Having been raised in the buckle of the Bible belt in Alabama on pot liquor and cornbread, I was unprepared for dinner (which is really supper) upon my August arrival in the Big Apple. After an intense day of moving, my stomach was hungry in every language. But I found that if I waited to find grits and gravy, the city that never sleeps would have become, for me, the city that never eats. A couple of hours later, I wistfully ate a bagel with cream cheese.

A week and two pounds after my arrival, I saw a Krispy Kreme napkin lying on the dirty floor of a subway station. I picked it up, fingering it gently, like a winning lottery ticket the wind had blown onto my doorstep. Neon bulbs signaling "Hot Doughnuts Now" flashed in my mind's eye, and my salivary glands pushed toward flood stage as I mentally strolled back to the home side of the Mason-Dixon.

Growing up, I devoured those delightful globs of sugar and shortening. And as a member of the high school band and local community youth clubs, I sold boxes of Krispy Kremes to raise funds for trips or new uniforms or the Christmas dance. I'd pick up my share at 7 a.m. and stake out busy intersections or the library steps, swapping a hot dozen for $2, always saving a couple of boxes to take home. Strolling into the kitchen with my mouth half full, I'd hit up my mother for another $4, and offer her a now cold pastry in return. Without fail, her boxes never came out to an even dozen. There was always one missing. What has math education come to, she, an algebra teacher, would teasingly ask.

Though math failed me (and I it), my investigative mind and growling stomach led me to the corner of 23rd Street and 8th Avenue where I found the good ol' green and white, boxing up the Kremes as quickly as they rolled under the cascade of glaze and off the conveyor belt. The smell was familiar, the taste even sweeter than I'd remembered, though here $2 would buy only four.

Krispy Kreme made its New York debut in June, and the rings are selling faster than hotcakes or, in this case, bagels. Pearline at the counter served my friends and me a cold glass of milk with our four chocolate, four raspberry-filled and four glazed with a cheerfulness foreign to this city, the self-proclaimed capital of the world. I guess the friendly attitude was brought in for decoration, along with the 50-year-old black and white photos of other Krispy's from around the South that line the walls. Ringing endorsements from fat and happy customers and an advertisement for caps and t-shirts adorn bulletin boards that flank the counter.

"We're outta shirts," I hear Pearline tell the man in front of us. "All gone."

One of my companions, a first-timer here, laughed at my kid-at-Christmas expression as I swallowed my second before he'd begun. But his own grin broke out as soon as the glaze greeted his taste buds. One mouth at a time, they'll learn, I thought.

We hurried through the box, and, of course, got an extra 12 to go. But it was enough.

I'd visited home without ever fastening my seatbelt or putting my tray in the upright position. And predictably, when I returned to my uptown apartment and set the box on my new kitchen table, only 11 remained.

A New Yorker exits Krispy Kreme with a box of glazed doughnuts under his arm.(Photo by Courtney Hardee)

Krispy Kreme plans a hole lotta growth