Sunday, January 2, 2011

Pancakes And Politics


This Christmas, while shopping, I did buy myself one other present besides the dog-collar scrunchie. This one was far more expensive but not nearly as senseless.

I bought myself a cast-iron griddle that goes over two stove burners on which to cook, oh, say pancakes. The other side of the griddle is ridged so that I could conceivably cook fish or sausage or hamburgers on it and perhaps sometime I will but mainly I want it for pancakes.

I've wanted one of these for years. My Lis has one and I am always fraught with envy when she uses it. But they are relatively expensive and I have so many cast iron pans and skillets and I've been making pancakes, three at a time, in the giant iron skillet that came from my Girl Scout troup (I am not kidding you- so I've been cooking on this thing for about forty-three years now) ever since I've been a mama and now the kids are gone so really? Do I need one?

Yes. Yes I do and I bought one and today was its maiden voyage to sail across a Sunday morning bearing loads of pancakes (six at a time!) from raw to doneness and oh, it is a joy.

And here is how I make pancakes which, after you eat them, you will never, ever be satisfied with plain pancakes again, even the lightest and fluffiest because they will be dull as dirt. My pancakes are never dull and every Sunday we pronounce them to be quite possibly the best I have ever made.
Today was no exception.

I start out with oh, maybe a cup of self-rising flour. I add about a teaspoon of baking soda because I use buttermilk and for some scientific reason, this is necessary. I think.
Then I add about a quarter of a cup of ground flax seed because it is the current "miracle" food. Why not?
You can't see either of those ingredients in that bowl, can you? That's because I add so much more!
Today I took some frozen berries and put those and some pecans in the food processor and ground them up to a fine chunkiness. Not into dust- I stopped far short of that. I added those to the bowl. I grated an apple into the mixture and then cut up a banana and added that. Next, maybe a few tablespoons of oil, an egg from my hens, and enough buttermilk to make it all a lovely, spoonable, spreadable consistency. Don't ask me how much! I do not know! Enough!

I had heated the griddle and I spooned out the batter. It looked like this:

Nice, huh?
And when I flipped them, they looked like this:

And I put the done ones in the oven at a low temperature to keep warm while I make the next batch and it went so quickly today. I always put a glass of milk in the freezer while I make the pancakes because that's how Mr. Moon likes his milk- really very cold. He grew up on a dairy where they kept the milk at one degree above freezing which would explain that. He had a little Bozo cup that hung from a hook over the cooler and he could go dip a glass of almost-freezing milk whenever he wanted. This may also explain why he grew to be almost seven feet tall.

Anyway, I served him his pancakes this morning, fresh off the new griddle, and gave him his cold milk and his piece of venison sausage and he is now ready to take on the day. Whatever that involves. Right now he's changing the oil in a car. In the rain.
I wanted to take his picture as he ate but he refused me. He said that he did not feel pretty enough. "Well, that's not what I mean," he said, but I think it is. I kissed his head and put the camera away.

You know, as I have said before, Hank had a girlfriend whose main contribution to our family was that she gave Mr. Moon the title of Zen Glen. She was right. And he proved that this very morning as we were reading the newspaper in horror. There is an article in it about our soon-to-take-office governor, Rick Scott. He used a third of his personal wealth to buy the office and if his personal wealth was like a million dollars, that would be one thing but NO! his personal wealth (reported, at least) is $218 MILLION DOLLARS which means that for $70 million dollars, you, too, could probably be governor of the state of Florida.

"Why would he want to be governor?" we wondered.

I said, "Oh, those rich guys, they always say they seek public office to 'give back'."

"Well why didn't he just give Florida seventy million dollars?" asked Zen Glen.

Indeed.

This may be one of the first First Families to move into the governor's mansion and think, "What a dump!" You should see the picture of their house in Naples. On the Gulf Coast.

Well, pancakes and politics. It's Sunday.

Love you...Ms. Moon

17 comments:

  1. Please, oh please, may I come over for pancakes?

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  2. Lisa- Of course! Bring Bob Rosenberg.

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  3. Your pancakes do look amazing, but I live with a Pancake Czar and he would never allow any deviation from his Sunday morning ritual.

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  4. I'm glad you got your griddle. My aunt who died had only recently got a new oven that came with one, and I wish she'd got it sooner.

    Griddles for us all!

