Pancake morning short-lived
When visiting the farmer in Argentina, I loved french fry night. A couple of times a week, we would slice the potatoes into skinny straws and bathe them in hot oil. Maybe it was the outback air, and maybe it was how hungry I was after riding my bike all over the place, but they were the best fries ever.
It’s been almost 10 years, now, and we have french fry night here. Not exactly the same, but pretty good. Looking for another carb-loading tradition to spruce up the dark winter weeks, I came upon it.
“Let’s start pancake morning,” I exclaimed. The farmer was all in.
I’d not had pancakes in probably a year or more, the last time being at a restaurant with my daughter while visiting her at college. Breakfast is not a big thing for me, and I’ve found that if I skip it altogether, I’m not really looking to eat anything until around dinnertime.
But pancakes. That’s a fast-breaking tradition I can get behind.
And so last Sunday, we set out to make ourselves the first pancake morning. It would be a good way to use that griddle thing that came with the stove; the farmer lit the fire underneath it and added some butter, which bubbled in a way that must have inspired Carly Simon to sing that song about hotcakes.
With the griddle hot and ready, I ladled on the batter. And the bubbling came to a stop.
“It’s just sitting there,” I said to the farmer as I stood with my arms folded, waving the spatula judgmentally at the dead flapjack. We both turned our attention to the stove, where my perfectly shaped pancake was loitering. There was no bubbling; a peek underneath showed no browning.
“The griddle is too wide and is having trouble distributing the heat,” said the farmer, taking a scientific view of things. That is so like him.
There’s a saying about tossing out the first pancake, and so we did. I pulled out a skillet and started over, turning up the heat and adding butter. The farmer said that sprinkling a bit of water on the skillet will show if it’s hot enough. I added water and the pan erupted, spewing melted butter across a 3-foot radius.
By then the farmer and I were pointing fingers and sniping. Making pancakes should not be this difficult.
We did manage to regain control, finally making about 10 fairly decent cakes. The farmer ate the first seven and I ate the rest, tucking tabs of butter between the layers and then bathing the whole lot with syrup.
I couldn’t get through the whole stack because I started to yawn. I mean big, noisy, gaping yawns that caused me to push my chair back and stretch out my arms.
Within 10 minutes, I was back in bed for a deep nap.
This is why people my age can’t have pancake morning. All those sweet, delicious carbohydrates will eventually get their revenge, flooding the bloodstream with enough insulin to bring on a coma. My nap lasted for two hours. This is why pancake house restaurants are often located next to hotels.
Sadly, pancake morning will not be a regular event around here. Not after all that rancor at the stove and then, the wasted morning. We’ll leave the pancakes to the millennials and their children.
We’ll stick to french fry night. I feel one coming on.