January has more than its share of bleak mornings, and on this particular bleak January morning Hester decides only a pastry larger than her head will lift her spirits. For a stitch face, such a thing actually exists. The rest of us can only dream.

Hester heads to Dominique Ansel Bakery, home of the world-famous cronut. Invented right here in NYC, the cronut was the most-talked-about pastry of 2013, generating lines around the block at the height of its popularity. The New York Times rather sourly commented: “The lines outside Ansel’s bakery seemed to embody all that was wrong with New York in its new Gilded Age: its vulnerability to hype and its willingness to pay obscene prices and endure penitential inconveniences at the hands of culinary auteurs,” and “On any given morning in a city of eight and a half million, there will almost always be a hundred people bored or impressionable enough to spend $5 and an hour or two of their lives to see what all the fuss is about.”

But even now, almost five years later, there is still a cronut line, albeit a short one, that forms before the bakery opens. If you want a normal pastry or coffee you can skip the line, but if you’re there for a cronut you have to wait your turn.

Hester is not big on trends, and she generally will not wait in line for anything, but it seemed like a good day to find out what the cronut hysteria was all about. Something that can still generate a line in NYC after five years, and on a bleak January morning pre-8 AM, no less, has certainly graduated from trendy new thing to a classic with staying power.

Every month brings a new flavor of cronut. This month, it is Pear Jam with Chamomile Ganache and Lemon Zest Sugar. Fun as it is to say, it is even more fun to eat.

Hester has discovered the secret of the cronut’s contuining popularity, and it’s not deeply mysterious:

The cronut is delicious.

Hester is made from another piece of fabric that my mother found for me at her swap table. Her sweater is a cashmere sock of mine. My children routinely get me very nice socks for Christmas, and the nicer the socks the faster they wear out. Her fringe-y boots, which, along with the cronut, also helped improve Hester’s mood, are made from what I believe was a placemat, donated by my artist friend Virginia. I can always tell which pieces of fabric come from Virginia, because they have a lovely floral scent.

Hester’s vest is made from a bathrobe that belonged to my friend Jennie’s daughter. If you can’t go to the bakery in your bathrobe, this is the next best thing.

Twixt the optimist and the pessimist
The difference is droll:
The optimist sees the doughnut
But the pessimist sees the hole.

—attributed on the internet to different people, including Oscar Wilde and Emily Dickinson, both of whom strike me as unlikely