Pancakes: Let's Dish

Usually when you get to a new town you are not greeted by this:

Oh, sure, you could dream about it happening (wistfully, with many stars in the eyes) but the chances of seeing this greeting in real life are slim to none. Slim to none, that is, unless you happen to go to Centerville, Iowa on the day of their annual Pancake Parade. Which is exactly what I, and the great Pancake 7, did last Saturday.

But even before you soak up the sweet sounds of the elderly playing lap guitars, you get to go through the free pancake gauntlet. From afar you just see a vast spread of aproned folks sweating over a whole lot of griddles. Up close it looks like this:

Note, if you will, the huge tubs of margarine, the vat of batter, the styrofoam plates stacked with hot cakes.

Then you eat the stack of delicious cakes at picnic tables and chat with the biker dudes who got the "gourmet pancake feast" (at a whopping $4--almost worth it, judging from the mountain of whipped cream and fruit topping):


After dining on the scrumptious stack of pancakes, you might mosey around the town square, which truly begins to feel like the "world's largest town square" (as the Parade website bragged). It will nearly charm the pants off you, what with the Ben Franklin Five and Dime (selling, among other treasures, David the Gnomes decked out in Hawkeye regalia), the old time-y cafes complete with soda fountains, and the porkchop-on-a-stick stands. Yes. Porkchop. On. A. Stick (that was actually just the bone--basically you were eating a porkchop with your hands, like a caveman).

After seeing that stand you are tempted to say things like, "Well, it just can't get better than that," while shaking your head with a fond smile. But then you see the funnel cake cart, with its zesty flashing lightbulbs and cheery carnival print. And you are reverted to being five-years-old where everything is magical, shiny, and dusted with sugar.

You see the mini Jean-Benets prancing about the stage beneath a banner bellowing: "Pancake Day Parade 2008: Never Ending Story!"

You see children Dressed Up as pancakes and maple syrup.

You think you might die of happiness, or sugar. And you might think, while driving through three hours worth of cornfields to get back home: "I love Iowa. So, so much."

[for the rest of the dazzling photos, see dear Sarah's blog.]