Back in February during the winter carnival, we attended the pancake breakfast put on by the Lion’s club. This was Chris’ first pancake breakfast and luckily I got him hooked! These are just a part of small towns and they are delicious and fun. Chris stays up to date on lots of the local activities, many of which we try to participate in – we gotta have a little fun between working our day jobs and all the house projects. He stumbled upon the jackpot – turns out, the Middlefield Fire Department hosts a pancake breakfast fundraiser once a month from May through September.
Now this isn’t your ordinary community breakfast hosted in the local hall but rather it’s held at the Cooperstown/Westville Airport served with a side of vintage planes flying in and out on the grass runway. I didn’t know that a pancake breakfast could be any better but the venue really made all the difference.
This happened to be the most beautiful early summer day with blue sky as far as the eye can see. We arrived about 20 minutes before 9am and it felt like the whole town was there already – they began service at 7:30am! While in line, we got to chat with people which was nice, until now we hadn’t really made many connections in town. Finally it was our turn – there were 4 big flat tops full of huge pancakes – “how many would you like!?” – we each took 2, got our cook to order eggs, and sausage, then ventured on to find a place to sit. We sat with a lovely family enjoying the breakfast in honor of Father’s day. When you tell folks you moved here recently they are quick to welcome us and share ideas for what to do in the area. When talking with Katie and her family, we learned good tips for how to navigate induction weekend.
After we ate, we wandered down along the edge of the runway and watched a couple of vintage planes take-off. It wasn’t clear where they were headed but after a few minutes they would disappear into the distance. It was just delightful! There were about a dozen or so planes lined up and it was really interesting to see them up close and personal.
Now that we were stuffed with pancakes, it was time to add some strawberries on top! Nearby, at the Middlefield Orchard – strawberries were ripe for the picking. This is just one of the varieties of u-pick fruit available. Later on this summer we’ll be able to grab some raspberries and blueberries. It was likely a good thing we didn’t arrive on an empty stomach because we practiced a good level of self control in not eating too many while picking and not bringing home more than we could eat in the next few days.
They have quite a few varieties and we found a couple that were quite tasty. It was really interesting seeing how they looked different. The color, size, and even the seeds look different! My favorite had slightly larger green seeds. If time was endless, it would have been a great opportunity to collect enough to make homemade jam – but alas, maybe next spring. This time I got some angel food cake from the store, whipped up some cream, and made us tasty strawberry shortcakes. Yum!
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