It's been a week since I've blogged, and the thing that's important enough that it's pulling me away from my end-of-semester grading to write here isWAFFLES.
Maybelle loves waffles. Perhaps as much as she loves strawberry-banana Chobani yogurt. I am a classy parent, so she eats nothing but the best: Nutrigrain Eggos with Log Cabin syrup.
She's stayed with other families several times recently, and something I've discovered is that she won't eat waffles with other folks. In part, I think she likes to eat her most familiar food when she's staying at other people's houses, and her most familiar food is yogurt. So she eats--well, really, nothing but yogurt when she's with other families.
But it's also occurred to me that not everybody has the approach to syrup that I have. (Mom, stop reading now!)
I was raised in a healthy household. HEALTHY. It was somewhat alternative-lifestyle at the time, but now it looks pretty familiar: every Trader-Joe's-shopping middle class person eats the kind of food my mother fed us growing up. Nothing like high fructose corn syrup ever entered our house. The waffles were made in my mother's own waffle iron, and they were drizzled with actual maple syrup.
Which I hated. I ate my waffles with homemade (I'm not kidding) strawberry jam instead.
So here's what happens with Maybelle: she gets her waffles drenched in syrup. Not drizzled. Her waffles aren't a dry bread-product with just a bit of syrup flavoring them. They are soaked with Log Cabin. Each bite is heavy and dripping. There's a pool of syrup on her plate when she's finished. A common waffle conversation is
Maybelle: "Syrup."
Alison: "Full sentence, please."
Maybelle: "I want more syrup, please."
And then I comply.
I got home from conferences exactly a week ago and went to the grocery store. One of the things I bought there was a new bottle of Log Cabin. Check out the bottle on the table in the picture above. Empty. And I haven't eaten any of it. Maybelle ingests a full bottle of Log Cabin in one week's time. That's pretty impressive, and really nothing at all like my childhood.
Now I'm going back to grading.
Yes, your mother is appalled at the amount of syrup Maybelle eats. Thank goodness she doesn't like cookies, cake or candy!!! I really laughed out loud at the point you told me to stop reading...and of course, I didn't.
ReplyDeleteJust give her time, mom. Surely she'll take after me and cookies, cake, or candy one of these days.
DeleteLike Maybelle, I believe waffles are a mere platform for Log Cabin syrup, which is hands down my favorite syrup. At least Log Cabin no longer contains high-fructose corn syrup.
ReplyDeleteMore power to you, Maybelle! Brian McGee
The fact that you know that it no longer contains high-fructose corn syrup makes me believe that it is your favorite. I almost mentioned that fact in my post!
DeleteWe grew up eating Log Cabin or Aunt Jemima, and my sisters have carried on that tradition. My Swiss husband who does all the waffle and pancake cooking at our house was appalled when I brought the stuff out, though, so now we're a maple syrup family. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear that, Elizabeth. I know a lot of people love maple syrup, but it just doesn't work for me.
DeleteYou non-maple eating people are crazy. I'll refrain from saying more about it. However, I do agree that Mom's homemade strawberry syrup (not jam, silly face) is the bomb. I mention it regularly when we make our pancakes at home.
ReplyDeleteIs this partly a North vs. South thing? I was raised in VT and the fake syrup is intolerable to me while my husband was raised in Georgia and that swill is just fine with him. Our son was born in NC and I'm going to do my damndest to raise him right.
ReplyDeletethat picture is amazing.
ReplyDelete