Sunday, July 01, 2007

Dutch Baby...What's My Name Bitch!




In my recent travels to South Carolina, I had the pleasure to visit an institution called the "Original Pancake House" (as opposed to Pancake House Beta, no relation). Inside was a visual kaleidescope of mint green booths set against bright red painted walls. If you're a student of color study, you may recall that this is not a great move in regards to motivating appetites but then again, you are at a place called The Original Pancake House, you know what your getting yourself into. The complex menu required me to feyly ask the waitress to give me a few more minutes before I finally settled on something that sounded both terrifying and...terrifying at the same time. The Dutch Baby.
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Given the fact that I was in the equivalent of a pancake Ellis Island where I could have had a doughy concoction of any nationality, I gravitated toward the Dutch Baby mostly because it didn't have a photo, it was prominently featured in bold and I had somewhat of a death wish this week. I hate syrupy sweet things in general and I was assured that this was out of the ordinary when it comes to traditional pancakes. Basically I was told "If 'ya like eggs, you'll love it..."
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"Whaaa...?" I said, as my waitress wheeled off to attend to the booth of red hat ladies behind me. When this monstrosity was placed before me, it resembled a grade school drawing of a snowy canker sore and took up half of the table. A few minutes later, I was brought a caddy with butter, fresh cut lemon and powdered sugar. I was given a five second pep talk regarding how to use these elements on my "Dutch Baby" before my waitress again disappeared to flap some jacks or pop some poor child's balloon as I had the distinct feeling she was expertly deft at doing. Left to my own devices, I timidly skated the pat of whipped butter around the inside of the "baby" which made me feel a little like I was on the other side of the kitchen cutting block from Chris Hanson, then to really fuck things up (what the hell, right?) I squeezed the lemo
n over the center of the doughy abyss followed by a dusting of powdered sugar which turned into a veritable mud bath.
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Inexplicably what happened next was akin to discovering a tucked away little country store, wood paneling and linoleum floors still intact, selling fully stocked treasures of my youth at Reagan-era prices. In short, I blog about this only in hopes to let the world know how great this eggy treat is but fear for its inevitable gentrification and sampling by Kanye West. Despite being named after some anonymous dead baby with wooden shoes (I assume), this shit is the bomb!
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Transitioning now to something that has always bothered me. US Weekly. Is it us as in "we" or is it only for people in these United States of Amurica? Is there a UK Weekly? I have always wondered just how to pronounce the title of this crappy little Super Cuts staple and ever since it's inception, anytime I flip through Entertainment Weekly (its more citified cousin) and see them refer to themselves as EW, I can't help but wonder if they mean "Ewww."
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