I'm a Pancaker

I’d like to start clean with you. I’m a pancaker.

It all started Halloween weekend 2005. Before this fabled weekend my breakfasts during the week were a fairly pedestrian pair of Eggos, a glass of water, and a vitamin consumed afoot while making lunches for myself and the boy (2nd grade currently) and administering his breakfast bowl of cereal. This worked fine for weekdays. When wrastling with a tight time parameter this quick breakfast menu was optimal, even if ranking low in the pageantry department.

For weekends, however, this eventually began to leave me with a lackluster feeling walking away from the breakfast table about to engage the day. I thought of pancakes and mentioned my desire to Wife Klem. With an amused curiosity, and much encouragement, she secured the necessary ingredients. It was at this point in 2005 my weekend routine took a significant upgrade.

Saturday mornings became my pancaking mornings. It took several sessions to work out the bugs in my pancaking protocol. The industrious employing of mixing bowls, measuring batter, and adding milk. I was pleased with myself. Very pleased, to be precise.

Eventually, having gotten myself into a comfort level with the pancakes, I sought out ways to improve. I added bananas one week. Another week mixed in blueberries. Yogurt another week.

It later occurred to me that the process itself needed improving. I stopped using the big mixing bowl. In fact, I stopped using any bowls. Mix the ingredients directly into a blender and simply push the liquefy button, I did. Oh boy, was I happy with myself now! Not only did this simplify the mixing process, but it was easy pouring the smooth viscosity directly from the blender to the pan. Clean up was also a snap. Disassemble and place in the dish washer.

A batch of pancakes, limited only by the volume of the blender, cooks up about a dozen cakes of respectable nine-inch diameter. The best part, perhaps? I freeze the pancakes that I can’t consume in that one sitting and eat the balance the remainder of the week. Monday through Friday morning I pull them out of the freezer, snap one in half and toss it in the toaster.

Pancakes. I enjoy ‘em.
-klem