Road Trip 2016 # 9

When I woke in Richland South Carolina the sun was shining brightly from a blue horizon through the window above a loud and still blowing heat/AC unit.  As I went to shut it off I looked through the window and there before me, on the opposite side of the road, was a sight I’d missed during my late night arrival.  There it was in welcoming black letters on yellow squares - W A F F L E  H O U S E.  Screw the free breakfast.  I could almost taste the hash browns.

I had a quick wash, stepped over my receipt lying on the ugly carpet inside the door, threw my stuff in the Buick and drove quickly to their parking lot.  I was there in ten minutes.  Like a bee to a flower.  When I opened the door I could smell the griddle.  It was like coming home.

I knew a Waffle House was in my future when I left Illinois, I just didn’t know when.  My wife cares not to eat at Waffle House.  She had a bad experience a long time ago.  I had the same experience but it didn’t prove long-lasting.  Maybe it’s because I’m a social worker and believe in second chances.  In any case, I haven’t been disappointed at sticking with Waffle House.

 

I walked into a slim crowd that morning.  There was a woman at a table and a man at the counter.  I joined him a few stools away.  He hardly noticed me.  Seemed transfixed by his coffee cup.  I sit at the counter so I can watch them cook.  The griddle is just a few feet away.  I sat as close to the middle as I could.  It’s like a front-row seat on the 50-yard line.  It was a good morning already and it had only just started. 

Two middle-aged women were running the whole place.  They both cooked and waited on customers, rarely talking to one another.  They moved like seasoned pros, glided really, no wasted motion, everything fast and efficient, passing by each other silently.  My waitress appeared in front of me with a thick Waffle House coffee mug and a carafe of regular already in her hand.

“Coffee?”

“Please.”

“Cream?”

“Black.”

“Know what you want or you need a minute?”

“I think I’m ready.”

Truth is I was ready the moment I laid eyes on the Waffle House.  Who am I trying to kid, I was ready before I left Illinois.  I’d been waiting for this moment for quite some time.

She took a pencil from behind her ear and a pad from her apron. “OK go.”

“Two eggs over very easy.  Biscuits.  Hash browns smothered (sautéed onions), diced, (tomatoes), and peppered (jalapenos).  Grits on the side.  Large milk.”

“Regular grits or large?”

“Regular.”

“You got it, baby.”

She stuck the order slip on a clip near the grill and never looked at it again.  My waitress/cook dipped a small ladle into a can and spread a large clear puddle of hot grease on the griddle with a smaller puddle beside it.  Next, she took a portion of riced potatoes from a tub near the grill and laid it on the larger puddle.  They sizzled.  On the small puddle, she placed a portion of raw onions.  They sizzled louder.  The griddle steamed.  My breakfast was underway.

Next, she grabbed a small fry pan with her left hand and another ladle of hot grease with the right.  After setting the pan at the front of the griddle she took, without looking, two eggs from a nearby bowl with her left hand.  Did it all by feel.  As she reached blindly for the eggs she emptied the grease in the pan, returned the ladle, and put a small ceramic bowl on the work board in front of the griddle.

Shifting one of the eggs to her free hand she cracked the two eggs on the board, not the edge of the bowl, and with an egg in each hand pried each shell apart, spreading the halves apart as one might widen a picture on an I Phone, at the same time.  Try doing that.  She discarded the shells and went back to my hash browns.

With a giant silver spatula, she raked and turned the potatoes, flipping them, making a pile, then spreading the pile out flat again.  She did the same with the onions beside the potatoes and then raked the two piles together, gathering them again into a large pile.  On that newly constituted pile of potatoes and onions, she sprinkled a portion of cut tomatoes and another of green sliced jalapenos.  Then she flattened out the pile a third time, pressing down with that giant spatula, salted it all, shook on a little black pepper, and finally let them rest.  She was so fast.  What has taken me twenty minutes to capture in words happened in twenty seconds.  She turned back to my eggs.

