The Van Pact

13: Valerie

"I'm going to have to call you Pippi Longstocking now," my mom slid a pancake onto my plate. "Who would have thought you'd look good as a redhead?"

"The preferred term is ginger." I went heavy with the maple syrup. There's nothing quite like extra-syrupy pancakes for dinner, I can tell you.

"Aren't you shocked, Vinnie?" My mom called over to my dad in the living room. My dad was too busy with 'important school district matters' to eat with us. He had what looked like a filing cabinet worth of papers spread out across the sofa and the coffee table and the floor. Why was he working in the living room and not his study? Simple. Some dopey stage show was having a special on PBS. I could hear their rendition of "My Favorite Things" from the kitchen. Show tunes are right up there with Taylor Swift in my dad's esteem. I don't know why my mom tried to engage him in conversation. He couldn't hear her with all the crisp apple strudels and schnitzels with noodles around him. What a goof.

"Christ," My mom muttered when my dad failed to respond. Her gaze fell onto me. I still poured maple syrup in a puddle beside my pancakes. "Jesus, Valerie, that's enough!" She reached across the table and took the syrup dispenser from me.

"Aw come on, Ma," I protested.

"I've looked at the ingredient list in that Aunt Jemima garbage your dad buys," she snapped shut the dispenser and set it out of my grabbing distance. "It's all corn syrup. None of that came out of a maple tree."

"Sugar is sugar," I shrugged.

"Corn syrup is empty calories," my mom cut into her pancakes somewhat aggressively. "If we had real maple syrup, fine, or how about this-" she lifted up a jar of her beloved Manuka honey, "this is packed with antioxidants that help prevent cancer, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah," I didn't want to remember cancer while at the dinner table. Plus, who eats pancakes with honey? I mean, except for my mom. It's not even a Puerto Rican thing, like plantains. She invented it on her own.

"Here, why don't you try it?" She handed me the jar. "This kind is locally produced."

I examined the label. A low quality illustration of a Manuka flower, and a cartoon bee. At the top: PENNUKA FARMS in all caps. At the bottom: PENNSYLVANIA PRODUCED MANUKA HONEY.

"Read the back," my mom ordered.

I turned the jar over in my hands. Oh Lordy, there was a lot of words:

How can we produce Manuka honey in chilly Pennsylvania Dutch country? It's not easy beeing green, that's for sure. Our family-run, multi-acre greenhouse is filled with Manuka trees (Leptospermum scoparium). It takes a lot of work to mimic the dry, temperate climate of New Zealand, but with a little love and a lot of energy, we manuke-it-work. Our friendly honey bees (Apis mellifera) collect only the best Manuka pollen for their honey, and we only send the best of their honey to your local grocery. So you can bee certain, Pennuka Honey is the best choice for locally-sourced, environmentally-friendly sweetness!

"Interesting, right?" My mom took the jar from me and spooned some onto her pancake.

"It sounds like bullshit." I stabbed a piece of pancake with my fork. "How could a multi-acre greenhouse, which requires 'a lot of energy,' be more environmentally-friendly than just importing Manuka honey from New Zealand?"

"Do you know how bad jet fuel is for the planet?" My mom asked.

"I know it can't melt steel beams," I dipped my pancake piece into my syrup puddle. "Does this greenhouse even exist?"