Christmas memories

Does anyone else find the day after Christmas vaguely depressing? It's always such a bummer, realizing I have to wait another 9-10 months to begin listening to Christmas music again.

Fortunately, I have copious memories of this Christmas with my amazing family and friends to keep me company until then.

I thought I would write a bit about a dream I realized this week: the dream of eating the biggest, most delicious pancakes I've ever seen.

While I agree that there is no need to elaborate further on my pancake issues, risking personal embarrassment and complete dissatisfaction on the part of you, the reader, I feel the need to share it with you.

Rapidly working their way into an elite premier holiday eating list that includes my grandmother's sausage stuffing, apple pie on Christmas morning, and triple cream cheeses that wouldn't warrant a gaze at any other time of year, I think pancakes of this magnitude may become a holiday tradition for me and my future family. If breakfast addiction is at all hereditary, my future kids are sure to grapple with similar breakfast pastry issues.

My pancakes this particular morning had brown sugar-baked bananas, caramel, walnuts, and streusel, all baked into buttermilk batter, topped with caramel, walnuts, streusel, and a portion of whipped cream that, if eaten alone, would be sufficient as a meal in itself.

We didn't eat until noon. We were hungry and I was getting grumpy (an inevitable and sure-fire sign of my hunger.)

Three pancakes come in an order. I ordered two (pancakes, not orders), and I ate about half of one. This is what it looked like:

It was an admittedly pathetic display of my "off putting pancake gluttony." But they were massive. Just looking at the plate as it arrived at the table began my journey to that familiar uncomfortable fullness native to this time of year.

I was so full.

A friend I spoke with on the phone a while afterward asked if I was having trouble breathing. Seriously.

Still, it was one of the best breakfasts I've ever had, and certainly the best (half) pancake I've ever eaten.

Bonus: each customer's coffee is individually french pressed. When it's noon and I haven't had coffee yet, I'd consider licking it off the floor of Grand Central Station. But great coffee is always a welcome addition to an already fantastic breakfast.

I'm not sure I'll ever be crazy about LA. But places like this certainly don't hurt the cause.