A tradition passed on...

Most weekends at Wayfarer House we have pancakes for breakfast, a tradition that has carried over from my youth, when my father would make them nearly every Saturday. My dad taught me how to make them when I was 10 or so, and I have carried that experience with me since as one of the most empowering and satisfying of my childhood. Of all the things I cook, I have been making pancakes the longest. It's the only recipe I know by heart.

It happened quite by accident that SiSi and I were talking about recipes yesterday. She asked me if I knew any that she could write down in her (homemade) notebook. I gave her my recipe for pancakes. Then she asked if we were having them tomorrow, and if she could help make them. She's a very capable 7-year old and we didn't have anyplace to be, so I said, "Sure!"

This morning, while she washed her hands, I got down the ingredients, the mixing bowl and the measuring tools (many of these things are up out of reach). She measured out everything and put it all together. You can see that there's flour everywhere--that's actually not all her. I was adding flour from the bag to the storage container and had a spasm. Oops!

I love the focused concentration here! She wanted to get exactly one cup of milk. I didn't have the heart to tell her that milk is the one ingredient that varies each time.

Then to the stove (she's not quite tall enough to work at the stove without a stool), where I showed her how much to ladle onto the skillet to get the size of pancake that Mama likes. I was impressed that she got it perfect the very first time--and with no spillage!

I was even more impressed that she didn't flip a single pancake off the griddle. I think I had them all over the kitchen when I was a kid!

She cooked about half the batch. I offered to take over at that point so she could actually sit and enjoy the fruits of her labor with her sister. When I asked her how she thought they came out, she said, in her wonderfully understated way, "Awesome."