SEATTLE — I was surrounded by fresh fruits and vegetables, organic dried fruits and seafood still glistening from the ocean, and what did I fall for? The donuts.

There I was in Seattle, in the famous Pike Place Market, wandering the stalls of local and exotic fare. Part of my impetus to visit this city in the Pacific Northwest was that it seemed to be something of a culinary crossroads.

Two of my very favorite food bloggers live there, and they write with love and tenderness of the food to be eaten, in their homes or at local restaurants, in their idyllic region. They wax poetic about items like rhubarb and avocados, and I got to thinking that maybe their hometown was a place I might like to vacation.

So I arrived last Saturday (in the snow!) and had barely dropped my bags before stuffing myself with a sushi meal that was more fresh and exotic than any I’d ever had. I ate geoduck and abalone and raw prawns until the waistband on my jeans tightened. My vacation was off to a good start.

The next morning, I wandered the few blocks down to Pike Place Market. I started at one end, with the craft merchants selling tourist kitsch and Native American art and small dangling earrings. A man played the ukulele as I wandered the aisles between tables heavy with crafts. Still, I kept my eyes wide and my money to myself.

As I moved through the market, foodstuffs started showing up: a table laden with hot pepper jellies. Another stacked with small jars of local jams, fruit butters and dessert sauces. Rows of pastas flavored with garlic, herbs, Tunisian hot sauce or chocolate. I looked admiringly, and even tasted a sample or two, but still wasn’t sure what I wanted to buy.

Next came the fruit and vegetable stands. Tableaus of green and pink - ruby rhubarb, fiddlehead ferns, ramps, asparagus, small delicate artichokes and huge ones bigger than a toy poodle. Fat green-and-white leeks and apples in red, yellow and pink. But alas, I had no kitchen. Though the ramps were tempting, there was nothing I could do.

Likewise the seafood stands. Four different fish guys hawked their wares: whole salmon two feet in length, glittering and silver; fat Dungeness crab boiled and blushing; dark purple tuna steaks. I looked at fat lobster tails and snow-white cod fillets with longing, but couldn’t purchase any of them.

And then, among the fish guys throwing huge carcasses around for the adoring crowd snapping pictures, I smelled a most heavenly smell.

Donuts.

A tiny cart marked “Daily Dozen” had a line of about half a dozen people waiting eagerly for mini donuts, hot from the oil and served in brown paper bags by a guy with turquoise hair.

At first I tried to walk on. I headed towards the butcher to eye his rumps and ribs, but it was a losing battle. The smell of dough frying in hot oil, mingling with coffee and chocolate icing, was more than I could resist. I circled back and joined the line.

As I waited, I marveled at the small, automated donut-making machine. Batter went into a small cone which dripped small, uniform cylinders directly into a small stream of hot oil below. The current in the oil moved them along until, just as they were golden and done, they climbed up onto a small conveyor belt made of wire to allow them to drain.

The conveyor belt moved them along and dumped them into the bottom level of an enormous, three-tiered rotating candy dish. The other two levels were stacked with powdered sugar donuts and the chocolate frosted variety, with sprinkles.

When my turn came, I ordered a sack of a half-dozen cinnamon donuts. The guy with the turquoise hair lifted the small donuts from the bottom tier of the donut dish with his tongs, flipping the last one high into the air and catching it in my brown paper sack filled with cinnamon sugar. He gave the sack a toss, coating all the donuts with the spiced sugar and handed me the bag, already soaking through with spots of grease.

I bit into a donut: the warm soft center, the slightly crispy crust sweetened with melting sugar and cinnamon, a sandy and soft consistency, familiar and exciting and satisfying. I took a sip of that famous Seattle coffee, bitter and hot. I sighed in pleasure.

I floated back through the market, retracing my steps, liberally buying anything that might catch my fancy. Garlic rosemary linguini? Yes. Olive oil infused with orange and fennel, and spicy balsamic to pair with it? Of course. White chocolate amaretto dessert sauce — how had I passed by you the first time?

I watched admiringly as guys in rubber boots shouted and hurled fish at each other. I pressed my nose against the glass where workers stirred huge vats of whey to make thick rounds of cheddar cheese. I opened jars in the spice shop and breathed deeply, inhaling the spicy aroma of chai teas and salmon rubs.

Locals will tell you that Pike Place Market is touristy, and of course it is - likely no Seattlelites were picking up ingredients for their weekly meals while I sampled pumpkin butter sweetened with agave. But that doesn’t keep it from being a vivid experience of color, taste and smell, a place for a food nerd to stretch out and get comfortable.

It just helps if you have a donut first.

Photo by Salim Virji