Pancake Story
Matthew
Ryan Fischer
It was perhaps the greatest pancake possible – or at
least that was Randy’s thought on the subject. He was no cooking expert, but he
knew what he liked. Fluffy, moist and light in the inside. Dark and crisp on the
outside. And they were thick. When you ate them, you knew you were eating
something filling. Not so filling that it would make a person suffer that heavy
lump in the stomach that bordered on nausea at times, or make someone feel the
fatigue that comes from a sugar crash or a carbohydrate coma. They were just
the right amount of filling. Filling enough.
Randy loved breakfast food, especially in the middle
of the night. Something about having beer in your system always made pancakes
better. Probably some reaction with the yeast, but Randy didn’t really know. He
didn’t know a lot of things and had little interest in scientific reasons for
things happening. He just knew he loved late night pancakes and knew that she had
no idea what she was missing out on.
House of Pies was at the corner of Franklin and Vermont in Los
Feliz. There was no reason to think a place called House of Pies would serve
some of the best pancakes out there. Actually judging from the relative quality
of the building and the decor in general, one might wonder if they served much
of anything at all that could be considered great or the best. But if one was going
to wager that they did something right, they would assume that a place with ‘Pies’
in the title would make great pies. And they did. But the pancakes were an oft
overlooked treat. And they had a wide variety of them – fruits, cinnamon, cream
cheese icing, peanut butter, and chocolate chips to name a few. They were all
delicious, but Randy preferred the apple butter icing with the coffee cake
batter. Sometimes he would spread some of the cream cheese icing on it instead
of using syrup or the apple butter, and add a dash of cinnamon for flavor.
Some people thought the pancakes were too sweet. Randy thought
those people were wrong. There was nothing wrong with sweet. Sweet could be
quite endearing. The world needed more sweetness in it.
It was half past 1am. The House was going to be closing soon.
Randy ate slowly, wanting to savor every morsel. He washed the last bite down
with a sip of decaf coffee, black. As much as he appreciated sugar on his pancakes,
he didn’t like sweet coffee. Coffee was supposed to be bitter. There were a lot
of things in life that were bitter. Coffee was a good reminder of that.
He loved those pancakes. They were easy to love. Love was supposed
to be that easy. You found what you liked, what worked, what made sense, and
you embraced the hell out of it. That’s what Randy did. He loved those pancakes
and he loved to eat them his way. She had no idea what she was missing out on.
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