The Exciting Conclusion of the Waffle-Off

You'll need a bit of backstory to get to the thrilling conclusion of this post, and I'm afraid the story goes much farther back than the story is thrilling.  A fine Juneau institution is the Waffle Co., and after enjoying some of their Ham and Cheese waffles while on a visit home from grad school, Matt and I thought we should try to make savory waffles at home. We acquired a little waffle-maker for the project, and some busy school night decided to give this a go.  In my memory, it took a long time.  You add cold ham and cheese to waffles, they take a long time to cook.  If you ask Matt, you would think the waffle-maker destroyed our breakfast-for-dinner optimism, that it ruined more that just one part of an evening, but perhaps our entire faith in waffles.  I actually believed for a long time that Matt didn't like waffles.  Any Sunday morning where waffles might suit me, he would snarl at the waffle-maker, or sigh in disgust, and we would usually skip to pancakes, which he says "are faster." Really, the sting of slow waffles had stung too deep, and that trust was irreparably broken, never to heal.

So imagine my surprise, when for my birthday, Matt gave me a waffle-maker.  A very nice waffle maker, the kind that flips over (I don't understand this, but the one at the dorms did this).  Tragically, it was dented, so it was returned to a store that was SOLD OUT of such nice waffle-makers, presumably to people who hadn't been betrayed by them before.  But this started the conversation again.  Didn't we love waffles?  Was it too painful to invite them back into our lives, or could we try to see past the failure of the waffle-makers to the joy that waffles bring?  Matt held firm that the first waffle-maker was "too slow," that better waffle-makers could do the job faster, possibly fluffier and toastier (sins I don't recall from the original waffle incident, but like I said, we seemed to have experienced this differently). Maybe he could love waffles again, but surely there was a better way??

At my second birthday party, at Betty's, I got another new waffle maker.  This was good, because the first present came with 30 lbs of waffle mix (see? he wants to love waffles again).  The new waffle-maker didn't have flipping capacity, but it did have George Foreman on the front, and I instinctively trust his judgement on waffles.  And now we have two waffle-makers.  Not that I am picking favorites, but we thought we should settle the score, once and for all.  Was the old waffle-maker too slow?  Would a new one be faster? Fluffier? Toastier?  We mixed up a batch of waffle-mix, and turned on both waffle-makers for a Waffle-Off- a side-by-side duel of breakfast food.

That brings us up to speed. Are you ready for this? The results of the first official Waffle-Off?

It turns out BOTH waffle-makers take about 3-5 minutes to cook a waffle. BOTH waffle-makers make waffles that are about right for one plate.  However, the key breakthrough of the experiment was making waffles in parallel- you get twice as many waffles in the same amount of time.  Oh joy! The wait was over!  We compared the relative merits of each (the old being slightly toastier, the new being slightly fluffier, both making a fine waffle), and sought the perfect combination of toppings.  There was so much TIME to indulge in peanut butter and applesauce, or applesauce and Strawberry Rhubarb Quince Jam, or plain syrup, or peanut butter and jam... so much TIME to linger on the toasty, fluffy waffles. And it was good to linger, I had missed waffles- their strange geometry being vastly superior to pancakes for capturing toppings. But it was really momentous to see Matt finally taking joy in waffles again, letting go of that old burden and setting aside his grievances to just enjoy breakfast again.

Dad is going to be staying with me this weekend.  Perhaps, if there is time, we will have waffles.