I've been wanting pancakes for a week and thought Sunday would be perfect for a stack. I found a recipe on line and checked the cupboard for the ingredients.
All-purpose flour? It's five or six years old and had been sitting in an old bread box above the microwave. Aaah, what the hell. They used flour in olden days that wasn't stamped with an expiration date.
Baking powder? I double checked the recipe and the tin to be certain it was powder and not soda.
Salt? Who doesn't have a box of Morton salt sitting somewhere in the kitchen. And there it was behind the can goods on the bottom shelf.
Milk? Of course. Even better that the expiration date is a while back. That's almost the same as buttermilk, isn't it? I have always liked buttermilk pancakes.
Sugar? Yep, right there in the sugar bowl as it has been since I was a working stiff.
Eggs? In the door of the refrigerator where I left them a couple of months ago. I thought about trying the water test but decided I would know as soon as I cracked the shell and exposed the innards. I checked the expiration stamp on the carton but whoever stamped that day must have been hungover since it was just a blue smear across the carton.
And there I had it. All the ingredients for pancakes sitting on the counter. The next order of action involved finding utensils to prepare the mixture.
A bowl. I wiped out the husk of some flying creature with a damp paper towel. The measuring cups I had washed the night before to remove the sticky film. They had dried over night in the dish rack.
The flour was still white. I filled two cups. After watching the surface of the powder for a few minutes and being certain there was no motion I moved on to the next ingredient.
I remembered my mother always tossed the dry components into the bowl first which I did. Still no movement.
Happy with the half full bowl I cracked the first egg. Wouldn't hydrogen sulfide be apparent with the first crack? I figured it would. Into the mound flopped the egg white and yolk. I watched it slide down the side of the flour hill with an observant eye to be certain no baby chick or blood spot was apparent. Nope. I cracked the second egg with the same results. I had been a bit concerned that this might be the ingredient that would destroy my pancake dream.
The last thing to go was the milk. One cup. It said one and a half to two cups so I held back on the second to see how the mixture would look. Fortunately for me one and a half was the perfect amount.
Everything whipped up into a lovely lumpy paste.
I was proud of myself. Not only did I have batter in a bowl but I had a large frying pan pre heating to the proper temperature while preparing it. I had thought ahead. I was ready.
The quarter cup measure was the perfect amount for a hand sized pancake. In the end I had ten pancakes stacked and buttered in my pie plate sitting near the burner. Some may have been a bit tanner than others but, surprisngly, there were none so burnt they needed to be arced into the trash bin.
The bowl, measuring cups and spoons along with other unnecessary dishes, pots and pans I tossed into the sink leaving a trail of batter and eggshells drizzled across the stove and counter top. Let 'em soak, says I.
I had read somewhere that to keep the syrup from being unevenly absorbed by those porous pancakes that a hole should be cut into the center of the stack. It makes a swell well of syrup for dipping. I found that to be a good innovation for me.
While all this was going on Robin, my Heinz 57 hybrid, left the room to hide in the TV room. Any time the activity becomes too boysterous for her delicate nerves she high tails it to the back. Nakita, my akita, had gone out earlier to observe the neighborhood and repell any elephants that might stray into the yard.
As I sat to indulge myself with that mound of syrup drenched fried dough Nakita body-slammed the door which was her quiet way of requesting entry to the house. I let her in, removed her elbra after which she moseyed to the back.
It was just too much. It was more than I could eat. So I scraped the leftovers into the trash bin. When I turned around I saw both my girls turning the corner. Nakita was looking at me expectantly. She licked her chops in preparation. Robin rounded the corner looking a bit guilty rolling her eyes groundward. I swear that Robin told Nakita in their canine way that I had been cooking.
"Sorry girls. It was too sweet for you two and I tossed it."
Nakita looked at me. Then she looked at Robin as if to say why'd you make me get off my comfortable bed for this. Robin looked at her then at me tucked her tail and meandered over to her chair.
Well, it was too sweet for them.
