Pittburgh’s Pamela’s Pancakes Party!

Say that five times fast.

Andrew and I went to Pittsburgh a couple weekends ago to visit Alex and his girlfriend, Mackenzie. Read the post here.

While there, we went to Pamela’s Diner for pancakes. It was our second time; Andrew and I went a couple years ago while we were in the city for a weekend. Pamela’s is famous for super-thin pancakes with rough, scraggle-y, crunchy edges. The crunch is seriously amazing. Below are photos from our recent trip:

I ordered mine the ‘classic’ way, which is served with strawberry slices, sour cream and a little brown sugar. The way the flavors and textures meld together is unreal.

Andrew, of course, ordered his plain. Check out those edges!

Well, the morning we were going to leave on our trip, I got my bi-weekly email from King Arthur Flour (of course I get emails from a flour company?!) and what did they feature but Pittsburgh’s Famous Pancakes! Before I even scrolled to the bottom I forwarded to Andrew with only this line: “Could they mean Pamela’s??”

Yes. Yes they did. And now I had the recipe.

So, of course we had to plan a pancake party with Alex’s parents in order to try out the recipe. Somewhere along the way, we decided to make bloody marys, too….

Cheers!!

What a fun brunch-time drink 🙂

And maple-roasted bacon…

Our pancakes certainly didn’t turn out as prettily as Pamela’s seem to…

…but we had a blast together. We picked up other ‘diner’ sides, like cottage cheese and fruit cocktail, and somehow ended the meal with vanilla ice cream (???). I’m convinced I can give the pancakes another shot, so perhaps we’ll get another taste of P-burgh soon.

BTW–Update on the frozen laundry room pipes: After our bout of freezing rain yesterday morning, all the snow disappeared and we’re well above freezing. I have the first of four loads of laundry in the washing machine right now…

weekend in p-burgh

Andrew and I visited our friends Alex (son of the oft-mentioned Nyes) and his girlfriend, Mackenzie, this weekend in the beautiful Pittsburgh.

(Photo by Andrew. I kinda took the weekend off from photographing. Regretting it now, of course.)

Highlights of the trip included:

-touring their house and hearing all the ideas they have for projects and talking paint colors

-Pamela’s Diner: enjoying their crispy-edged, crepe-like pancakes

-getting outside the city and into the suburbs

-great walking-around weather: crisp (cold, really) yet
sunny

-chatting with Mackenzie while the boys walked ahead as we meandered near the Pitt campus

-watching Knocked Up, which was WAY more crude (and less funny) than I remembered…dare I say we’re getting old? (Or perhaps just have higher standards…)

-running the hills (a.k.a. small and very close together mountains) with Mackenzie Sunday morning. If there was ONE photo I wish I had taken, it would be one of the landscape of their neighborhood. All over, really. (Pittsburgh is known for their inclines.) Seriously, you know that famous road in San Francisco that is really steep and goes back and forth? EVERY street there is like that. So yeah, I thought I might die on the run this morning.

-homemade, family-style breakfast post-run with everyone around the table

-pumpkin milkshakes with Mackenzie at a specialty chocolate shop on Carson St. (I might have brought some truffles home with me…) while we all toured Southside

-spending quality time with Andrew this afternoon at Caribou Coffee (our conversation focused on how we can NOT fight about stupid stuff anymore…are we old and married, or what?) In the end, I have to admit we both enjoyed taking a few minutes to ‘take the temperature’ of our relationship, and decided we left more improved than we arrived

-cooking a paleo dinner with Mackenzie from her ‘Eat Like A Dinosaur’ cookbook: ribs, kale chips and roasted carrots

(We’re currently on the way home and Andrew has been listening, enraptured, to the Pats/Ravens game on the radio–go Baltimore!!)

While I may not have taken many pictures this weekend, Mackenzie did! This one’s for you, Adam:

one happy (valley) girl

Well, where did I leave off? (I realize I’m two days behind… I’ve been a busy, traveling girl!)

When I woke up Sunday morning, this is what was waiting for me on the table:

Awwwww 🙂 When Adam had asked me what I ate pre-race, I mentioned toast, peanut butter and banana. And he got organic–double awwwww 🙂 🙂

Here we are, before:

I got the tank to match the neon pink trim on my shorts!

And can I just say that it was like 90% humidity and that State College has WAY MORE HILLS than I remembered? Like, a ton. It was as I was rounding the golf course hill that it all came back to me…

(Check out the building behind me in the above picture–that totally was not there when we went to school!)

And here we are, after:

Adam was DRENCHED and I was pretty sweaty, too. Hot and steamy, it was!

And guess who WON her age group? YOURS’ TRULY! A 10k in 46:56. Not too shabby.

I’d love to say I was shocked, but I wasn’t. Perhaps surprised is more accurate. I definitely wasn’t feeling fast that morning and was, as usual, intimidated by the field. I have to admit; all this winning is still really new to me (let’s just say running wasn’t my sport of choice for, like, my entire life), but I’ve placed in my age group enough now that I feel like I can’t leave a race until they’ve posted the results. It’s weird. Awesome, but weird. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it. I mean, I don’t even really look like a runner. At least not the fast ones.

And I have a theory: I’m in what I’m calling a “sweet spot” right now. I’m in the 20-30, or sometimes 25-29, age group, which is just older than the super skinny, super fast high school/college ‘elite’ runners, but I’m younger than the ‘been-running-for-twenty-years-post-kids-competitive’ group. More times than not, I’ve noticed that the ladies finishing just ahead of me are older, but don’t win THEIR age groups.

Apparently, my 15 minutes of fame is limited. Or I’ll just have to get faster. (I think I’ll take the latter.)

And the perfect end to a fantastic weekend, a great run and a win? The Waffle Shop!

It’s a State College mainstay and super famous. It now has three locations–the original being right on College Ave.–and always has a line around the building on weekends. I’ll admit that Andrew and I weren’t regulars here while we were students, but it is the first place I had chocolate chip pancakes, and for that I will be forever thankful.

Adam, Andrew and I met up with Abigail and waited outside as the temps started rising. We made it into the air conditioning just in time!

I ordered the “mini platter” and was able to request chocolate chip pancakes instead of plain. Thank goodness for substitution-friendly establishments!

After our delicious and very traditional PSU breakfast, we all parted ways and I headed toward Philadelphia, while Andrew and Abigail went north back to New York. I’ll be on the road through Thursday–more photos and updates on my travels soon!