Crispy Black Pancakes
Posted by Rey
I can cook. That’s not a brag or anything; it’s just a fact. My penne pesto is superb and accented by my broiled chicken. My rice and beans are enhanced by my steaks and onions. I make killer scrambled eggs and have no problem mixing a mean milk shake. But I can’t make pancakes.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I do the batter right, mix it all up, pour it on the medium heated pan and next thing I know I’m scraping the things across the griddle, my arms are getting burnt and the pancakes are inflating like balloons.
My kids realize it too. They beg for my wife’s pancakes (and French toast—my bane!) for dinner and yet when I decide to make the stuff for breakfast they’re cautious.
“It smells good…”
“Because it tastes good!” I snap trying to convince myself while slapping the ill-formed ovals on my kids’ plates and hope they’ll gobble it down without thinking.
They don’t; they argue. I refuse to remake breakfast (just the way I was brought up, sorry) so we all sit there struggling through horrid pancakes—me swearing pancakes off of my cook-list and my kids hoping that my oaths stick.
Just a few minutes ago my wife asked me a series of questions:
“Do you turn down the heat from medium.”
“Yes.”
“Do you use the back burner?”
“No.”
“How many do you cook at once?”
“Three.”
“I don’t get it,” she says as she cuts into one of her perfect golden brown pancakes, shining with a dab of warm maple syrup “You’re doing everything right!” then bites down with an absentminded sigh.
7 Responses to “Crispy Black Pancakes”
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March 10th, 2007 at 12:24 am
March 10th, 2007 at 1:45 am
Now I’m picturing B13 as that kicking special kid in Cabin Fever.
“Pancakes!”
March 10th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
LOL
March 10th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Dude, I’ve got a killer recipe for blintzes (crepes) that I got from my grandpa. It’s our Saturday family tradition. E-mail me if you want it!
March 10th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Hey–hope all is well.
I had to crack up because I am a good cook–but pancakes are something I cannot make either. I have tried to make the batter from scratch, I have tried Bisquick, I have tried Aunt Jamima, I have tried different griddles. I just don’t have the knack. It’s a joke in my house that if my husband wants pancakes, he has to go to the diner…and while he is there, he orders the other thing I cannot make to save my life, eggs over-easy.
Oh well–at least your dear wife can make them. We are helpless when it comes to pancakes in our house.
Keep on cooking!
March 13th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Jungle Pop, I’m dropping you a line now.
Elaina, hoping this pancake problem wasn’t like something genetic or racial I asked my spanish mother and she and my father said “nope, we make good pancakes: you must be doing something wrong.” And like the spanish parents they are they proceeded to list all the things I may be doing wrong. Heh.
March 14th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I’m going to say definitely not racial. You have Spanish covered….I am half-Jewish, half WASP, married to an Italian. Between the two of us–that is a nice chunk of the map. Don’t tell me all those people can’t make a decent pancake. It would be pancake chaos!