Breakfast

I am a slow learner: one of five children, I didn’t grasp the concept of sibling rivalry until I came across the term in a college textbook. But I do have some brains, and it didn’t take a doctorate, a master’s, or a bachelor’s degree for me to figure out that families have competing interests. This past Sunday was mother’s day, and my brother was throwing a party for my mother. This left little time for Santa Maria, so we celebrated early, on Saturday.

I started the day off with fresh-fruit pancakes. Before Santa Maria and I became parents, would spend Saturday mornings lazing about in bed. There was little else we wanted to do. Pancakes became the only reason to get out from under the covers.

I knew a few things about pancakes that made eating them as good as any other activity we might engage in during those laid-back mornings. I found it was as easy to stir up a batch of batter from scratch as it was to open a box of mix. My old roommate Kevin Conley taught me how to caramelize bananas on them. He also showed me the trick of beating the egg whites to make them light as air.

I became so obsessed with beating the egg whites that I once served inch-high pancakes to my extended family one post-Christmas morning and they started calling me “Fluff Daddy.” Santa Maria isn’t as enthusiastic about the super fully cakes so I’ve eased off on beating the eggs. I still do it, just not as rigorously.

In cooking the pancakes for Santa Maria back in the days before children, I made an amazing discovery. Pancakes, those steamy, floppy, sad-sack diner mainstays, can come light and fresh with an otherwise unheard of crispy edge. The trick is to eat them right off the frying pan—no stacking a bunch in the oven. And making them small, silver dollar sized, helps. The crispy and buttery edge only lasts about as long as it takes to get the plate from the kitchen to the table. Enjoy it if you can. It’s a rare pleasure.

My batter is adapted from a recipe in “The Joy of Cooking.” I separate and beat the egg whites. I fold them into the wet batter and I’ve learned that you do not need to mix the batter completely. Too much stirring will make the pancakes tough. Mix the wet and the dry ingredients just long enough to combine them. Leave a few lumps, and let the batter sit for a few minutes. By the time you come back to it, they will have dissolved.

I cook the pancakes in the traditional manner, but I also spice them with cinnamon or nutmeg. I put slices of bananas, pears, apples, and other fruits on the half-cooked pancake before turning it. When I flip them, the fruit caramelizes and the result is delicious.

One note: Nina isn’t fond of fruit and she won’t eat the pancakes the way I make them. Santa Maria figured out that we could grate some apple and put in the batter. She eats them this way, and I’ve learned that they are pretty good, too.

 

For the batter:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups of milk
• 2 eggs, whites separated
• 1 to 2 tablespoons butter

Combine the dry ingredients and mix well with a fork (many cookbooks will tell you to sift the flour;             I’ve never bothered to do so)
Melt the butter.
Mix the yolks in with the milk.
Beat the egg whites until they can barely hold a peak.
Combine the dry ingredients with the wet.
Don’t mix too much.
Fold in the whites.

For the toppings:
Slice a banana, pear, apple, or other fruit thinly.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat, add some butter. Pour in the batter. When bubbles form, layer             on the fruit. Flip the pancake. Cook until finished. Serve with Maple Syrup.

 

I do much of my cooking in the early morning. I often head right from the bed to the stove so quickly that it doesn’t even occur to me to change my clothes. I’ll chop onions and celery and carrots and what have you while still wearing my pajamas. Right up to the moment I have to dress and run out the door to work, I continue on my daily culinary journey while dressed in my night clothes. The end result, other than whatever fine and tasty dish I’ve competed, is that my pajamas often take on a cooking odor. I only notice this eighteen hours later, when I’m on my way to bed, and I don’t usually like it. Tonight, though, my pajamas smelled like the bacon I cooked this morning for breakfast. That’s not such a bad smell at all. Makes me kind of hungry, in fact.

A week or so ago, out of the blue, Nina observed that we hadn’t had pancakes in a long time. This was true.We’ve been too tired and too busy to bother. I changed this on Sunday morning when I prepared a batch before everyone got up. Well, almost everyone. Pinta was awake early, as she always is. The only time she ever sleeps past six AM are on the nights when she’s been up crying during the early hours of the morning. She doesn’t give anyone any rest, including herself.

So after I diapered her, gave her a bottle, and had my tea, I started on the pancakes. I always make them from scratch. It’s easy. I use a variation on the recipe in “The Joy Of Cooking,” with less sugar than they call for. I also separate and beat the egg whites.

