The Californian in me is startled to hear the words "Smoking or non"
from the hostess of indeterminate age when I walk through the doors of the diner. After agreeing to a wait for a
nonsmoking table and a "No, I don't want that table because all the tables around it are smoking, even if it's
not," I settle in to wait. I lean against the side of a jukebox that probably works but doesn't get much use
and watch the rest of the people milling about in the entrance. There are kids looking at the impossibly tall cakes and
pies in the dessert case and oohing and ahhing over the giant, plastic-wrapped black and white
cookies. There are parents and primly dressed grandparents: the after-church crowd on a Sunday.
When we're seated, we order hot chocolates from a waitress wearing about two tubes of mascara, enough white face paint to make Dracula look tan and with dyed black hair. The drinks come in different sized cups: one tall and slim, one a huge mug. I assume that this means they were in-between washing cycles at the drink station. Both drinks have whipped cream and I manage to snag the larger of the two. When the would-be Elvira waitress returns, I order buttermilk pancakes. I love the seemingly limitless comfort-food options on diner menus but will almost never stray from the one food that diners do best.
Maybe it's the atmosphere of the room, with red vinyl seats and paper place-mats with local advertisements, that makes the pancakes taste so good. Maybe it's people, from the man eating creamed chipped beef with his kids to the woman at the table across the way who bears a striking resemblance to Ms. Pac-man, though she's at least 75 and wearing a floor-length fur coat. Probably, they're just darn good pancakes. They are lightly, fluffy and perfectly browned on the outside, slightly crisp on top as though they have just come off the grill. And they come out exactly the same no matter the week, year or time or day.
My favorite place? The Marlton Diner in - where else - Marlton, New Jersey. Who cares if they only ever seem to have pancake syrup made with Karo instead of real maple syrup? At a diner, somehow, it all just tastes right.
[Image via Population Five]
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