I’ve been trying to plough through Alberto Manguel’s A History of Reading for three days, since it’s on the list of required readings for the Masters program I’m looking at. No matter how hard I concentrate on the text, I get distracted. This evening, I decided mid-page that waffles sounded good for dinner. There was half a quart of buttermilk in the fridge so I googled the following: waffles, buttermilk, cornmeal. I’d like to think I know a lot about waffles. My father has used the same waffle machine since 1986. It’s a commercial machine with cast-iron plates and adjustable time and temperature settings. He’s used it so often that the non-stick coating stopped functioning and he shipped the machine to Canada for a refurbishment. Through him, I’ve tried over three dozen commercial waffle mixes (our favorite is Classique Fare Belgian Waffle Mix.) When I came to college, I found an abandoned heart-shaped waffle maker in my basement and started trying to make mixes from scratch. I’ve tried recipes for pumpkin waffles, lemon-cornmeal waffles, chocolate waffles, buckwheat waffles, and vegan waffles, to name a few. None of them has yielded a waffle like my father’s: well browned and extremely crisp with a delicate, almost undercooked interior. Still, sometimes I get hungry for a different waffle. Tonight, the first recipe to catch my eye on Google was Cook’s Illustrated’s “Best Buttermilk Waffles.” Intrigued, I printed the recipe and set to work. I’m a fan of Christopher Kimball’s writings, and I like Cook’s Illustrated’s tried and true approach to recipes, so I had high expectations when the recipe promised a waffle with “a crisp, well-browned exterior with a moist, fluffy interior.” Unfortunately, the waffle I forked out of my waffle maker didn’t quite match the promised description. It was possibly the puffiest waffle I’ve ever made. The outside was well browned, but after ten seconds or so it went rather limp. Furthermore, the recipe doesn’t include sugar, so the slightly salty waffle begged for a sweet accompaniment I didn’t have. I didn't give up immediately. In my experience, the first waffle never cooks as well as the rest (squashing a piece of bread in the waffle-iron first can help with this.) I tried to make another. I spread the batter across the bottom heating plate with a spatula to try and combat its thickness. I tried popping a finished waffle segment into the toaster to crisp the exterior a little more. Nothing I did made the waffle more to my taste. Cook’s Illustrated is a great resource, but sometimes it frustrates me. I don’t think everyone can agree on “The Best Buttermilk Waffles.” Cook’s Illustrated has a whole series of cookbooks called “The Best Recipe.” It’s not hard to search Google or Amazon and find hundreds of titles that promise the best results. In A History of Reading, Manguel says “reading is cumulative and proceeds by geometrical progression: each new reading builds upon whatever the reader has read before.” The same idea applies to taste. “The Best Buttermilk Waffles” might taste amazing to someone who’s never had a decent waffle. Maybe there exists a fantastic waffle that I’ll never get to try. There exist more waffle irons and waffle recipes than anyone can use in a lifetime. I may never be a true waffle expert, but at least I know not to believe everything I read. I encourage you to figure out what you like in a waffle, and then refuse to accept anything less.