 

She poured the two raw eggs from the bowl gently into the hot frying pan.  The clear albumen turned instantly white.  She salted and peppered them.  As the eggs cooked and firmed up, she stepped to the steam table and vigorously stirred a pot of grits with a giant spoon.  When she decided they were properly blended she scooped me up a bowl, covering it with a saucer.  On the saucer, she put two tan biscuits from the warmer.  She went back to my eggs, picking up the skillet.  With a flick of her wrist, she flipped both eggs over.  She kept her hand on the pan and after a few seconds, the only seconds she was not in motion, slid them onto a waiting plate.  They were perfect, the yolks two identical equidistant yellow circles bulging up in another larger perfect circle of white.

She turned to the griddle where the hash browns were finishing. They were crispy brown at the edges.  With the giant spatula, she flipped them one last time for good measure and scooped them up cleanly from the griddle.  Her scooping motion extended to my waiting plate where she laid them next to the eggs.  Putting the spatula down, she slid the plate in front of me.  On one side she put the bowl of grits and on the other the biscuits.  There is real beauty in a breakfast like that.  Symmetry and balance.  She put a glass of cold milk filled to the brim at the top of my plate next to my coffee. I had not seen her pour the milk.  It was a phantom coming out of nowhere.  She refilled my coffee cup.

“What else you need?”

“Hot sauce?”

She plucked a bottle of Tabasco, the old McILHENNY variety, from a station down the counter and put it in front of me.  Waffle House could do better than Tabasco.  They could offer Cholula, or La Victoria, or even Sriracha.  But I’m being wistful.  Waffle House is not after the snobby hot sauce crowd.  It has been in business for sixty years and maintains a tradition of offering food that is good and cheap.  I respect that.  I accepted the Tabasco gladly.

“You got enough butter for your grits and biscuits too?”

“I think so.”

 

“You better have some more.” She plunked another pat of butter in front of me.

 ”More jelly too.”  She gave me an extra packet of grape.

“Enjoy your breakfast.”

“Ma’am you can be sure I will.”

I don’t always say grace, acknowledging the bounty of life’s gifts, but I did that morning.  I’d waited a long time for a Waffle House meal.  I split a biscuit in two and buttered it.  It was hot.  With my fork, I lifted the white skin off the top of one of my eggs and put it on the biscuit.  Yolk ran slowly onto the plate.  I dipped the biscuit into the yolk and took a bite.  It was absolutely delicious.  I closed my eyes.

 

I turned to the hash browns.  Nobody gets hash browns crispy and uniformly hot like Waffle House.  And who else puts jalapenos in their hash browns?  I gave them a little extra salt and sprinkled hot sauce on them.  Perfection.

 

And my god the grits.  Some say grits are gritty, and perhaps they are, but Waffle House grits are hot and creamy.  Butter melts quickly on Waffle House grits, and when it does I put a double shake of pepper along with salt on top and whisk it all together with my fork.  It’s the blend, the feel, the goodness of those grits in your mouth.  It’s hard to beat.

Here’s another subtlety I learned about grits just that morning.  I was schooled in the word and how it’s pronounced.  The printed word looks straightforward: gr preceding the word it, ending with s.  Grits.  Four consonant sounds and one vowel, a short i.  Grits.

But when I heard another customer order his breakfast, a man who came after me and sat at a table behind the counter, it sounded somehow different.  At first I couldn’t figure it out.  Then my waitress came by and asked me this:

“How’s those gree-its?”

“What?”

Your gree-its.  How’s ya’lls gree-its?”

She somehow worked a long e in there.  It goes quickly, is hard to hear, and almost impossible for me to say, but that little word is definitely different coming out of the mouth of a southerner than mine.  Gree-its.  You learn something every day.

I hated to leave the Waffle House.  I had limited trip time to be on my own and the odds of enjoying another breakfast equal in simplicity and taste, in such ambiance, were long at best.  As my waitress took my dishes I thanked her, complimenting her on the hash browns, and asked

“Do you sell the mugs?”

“We sure do darlin’.  How many you wantin’ today?”

“Just the one.”

She went to the back and when she came out wrapped my cup slowly and carefully in paper towels, putting it in a takeout bag.  I probably could have ordered a cup online, but this made it more personal.

“Can I take your picture with it please?”  I had my phone in my hand.

Her smile disappeared.  “I don’t go for havin’ my pitcher taken much.”

“That’s fine.  Thank you again for a great breakfast.”

“You welcome.”  Her smile reappeared.

The Waffle House.  Every time I leave one I hope it’s not the last.