My wife, Laura, and I took our seats at one of the freshly wiped booths in IHOP and picked up our laminated menus. Laura grinned at me. “I don’t know why I’m looking at the menu already. It’s going to take you ten minutes to read through the whole thing anyway.” Laura and I had already been married several years and she was well aware of my idiosyncrasies. I like to study a menu thoroughly before ordering. That way I can make sure to carefully weigh all my options, agonize and debate myself, then spend the rest of the meal wondering if the other choices might not have been superior after all.
This particular Saturday morning promised to be no different. I opened up my menu. My strategy is to first read the items marked with a star, which denotes items new to the menu. Then I go back and read all the classic items and compare the two before narrowing down my choices. The first new item was the Butterscotch Rocks Pancakes, described as “Four fluffy buttermilk pancakes filled with pecans, granola and butterscotch chips, then topped with whipped topping and drizzled with caramel sauce.”
I put down the menu. “I’m ready to order,” I announced
Laura’s mouth fell open and her eyes widened in surprise. She looked at me with a small frown, concerned. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Destiny has called and declared my breakfast.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
It turned out that the description was a little misleading. The pecans and granola were sprinkled on top with the caramel syrup on top of the whipped cream. The only thing baked into the pancakes were the butterscotch chips, which melted just a little and flowed outward into the settled batter. This was just fine with me, though. Butterscotch should stand on its own and it’s appropriate that the rest of the advertised ingredients were relegated to garnish. Butterscotch is the greatest of all flavors. Some people are vanilla people – plain and boring. Some people are chocolate people – trendy and popular. I count myself amongst the butterscotch people – a little different from everyone else.
I cut my pancakes into a grid of sixteen squares like I’m fond of doing and stabbed the first stack of four squares with my fork. I put the stack in my mouth and immediately closed my eyes. I felt compelled to blind myself to the outside world. Nothing must interfere with the savoring of this bite – because I could tell right away this was something deserving of savor. The toppings melded with the thick pancakes in an agreeable mix of textures, complementing the flavor of the butterscotch like a lonely man finding love for the first time. The butterscotch cut through the buttermilk pancakes to my taste-buds like a spatula icing a cake. I imagined an angel toiling over a sizzling pan, mixing up the ultimate joy of spiritual enlightenment with some buttermilk and flour.
I let out a contented sigh and opened my eyes. I pointed at the stack of pancakes with my fork. “This is the greatest thing ever,” I declared. Usually Laura likes to steal one of my perfect stacks of pancake squares right out of the middle, just to mess with me, but she didn’t have the heart this time. The pancakes remained pure, unblemished, as I devoured them, starting from the upper left and working my way in a serpentine pattern through the pancake grid.
I resolved to write a poem honoring and praising the greatness of the Butterscotch Rocks pancakes. Food is one of my favorite topics for poetry. The first poem I ever had published was the tragic, long-lined “How I Got Hosed By the Vending Machine.” Recently, I’d written “Ode to Mrs. Buttersworth” and “Ode to the Cheesesteak” and I’d been pondering various culinary candidates to complete my trilogy of food-inspired odes. The Butterscotch Rocks Pancakes were like a gift from the hungry muses.
* * * * *
A month later we returned to IHOP for another Saturday morning breakfast. I didn’t even pick up a menu. I’d been thinking about those pancakes all month and even dreamed about them once. In that dream, instead of the pancakes being set on a table, the pancakes were the table and I ate the entire thing so that no food could be served there again. I hadn’t written that poem yet but I had a few good lines floating around my head and I was looking forward to a second experience to inspire my creative de-constructive carpentry. When the waitress brought us our drinks and asked if we were ready to order, I replied at once: “I’ll have those heavenly Butterscotch Rocks pancakes.”
The waitress turned big sad eyes on me. My breath caught in my throat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Those were a temporary item and they’re not on our menu anymore.”
I tilted back my head and moaned. “Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
My cry echoed in the restaurant and a few heads turned my direction from across the dining area. Laura shook her head, chuckled under her breath, and tactfully and nonchalantly covered up her wedding ring with her right hand. The waitress took a couple of careful steps backwards.
