You know all about our “special breakfast” on Saturday mornings, right? Ben and I rise before dawn to plan the week’s menu, then wait patiently for Phil to wake up and delight us with some culinary feat. OK, cards on the table, we are rarely patient, and it’s almost always pancakes with bacon. The fire alarm goes off with a regularity that would deter some from following the same well-trodden path week after week, but alas, our family endures.
This week was kind of a pick your own adventure sort of breakfast. At every conceivable turn on the pancake flowchart, Phil went with the questionable option.
1. You’ve cracked your eggs, and begin adding other ingredients when you realize that the milk is a week past date. Do you A) Abandon the pancake plan, or B) Sniff the milk, proclaim “What you smell is what you get,” and proceed with the vintage milk?
B.
2. When you begin adding flour, you see that the flour bin is nearly empty and there isn’t a backup bag in the pantry. Do you A) Abandon the pancake plan, or B) Use an unmarked bag of probable pancake mix plus some whole wheat flour that has been waiting in the cupboard for its day in the sun for a long, long time?
B.
3. As you heat the griddle, you begin to question whether these pancakes are a doomed venture. Do you A) Abandon the pancake plan, or B) Gussy them up with some blueberries you find in the freezer; in for a penny, in for a pound?
B.
4. When your wife questions the addition of premium fruit to a hinky batch of pancakes, you say, A) “Nothing but the best for you, my love,” or B) “Don’t worry. The bag was labeled 2020. Up or out.”
B.
Your family, knowing all the risks inherent in this meal, decides to A) Abandon the pancake plan and possibly never eat again, or B) Take their chances with pancake roulette and live to tell the tale.
B.
My only defense is that I was really, really hungry, and truthfully, those pancakes weren’t bad.
When Ben suggested that we make breakfast for dinner this week, only a few days after the pancake debacle, I wasn’t sure I was quite ready to get back on that horse, but biscuits with sausage gravy and “scrumbled” eggs (like scrambled eggs, but more disgruntled) are a really easy week night fix. With a freshly stocked larder and the will of the people, we marched forward.
If you have to put your face on the plate, it’s a pretty good meal. May luck be on your side should you ever want to play breakfast roulette.
As a fellow Sprunger, I endorse Phil’s thrifty pancake choices!
They were thrifty choices, all right! I can’t believe they were actually pretty good and nobody got sick!