JAPAN

We home hosted two delightful women; Fujiko and Etsuko. When asked what they wanted to do on the free day, they expressed two things: a botanical garden, and a cronut dessert. We had no idea what a cronut was, and no idea where to purchase such a thing. They informed us that they had watched a television show, the baker prepared cronuts and they looked delicious. Internet research led us to a small bakery in Brooklyn, enroute to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. We entered the shop and asked the woman behind the counter to show us cronuts. We also explained to her why we wanted them. She told us that she owned the shop and her son was the baker, and she asked us to wait a few minutes while she went to the back of the shop. Out came her son, and the ambassadors started jumping up and down enthralled. The man was the very person they had seen in the documentary.

Post-script: The cronuts were delicious.

— Sheila and Ivan Ziegler