breakfast for dinner

Remember how your parents told you not to play with your food, but you kept on doing it anyway?  We love having fun with the stuff we eat, don't we?  So much that we have to be told not to do it.  Come on, admit it - even as adult, you can't resist the temptation sometimes.  ^_^

I'm not really fond of blogging about food and food places, but as this week's happy thawts are hinged on dinner, this'll sort of be about a food place.  But no, it's not quite a review.

For years now, my cousin C has been egging me on about how we should meet up outside of family gatherings.  We agreed it would be nice to go out like how we used to when we were younger, except not for teenagery stuff this time.  Anyway, we were finally able to set aside some time to do it this week.  And that's happy thawt number one:  Seeing one of my favorite cousins on a workday. It was nice getting together like that. I'd almost forgotten how fun it could be to just hang out with her.

So here's an awful phone-cam photo of us, after-work eyebags and all.
Photoshopping this would take a lot of work, so forget that.

Now here comes happy thawt number two. 

We agreed to meet in Eastwood City, since it was a midpoint of sorts after work (both for her and myself, and for the Hubby, who was joining us).  We walked around a bit and decided on a place called Slappy Cakes.

We were quite drawn to Slappy Cakes because of two things: the thought of having breakfast for dinner (i love pancakes), and the thought of having some fun with our food.  Each table had this griddle in the middle, where diners can cook pancakes just how they want them. The menu even offers several different kinds of batter, and a gamut of sweet and savory fillings and toppings.  How fun is that for a pancake-lover, right?

You can make yourself something comforting like a  a blueberry-strawberry buttermilk pancake...

Or attempt a designer banana-walnut-peanut butter-salted chocolate pancake with Nutella, or a crazy bacon and cheese and mushroom pancake with mango syrup.  Or not.  ^_^

The batter comes in these nifty squeeze bottles that minimize the mess...

... so you could also make your pancakes into any shape you want to.  Hearts or stars or letters and stuff. In fact, the  folks in the other booth were spelling words out with their batter.

As for our table, we wondered ...

So here's the Hubby on flipping duty ...

... and our mini vegan-batter pancake with banana and bacon, just about getting bubbly.  There's nothing vegan about this pancake anymore though.  We're not trying to be vegan, but we went for the vegan batter because the food server said it tasted good with bacon.  Who would've thought, right?  It was pretty tasty, actually.

It's the sort of place kids and non-boring adult pancake fans would like.  I'd probably come back, but with a couple of nephews or a nieces next time.

salt

Image and sloppy Photoshopping by me.
My Mom's got a collection of these things here.

I love this version of this popular verse; it's taken from The Message Bible.

I've lately had a renewed appreciation for salt on food.  For a few years I've skipped placing salt in my cooking, reckoning it was the wise thing to do after my Dad had a stroke and and my Mom had an open heart surgery.  Their doctors had recommended low-sodium diets for them, and I thought maybe I should start early and avoid salt as much as possible.  :p  Of course that was a drastic move, so last year I decided that a tiny bit of salt is fine, as long as I make it a habit to eat more fresh food.

Anyway, I felt like I rediscovered what salt does for food, and my oh my, salt is ah-mazing.  Lemme say that again: AH-MAZING.  Now I like to put a tiny bit of salt on most of the stuff I eat (not everything. I'd still like to watch the sodium).  ^_^  Trust me, salt even makes cornflakes taste better.  

In the Gospels, Jesus likens his followers to salt, calling us the salt of the earth.  In The Message version, it says You're here to bring out the God-flavors of the earth.  

I've read it over and over, but it stills strikes me as profound.  When Christ's followers do their thing, it makes the world more flavorful, more palatable (?), and a generally better place.

Making this my personal mantra,  I'm here to bring out the God-flavors of the earth.  I've got it in me to give the people around me a dash of what makes them closer to God.  I can touch lives, a tiny bit at a time.  

I suppose I need to "rediscover" myself as the salt of the earth to see just how ah-mazing things are being a child of God.  Not that life is dull.  I guess I'm just getting less starry-eyed now that I'm older (and boy, do I feel older!)  I've settled down considerably, and that's a good thing; but I want to realize something new and dynamic about my existence on earth, i.e., something I haven't experienced before.  Is it too much to hope I feel about myself the way I feel about salt on food?  (Dang.  Awkward sentence.  Anyway ...)

I can actually write a detailed Bible study on this scripture, complete with cross-referencing, suggested worship songs and homework, but I'm not doing that.  That kind of reflection has lots of merit, but I think I'll pass for now.  Stripping things down to the basics also has much benefit too.