shortly after harlan was born, a box arrived at our house. it was one in a flurry of packages — i’d recently bought some books from book depository, and my reasoning that buying them all in one go would save on air miles and cardboard was negated when they all arrived as individual parcels over a couple of days — but this one seemed special. different. it wasn’t especially large, but it was heavy. it was covered in important red stickers. i opened it carefully, and extricated a flagon — almost two litres! — of maple syrup. of course, it was from my crazy sister.

i had long been entertaining the idea of a waffle maker in my head, and really, who doesn’t want a waffle maker in their head, specifically the cuisinart waffle machine i’d seen at the good food show last year, all brushed steel and vintage spaceship aesthetic. shortly before harlan was born, i’d been in that monster kitchen place next to the south melbourne markets with my mother, and i’d shown her the waffle machine.

she pursed her lips and shuddered. “waffles are so unhealthy,” she said. “why don’t you get the kitchenaid?”

“huh.” i said, “what do you think i’ll be making with the kitchenaid?” i was genuinely curious why she thought i wouldn’t be whizzing up cake and the buttercream frosting to go with.

that day, we returned home with bags of fruit and vegetables and fat fillets of salmon, but no waffle machine (or, alas, kitchenaid). to be honest, it was as good as mine, in my head. i was happy just biding my time. and then the syrup arrived. the maple syrup in a jug as big as a baby pretty much sealed the deal.

i had wondered if a waffle machine would be a white elephant. there was definitely a concern that it would end up being one of those appliances that sits in the back of the kitchen cupboard, taking up valuable space that could be used to store… some other appliance. turns out, having a waffle machine is just great! we’ve had waffles for sunday breakfast three times already — the last batch, yesterday, was even spelt waffles — with blueberries, with raspberries, with strawberries, with aerosol cream, with a river of maple syrup.