Breakfast

Who knew that making waffles could be so fraught with symbolism and stress?  As a single woman, I never gave a thought about waffles, irons or, come to think about it, marriage. One day my mother called to say she couldn't, just couldn't send me a waffle iron. Why? She had read a "Cathy" comic strip where Cathy's mother went on her usual neurotic rant about how she couldn't buy Cathy a waffle iron because waffle irons meant children, which meant marriage, which meant husbands, none of which Cathy had. 

In the summer of 1966 I worked as a dishwasher in a summer camp near Hunter Mountain in upstate New York. This was in the pre-automatic dishwasher days meaning dirty dishes were dumped in a super hot sink of soapy water and washed and dried by hand. I used to come in around 6 a.m. to clean the breakfast pots and pans. Henry, a very tall, rail thin man who had been a cook in World War II in Europe, had gotten there at least an hour before me; I usually found him smoking a filterless cigarette and slowly beating  powdered eggs and water in a huge stainless steel bowl or ladling out pancakes on the football field-size griddle.

Though he was cooking for well over 150 people every morning he never seemed to be in a rush. Though there was no air conditioning and an eight burner stove going full blast, Henry barely broke a sweat. I started sweating from the moment I got there; and being a not very bright 14-year-old, I often compounded my problems by forgetting to use an oven mitt when picking up a hot pan or getting scalding hot water in my rubber washing gloves.

It happened suddenly.  One minute we were together, touching, my hands on his body, as close as always, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, signs of dire distress.  It sounded like a heave or a deep sigh.  But I heard a click in there somewhere as well.  Something more than the whirl of a distant fan.  I heard danger.  I heard Mac’s finally gasp.

And then, after four years together, nine to ten hours a day, seven days a week, for all 52 weeks of the year – half of those trying to work, the other half simply searching together for answers – it was over. 

Lately, he was the first thing I reached for in the morning after my husband, who gets up early, was gone.  I pulled him off the table and woke him up from his sleep.  I demanded that he bring me the New York Times.  That was always the start.

Before there was IHOP, there was Gwynn’s. 

When I was a kid in suburban Teaneck, New Jersey, it was always a treat to go for Sunday brunch with my family at Gwynn’s on Teaneck Road.  Gwynn’s seemed swanky and grown-up to me.  Outside, it was painted white brick, and inside it was cool and darkish, with comfy booths.  My mother would order her coffee, and the cream came in tiny, glass pitchers with little round cardboard pull-tabs on top.  She only used a drop and then gave me the supreme pleasure of letting me drink the rest of the cream from its miniature jar.  Sometimes, if she had a second cup, I got another taste of the thick, heavenly liquid that would contribute to the need for Lipitor years later.  Compared to my very picky little sister, who ate only cream cheese and jelly, I was “a good eater” with a passion for pancakes, waffles and French toast.

Then, in the mid 60’s, across town on Cedar Lane, a new place opened up, part of a chain that seemed to be popping up all over America: the International House of Pancakes.  People were talking about it, and my cousins three towns away had already been to another one and were jazzed.  It didn’t have Gwynn’s sophistication or my beloved mini-pots of cream, but on our first visit, I discovered silver dollar pancakes – a plateful of glorious, child-sized, golden ducats.  I was hooked!  Soon thereafter, chocolate chip pancakes appeared on the menu, and I became an under-age chocoholic.