Waffle Extravaganza

      Those of you who read this blog regularly (all four of you) know that I typically post a recipe on Sunday.  This last weekend, I let you down.  And I'm sorry.
      That wasn't because I wasn't cooking.  It was because I was eating.  A lot.  I'm pretty sure I had five slices of bacon, and 7 waffles over the course of the afternoon.  A friend and I were celebrating our birthdays by binging on waffles and cartoons.

A show this sweet will warm your heart and spike your insulin levels.
      The cartoon: A Little Snow Fairy Sugar.  Yes, it's anime, and yes, it is for all ages.  It is goofy and cute and innocent (except for one slightly pervy fairy dude, but if you weren't on the lookout for perviness you'd never notice) and because it takes place in a small town in Belgium, everybody is eating waffles all the time.  Hence the waffle binge.
      We made two kinds of waffles: my family's recipe (four generations and going strong), and Alton Brown's Basic Waffles.  It was a good waffle experiment.  His were crispier, and a little nutty tasting from the whole wheat flour, but still gently sweet.  My family's recipe were more tender, and rich, but not all that sweet, so they were open to a greater variety of topings.
     Oh yeah, the toppings!  We tested classic maple syrup (always delicious), Nutella (hard to go wrong), and my own Salty Caramel Sauce with Stout (hands down everybody's favorite).  I specifically did not go the whipped cream and berry route because a. it's not berry season anymore, and b. while whipped cream is always delicious, it takes up valuable stomach real estate, and I wanted to leave no waffle un-tasted.
      So I considered posting my family's waffle recipe, but here's the thing: it's a family recipe.  I'm not 100% sure my Grandmother didn't get it from some cookbook originally, but I remember her greasy, stained recipe card, the instructions composed on an ancient typewriter, the ink fading a little more with every use.  Then my Mom copied it down with a pen into her spiral notepad of recipies, until it got so greasy and sticky with syrup she needed to re-write it on a proper recipe card.  And I got it from her.  There's a beauty to that--a sacredness.  Grandma passed away the better part of a decade ago, but I feel like I need to get an Ok from some of the other family foodies because I cast it out into the world.  I'll let you know.
      Thanksgiving it coming up!  This week's "Shadows on the Sound" podcast is about foods in legend and myth, and hopefully it will make you as hungry as it did me.  And I promise to have at least one tasty, unusual use for Thanksgiving leftovers posted in week after Turkey Day!

And if you care to answer S.O.S.'s Weekly Geeky Query, you can do so by commenting at this blog post!  The Query: If you could have a meal with any fictional character, who would it be, and what would you eat?

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