Breakfast is our favorite meal, and we sometimes breakfast at a popular restaurant north of Lansing, Michigan. There is a bit of sameness about breakfast restaurants. As you enter, there is that typical stand or table where the hostess stands, and it occupies some place near the front of the restaurant. “How many?” “Two persons,” I always like to add a little something different to the numerical “1,2,3, or 4” answer. After a quick glance across the restaurant, the hostess, with menus in hand, leads us to a table or booth. “Coffee?” is the first question. “Is it good coffee?” I’ll often ask. Sometimes there is a smile: “We make the best coffee around.” That’s interesting, because most restaurants purchase their coffee from the same coffee vendor and prepare it in the same type of coffee machine. I believe good coffee is determined by how long it sits in the pot before being served. If the coffee is served right after it drips through the grounds and paper filter, it’s weak. Sitting in the pot to brew for five or ten minutes is probably the best. If the coffee sits too long, it’s burnt and bitter, I think this is known as Cowboy Coffee. Two eggs over easy, pork sausage (usually links, sometimes patties), potatoes (grilled, not deep fried). My standard high cholesterol triglycerides breakfast. Sometimes I’ll add a couple of flapjacks or pancakes to the order. How the pancakes will be served is always the interesting part of my breakfast routine. Will the flapjacks or pancakes be served on a plate the same size as the flapjacks or pancakes? Why is it not understood that once you pour syrup on flapjacks or pancakes that occupy the same size plate, the syrup has no place to go but over the edge of the plate and onto the table. Now you have a syrup problem. If the plate is larger than the flapjacks or pancakes, I’ll compliment the server and the cook on the size of the plate. This brings a smile to the server as if this is one of their specialties, a plate larger than the pancakes.
You would think breakfast of eggs, meat, potatoes, and maybe pancakes would be the same everywhere. But just like the mismatched chairs at our North Lansing restaurant, it is the variety of prepared breakfasts that makes this our favorite meal.
Vern Mesler 2022
