… and other food stuffs. I mentioned IHOP in the previous post. It was always a favorite place to stop when the girls were much younger. Especially on Sundays. Sundays used to be “Kids eat free” day. Now, you had to buy 1 adult meal for each free child’s meal, but any amount we could save would be a good thing. Things like this made going to IHOP the same cost as going to a fast food place. We were waited on too. Many other restaurants also offered the same type of deal. It was a great way to be able to have a good meal for a very reasonable cost.

Anyway, my lovely wife really liked IHOP . A favorite of hers were the blueberry waffles or pancakes. Topped with more blueberry syrup. I preferred the boysenberry. What got me was the last time I was in a IHOP, they didn’t have the boysenberry syrup. They also didn’t bring the Hot maple flavored syrup to the table. The four flavors of syrup at the table were Maple, Walnut, Strawberry and Blueberry. I missed the boysenberry and the hot syrup. I’m not sure if this was a local restaurant thing, it now covers all IHOPs

And that brings me to another pancake house, Perkins. In my younger days, my friends and I would spend many hours in that establishment. As long as we kept the blueberry pancakes away from Bill, everything was fine. Bill hated anything to do with blueberries.. And we loved teasing him about it too. That Perkins Restaurant is closed now, and it looks as though I would have to travel many a mile out of my usual range to get to one. Maybe on some cross country trip, I’ll have to find one on the way, just to relive old memories.

You’d think that these three foods would be easy to serve for a meal. Not so fast in these times. You can get all three in the frozen food section, but outside of toaster waffles, I don’t care for any of them. Pancakes should be easy, but there are different recipes for these and some the girls like, and others they don’t. You have your Bisquick pancakes, blueberry pancakes, Buckwheat pancakes, corn fritters, apple fritters, and so on. We generally stick to our tried and true recipe. I guess I should copy that out of the cookbook before in falls completely apart.

Waffles, well you have to have a special device (the waffle iron) to make them, or just buy the frozen toaster waffles. I said I like the toaster waffles, but I do like the home made better. Then you could always get a Belgian waffle iron if you want waffles with deeper pockets/holes. Do you want round or square waffles? Hmmm, seems like you can have as many choices as the pancakes.

But french toast, I grew up with one and only one type of French toast. Mom would either cook it on the griddle or she could bake it in the oven. Both ways, the french toast tasted exactly the same. Then I got married, my lovely wife’s family had a different version of french toast. It was a heavy batter dip, compared to the Egg and milk dip used by my family. It was tasty, but very, very filling. I found it was cheap to make too. So my little family grew up with my wife’s family recipe for french toast. Now they don’t care for the kind I grew up with (tastes too much like egg!!). Oh well, they are getting older now, and soon I’ll be able to make it the way I want. Or better yet, go to IHOP and order the stuffed french toast. Good eating, and now I’m hungry.

No toaster waffles, so I guess I can wait till morning…