healthy food and a room for yoga classes.

“Come by on our opening day and take a free class.”

The yoga class was held in a cozy room on mats where we could feel warm while looking at the snow outside the window. I breathed in the incensed air while feeling myself expand as the teacher/store owner guided us through the poses. After yoga, I sat at one of the few tables in the deli and ate a bowl of brown rice with vegetables and a spongy substance called tofu.

“How do you like it,” asked the woman who had invited me to the grand opening.

“I liked the yoga. The food is different but I think it's good.”

“Here, have a cookie and tea on the house.”

The peanut butter cookie was quite different from Mom's light sweet cookies because it was made with whole grain flour and maple syrup.

“Could I have the recipe for the cookie.”

“Hey Sarah. She wants your secret recipe.”

“It's not so secret,” Sarah was a short fit woman with straight blond hair to her waist. She wore an Indian imprint skirt over her leotard. She and her husband Albert, who was tall and skinny with long sideburns and dark brown hair that hung just above his shoulders, explained that the store was a labor of love and devotion to their beliefs.

“What do you believe in?” I asked hesitantly.

“Love and peace, food that comes from love and peace, and yoga,” said Albert.

They were people who enjoyed owning a small business like my parents, yet they had some kind of mission that had to do with a society that was changing.

“Do you want to help in the bakery?”

“What would I do?”

“Bake cookies,” said Sarah. “We need lots of different kinds of cookies. You can look through this cookbook for starters.” She held up a book with the title Sweet and Natural Desserts.

I helped with the baking two afternoons a week after school discovering healthy chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, ginger snaps and my piece de resistance biscotti.

Sarah offered me free food and free yoga as payment. I invited my family for Apres Ski cookies, tea and hot chocolate.

My father picked up a yoga book with a purple and white cover. “I'll buy this for you,” he announced.

“Why?”

“Don't you have to write a research paper for school.”