I add fruit to the pancakes, but not just to the batter. Years ago I roomed with the writer Kevin Conley, and he taught me about caramelizing the fruit on one side of the pancake. Conley, who has since moved on to more exciting pursuits (his book about stunt men and women, “The Full Burn,” came out earlier this year), showed me how to slice bananas, pears, apples, or other fruit very thinly and layer them on the top of pancake batter as it cooks in the pan. When one side is done, flip it and you’ll get a nice brown edge on the fruit as the pancake finishes.

By the way, there’s something about pancakes that often gets lost in the time it takes them to get from the stove to the table. Fresh ones have an irresistible, crisp edge. When pancakes are stacked and held before serving, as is the case at a diner, for example, they loose it. It’s worth making them in small batches and eating them as quickly as possible (not really a challenge).

On Sunday morning, I prepared the dried ingredients and then waited for the rest of the family to get up. When Nina woke and saw what was happening, she asked to do something that just made me swoon. She came into the kitchen and said, “Can I help make the pancakes?” I gave her the task of mixing the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder. She also helped me measure and pour the milk.

Today’s New York Times has an article on the benefits of having kids help in the kitchen. It is supposed to make them less picky eaters. I’ll have to get Nina to read it; she may have wanted to help make the pancakes, but she’s resistant to eating fruit, almost all fruits. If she sees any on the pancake, she’s not interested.

We want her to eat more fruits, so we tried a bit of subterfuge. Santa Maria grated some apple and put it in the batter for Nina. It goes against my beliefs to lie to my kids, and I generally don’t sneak ingredients into dishes. I figured it would be okay this time, though. So long as Nina didn’t ask about the apple, I wouldn’t have to say anything. She loved the pancakes and I had one of her apple-filled ones by accident. They were quite good and I might make some for myself next time.

Pancakes:

1.5 cups flour

1T sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1.75 teaspoons baking powder

Combine those ingredients.

3T butter (or less)

1 plus cups milk

1-2 eggs, whites separated

Melt butter, add egg yolks to milk, mix. Add butter.

beat whites

Combine dry ingredients with the milk and butter. Mix gently until mostly combined. Do not over mix.

Fold in egg whites.

It’s fine to let the batter sit for while at this point.

Heat maple syrup

Slice bananas, apples, or other fruit.

Heat frying pan. Add butter. Pour batter into pan in small puddles. cook until air bubles appear in batter. Add layer of fruit. Flip and finish.

Oatmeal has long been one my breakfast standards. I use organic rolled oats and they cook in about twenty minutes. Santa Maria was big on seasoning them with cinnamon and nutmeg and walnuts and apples, but I’m happy to have it plain. So was Nina. Pinta, not so much. She used to eat it, but then started rejecting it. So I changed my course. I added salt while cooking (something most, if not all recipes call for, but I’m resistant to; why calibrate their palates to love salt?), but that wasn’t sufficient. Nuts are out, because the doctors and their blood tests tell us that Nina is allergic. Santa Maria came to the rescue with a touch of brown sugar. Pinta gobbles it up now. Easy as pie.

Oatmeal:

2 cups rolled oats
4 cups water
salt
bring to a boil, covered
simmer  until soft and creamy (can also be made with milk); about twenty minutes
season with above spices, if so desired

serve with milk and or butter and cinnamon and walnuts and apples or whatever you like.

 

Yesterday I wanted to make miso soup for my family. The first part of the process is softening the kombu so I plucked a few sheets of it from the package in the cupboard and set it to boiling on the stove. Then I headed to the fridge for the miso paste, tofu, and scallions. That’s when I realized I wouldn’t be making miso soup that morning. The scallions that had been in the fridge the day before had mysteriously vanished. No scallions, no miso soup. So I tabled that idea, and the question then became, what to do with the boiling seaweed.

I figured it wouldn’t hurt the kombu any to let it sit overnight. I could make the miso the following day. And that’s what I did this morning. Doing so, I realized that I had too much seaweed. I was left with two large sheets of it. I’d read somewhere about frying it up so I put some oil in a pan and sautéed a leaf until it was crispy. My toddler Pinta was running about so I offered her a taste. She like it. Nina was watching, and I like to make a habit of offering her everything that I offer to her sister.  I said to Nina who loves bacon, “Would you like some sea bacon?”

Nina tried a bit and then politely rejected it. Pinta, for her part was clamoring for more. Nina saw this and changed her mind. She wanted more, too. The sea bacon was a hit. I quickly fried up the other piece and fed it to them before breakfast. They loved it.