I Wanna Be a Travel Writer - March 10, For Love or Ice Cream?
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Stumble It!March 10 - For Love or Ice Cream?
"Would you like your pancakes with maple syrup and ice cream or lemon and butter?" the waitress asked.
I just stared blankly at her without answering. Did I just hear what I thought I heard? I looked across the table at Michael as if I needed a translator for Australian English.
"Maple syrup and ice cream, no question!" he cheered, and the four of us seated at the table in the dining car on the Queensland Rail Sunlander, all agreed.
"You've never had ice cream on your pancakes?" Michael asked. He was sitting next to me on the train from Cairns to Brisbane. Born and raised in Oz, Michael was on his way to London to be with his partner while on his two-year working holiday visa. In a similar situation, I was in Australia for four months to work and spend some time with my love before traveling on to Southeast Asia.
My close friends back home in California had placed bets before I left as to whether I'd come back married, or even if I'd come home at all. I laughed it off saying I'd be back. It was true that I'd fallen in love with an Aussie, but he also happened to be a very decent guy. In their eyes, the first I'd ever brought home.
"No, I've never heard of putting ice cream on your pancakes," I said truthfully. Though the very thought of it troubled me as to why I hadn't known about this combo before. Ice cream was by far my favorite thing to eat and - in my book, anytime was the right time to eat it.
The waitress returned shortly with our plates. Two thin, golden brown pancakes were swimming in syrup with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and a dollop of whipping cream side by side at the edge of the stack. A sprig of mint and a slice of strawberry topped it all off. I quickly tossed the garnishes to the side and cut the 'cakes into pieces. With my fork I sectioned off a bit of ice cream, stabbed it into a bite of pancake, swirled it in the syrup and raised it to my mouth.
To my surprise, it wasn't too sweet at all. The warm syrup with the cool cream turned into the most delicious melting pleasure. I stacked up two slices at a time, added an even bigger piece of ice cream, and zoomed it into my mouth before my tastebuds could forget that I was eating ice cream for breakfast. I didn't look up until there was only four pieces left and not enough ice cream to cover them.
"I'm not going home," I announced to the table. They didn't understand.
"I don't want to go home," I restated, "the food is so much better here!"
"Than the States?" said the elderly woman to my right.
"Where are you from?" asked her husband.
"I've been living in San Francisco, and we're known for having good food, but everything here has been surprisingly better." They looked puzzled.
"Take sandwiches for example...in the States our basic sandwiches are on white, wheat, sourdough and sometimes rye. But here, you put them on foccacia, panini, or great big thick bread and fill them up with all sorts of fixins. They're huge. Sure, we have foccacia sandwiches, but not everywhere like here," I explained.
"Do you mean here in Queensland, or all over?" asked the husband.
"Well, I haven't been all over yet, but so far in Brisbane and Sydney. At first when I saw the big fresh sandwiches in Sydney, I just thought it meant I was in a good neighborhood, but as I wandered around, I just kept seeing them everywhere. I won't be able to eat sandwiches back home after this."
"We're getting better at food now, but we didn't have much variety before the migrants came after WWII. Now we have food from all over, but nothing that we can really call our own," said the husband.
"Meat pies?" Michael suggested.
"I love meat pies!" I said and my table companions laughed.
"I mean it," I said, "I've had eight so far, and the last two were at Barry's drive-thru pie shop in Innisfail." They laughed some more. "Really, one was steak and mushroom, the other steak, tomato and onion."
"Meat pies are good to eat when you've been binge drinking," said the husband, laughing some more.
"Or when you're on a road trip," I said and they agreed.
"We're big on red meat," said the husband, "beef particularly. Before the war, it was roasts, potatoes and three vegetables. You could count on that every Saturday for the family dinner. Here in Australia we've got good beef, or at least we think so," said the husband smiling, "lamb and pig too," he added.
I nodded in agreement. I never used to like to eat lamb, but the lamb my boyfriend's parents have made on the BBQ have been irresistible. And lamb kebabs at the take away shops, forget about it. I'm hooked.
"Before I left for this trip, I was working at a restaurant and the tourists loved to eat our coat of arms," said Michael.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Well, on our coat of arms we've got a kangaroo and an emu. So that's what we cook and serve up as a meal we call the coat of arms."
"I tried a croc satay," I said.
"What'd you think?" asked the wife. I hesitated to answer, as I didn't want to offend in case they had some national pride attached to the crocodile.
"It needed some sauce," I said honestly.
"That's what I thought," said the wife, "or some kind of... 'marinade'," we said in unison.
"What does it taste like?" asked Michael.
"Not much. A bit like chicken, but with no taste," said the husband.
I looked down at my plate and saw that I was down to the last two pieces of pancake. I was out of ice cream, but pushed the bites of 'cake around on my plate trying to soak up as much syrup as I could. I savored the warm sweet flavor and tried to commit it to memory. As far as I was concerned, a heaping mound of pancakes with an Uluru-sized mound of vanilla ice cream ought to be on their coat of arms.
"Have you tried damper yet?" asked the wife.
It was funny that she should mention that. I was planning on baking some when I got back to Brisbane as a surprise for my boyfriend. He had given me the recipe for it when I first decided to come to Australia. I thought it odd that he give me a recipe for a loaf of bread, but I soon found that it was a bit of Australiana - and more importantly - one of his favorites.
"Is it hard to make? I asked. Everyone at the table started to tell me that the best way to make it was over a fire on a stick.
"It's on the menu tonight," said the wife, "you can try it then, I think you'll like it."
The waitress came to clear our plates. As she did, I held myself back from asking for more.
"I wanted to order another serving," I said after she left.
"Me too," said Michael. The couple chuckled.
I looked at my tablemates' smiles. I could live here and be very happy. I'd do it for love, but I don't think it would even take something that strong to convince me. Ice cream on pancakes was enough.
