Ice Cream Chronicles (Year 3): A Truly Holey Alliance

The marriage of classic sweet treats (donuts and ice cream) is alive and
well in the Sacramento area, as evidenced by this food truck from The Parlor

For this ice cream encounter, we need to focus briefly on a country almost 8,000 miles from California's capital city. As detailed in this Sacramento Bee article, Cambodian refugees fleeing to the United States from the horrors of genocide in their homeland in the 1970s ended up discovering donut shops as a way to earn money despite limited work-skills and education. As noted in this same story, unofficial estimates show that roughly 90% of the independent donut shops in California are now owned by families of Cambodian descent.

Fast forward to 2013 to the Cambodian-owned Baker's Donuts in South Sacramento, which has been frying up dough for its customers since 1985. Siblings Douglas and Stephanie Hem, who grew up working in their family's donut business, persuaded their elders/business owners that both social media interaction and more unique creations were the key to keeping up with recently arrived corporate competitors like Krispy Kreme.

As it turned out, one of their menu additions, ice cream filled donuts (often sporting tropically-flavored ice creams like ube and mango), proved to be a runaway hit, sparking an eventual niche market in the region for this "holey" alliance of these two classic sweet treat favorites.

Alas, a trip to the originating source wasn't going to work with my itinerary on this quick jaunt out west, so I went with a slightly more convenient yet still highly-regarded purveyor in this sweet combination in The Parlor Ice Cream Puffs shop.