    My mother had an Aga, and she would open the burner and polish it with a wire brush and oil, and hten cook right on it, lots of little round pancakes in a circle :)

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  5. See, that all looks wonderful and I love pancakes but honestly, how do you keep them together in the "pancake shape" as batter with all those ingredients in there? I know that's probably a ridiculous question, but I would think they would fall apart and clump. But maybe that is just me :)

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  6. First, I love your header photo. I gave my sister a tshirt that says Queen of the Fucking Universe because it made me laugh. I have been designing my perfect necklace and earring hanging object d'art in my head for years, and your's is just about perfect. Must find an old wooden mirror get busy. I like my necklaces out where I can see them and they don't get tangled. For now, they hang from the lampshade of my floor lamp, which makes my husband scratch his head in confusion.
    I am going to make your pancakes soon, they look perfect. I'm with you on the buttermilk and the flax seed. My teens like the crap from a box - just add water - best, but I love to make them from scratch with buttermilk and flax seed and wheat bran. Nobody but me thinks fruits or nuts belong in pancakes or waffles - how did I end up in this nutty family???
    Well I'm so glad you got the pan of your dreams. Like you, I stubbornly have used the subpar pans I've had for decades, until this year. I turned 50 and something clicked. I practically live in my kitchen running Mel's diner anyway, why not have NICE pans??? Of course, being me, I had to shop around for them at the outlet stores, but boy, do they make me happy. Nice pans and healthy, yummy pancackes. It's the little things, isn't it?
    All the best to you today, forever and always.
    ps, don't know what you were sewing, but you had the most beautiful silky crimson pincushion I had ever seen. You told me it was a gift. You know how dreams are... hazy and fuzzy, but this one had a distinct glow :)

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  7. Don't look now but that's me, knocking at your door.

    Oh, delicious.

    I'm glad you got that grill for yourself. And I'm so going to steal your pancake recipe this very day.

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  8. Oh, and love your new header! Why I am not surprised that you love Frida Khalo too!

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  9. You think you can ship some of those pancakes to my neck of the woods...forget that....I want them fresh, can you ship yourself and Mr Moon and Owen to my place and we can all talk and play and eat?

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  10. You make excellent-looking pancakes. The Dutch are ridiculously tall and they have just about only milk and milk products when they are children. So your theory makes perfect sense in this part of the world.

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  11. We had pancakes on the boat this morning but none like yours. We will try some fancy ones some time. I wonder why someone would want to be governor. And to spend that much money--maybe he is a narcissist.

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  12. Elizabeth- And so it goes and so it must go and that's okay.

    Jo- I have only ever read of Agas in books and I have always coveted one. They sound so damn...rich.

    SJ- I guess there is a balance between batter and the other ingredients. I don't know...just add enough buttermilk, I guess.

    Mel- A long time ago I pointed out to my husband that my kitchen things are my tools, and it is just as important to have good ones as it is to him to have good tools. He got it. And mostly, my pots and pans are very old, but they are of such good quality that I will be passing them down to my children.
    I do have a beautiful green velvet pincushion that my Lis gave me. Funny, eh? Not crimson but a dark green velvet and it is very special.
    And it was a gift. So there!

    Angella- To me, Frida is the opposite side of the same coin as the madonna. I hope your pancakes turn out well!

    Rebecca- Uh, you live where it's cold. Maybe when it warms up?
    I am a fair-weather friend.

    Mwa- Mr. Moon is full of Scandinavian genes of many sorts. He is my Viking.

    Syd- As my friend, Marcy said on Facebook this morning- she thinks that a lot of men who make huge fortunes think that the next big challenge would be to rule a state or a nation. I think she's right.

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  13. Pancakes sound delish. The thought of Mr Scott makes me shudder and want to hurl.

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  14. The loser in the California governor's - or was it the senate? - race spent $140 mil of her own $$ to lose. Guess she should have bought two Floridas instead.

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  15. For many years, I cooked on a beautiful old cast iron stove that had (in addition to two ovens, a broiler and a warming compartment perfect for making yoghurt) its own griddle----it was so satisfying to make pancakes on it.

    California is a mess, but we're gratified to have Zen Jerry Brown trying the governor thing again instead of letting Meg Whitman buy the office.

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  16. Just had your pancakes for lunch - YUM! Why have I never put my milk in the freezer before? Brilliant, thanks for sharing this and making my day.

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  17. I'm with Zen Glen. You betcha.

    And also, I think if you're that rich, you're crazy to want to work, when you could just travel and party all the time.

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