I opened up the menu and started to peruse the boring old options. My thoughts were heavy and full. One thing I knew for sure – I’d never write that third ode. It would be just too sad and depressing to think of my Butterscotch Rocks Pancakes lost forever. To think that Earthly paradise is available for a limited time only.
This particular Saturday morning promised to be no different. I opened up my menu. My strategy is to first read the items marked with a star, which denotes items new to the menu. Then I go back and read all the classic items and compare the two before narrowing down my choices. The first new item was the Butterscotch Rocks Pancakes, described as “Four fluffy buttermilk pancakes filled with pecans, granola and butterscotch chips, then topped with whipped topping and drizzled with caramel sauce.”
I put down the menu. “I’m ready to order,” I announced
Laura’s mouth fell open and her eyes widened in surprise. She looked at me with a small frown, concerned. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Destiny has called and declared my breakfast.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
It turned out that the description was a little misleading. The pecans and granola were sprinkled on top with the caramel syrup on top of the whipped cream. The only thing baked into the pancakes were the butterscotch chips, which melted just a little and flowed outward into the settled batter. This was just fine with me, though. Butterscotch should stand on its own and it’s appropriate that the rest of the advertised ingredients were relegated to garnish. Butterscotch is the greatest of all flavors. Some people are vanilla people – plain and boring. Some people are chocolate people – trendy and popular. I count myself amongst the butterscotch people – a little different from everyone else.
I cut my pancakes into a grid of sixteen squares like I’m fond of doing and stabbed the first stack of four squares with my fork. I put the stack in my mouth and immediately closed my eyes. I felt compelled to blind myself to the outside world. Nothing must interfere with the savoring of this bite – because I could tell right away this was something deserving of savor. The toppings melded with the thick pancakes in an agreeable mix of textures, complementing the flavor of the butterscotch like a lonely man finding love for the first time. The butterscotch cut through the buttermilk pancakes to my taste-buds like a spatula icing a cake. I imagined an angel toiling over a sizzling pan, mixing up the ultimate joy of spiritual enlightenment with some buttermilk and flour.
I let out a contented sigh and opened my eyes. I pointed at the stack of pancakes with my fork. “This is the greatest thing ever,” I declared. Usually Laura likes to steal one of my perfect stacks of pancake squares right out of the middle, just to mess with me, but she didn’t have the heart this time. The pancakes remained pure, unblemished, as I devoured them, starting from the upper left and working my way in a serpentine pattern through the pancake grid.
I resolved to write a poem honoring and praising the greatness of the Butterscotch Rocks pancakes. Food is one of my favorite topics for poetry. The first poem I ever had published was the tragic, long-lined “How I Got Hosed By the Vending Machine.” Recently, I’d written “Ode to Mrs. Buttersworth” and “Ode to the Cheesesteak” and I’d been pondering various culinary candidates to complete my trilogy of food-inspired odes. The Butterscotch Rocks Pancakes were like a gift from the hungry muses.
* * * * *
A month later we returned to IHOP for another Saturday morning breakfast. I didn’t even pick up a menu. I’d been thinking about those pancakes all month and even dreamed about them once. In that dream, instead of the pancakes being set on a table, the pancakes were the table and I ate the entire thing so that no food could be served there again. I hadn’t written that poem yet but I had a few good lines floating around my head and I was looking forward to a second experience to inspire my creative de-constructive carpentry. When the waitress brought us our drinks and asked if we were ready to order, I replied at once: “I’ll have those heavenly Butterscotch Rocks pancakes.”
The waitress turned big sad eyes on me. My breath caught in my throat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Those were a temporary item and they’re not on our menu anymore.”
I tilted back my head and moaned. “Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
My cry echoed in the restaurant and a few heads turned my direction from across the dining area. Laura shook her head, chuckled under her breath, and tactfully and nonchalantly covered up her wedding ring with her right hand. The waitress took a couple of careful steps backwards.
I opened up the menu and started to peruse the boring old options. My thoughts were heavy and full. One thing I knew for sure – I’d never write that third ode. It would be just too sad and depressing to think of my Butterscotch Rocks Pancakes lost forever. To think that Earthly paradise is available for a limited time only.
