Pancakes: A Compromise

One of my best memories of childhood is of time spent with my Auntie Joy and Uncle Gene. Now, Gene and Joy are “aunt and uncle” merely because that’s what they let me call them, but you know what they say about friends being the family that you choose. Instead of going the “Dr. and Mrs.” route, they preferred the openness of Auntie and Uncle, and because of that, and manifold other reasons, I choose them to be family.

I met them when I was very young, when they headed up a children’s church group, Pathfinders, which is conceptually a lot like Boy Scouts and Brownies, except the boys and girls, aged about 10-17, all hang out together. We had a lot of fun — we attempted to start fires using flint and sticks (much harder than it looks on TV), sang, listened to hobo stories, roasted marshmallows, learned to bake potatoes in coals and beans in coffee cans over tripods of sticks, tied knots, identified edible plants, dug latrines, made tents out of plastic sheeting, decorated cakes, arranged flowers, identified stars, birds, seeds, rocks and cloud formations, found fossils, hunted geodes in the Nevada dessert and played massive games of Sardines in the dark with only the stars and compasses to guide us.* I was only allowed into this group for a limited time – my father had some idea that I needed to stay home — but I loved every moment I was allowed to be there. Loved it.

Uncle Gene was the Sunday morning chef on our many weekend backpack and camping trips, and occasionally he would make — for all of us — his artery-clogging, so delicious, deep fried… funnel cake pancakes. They were alleged to be pancakes, anyway, but he dropped the batter into two inches of oil, and they were lacy and gorgeous and crisp and seriously, definitely, deep fried. I remember my mother came on a pack trip with us once and was horrified — and amused — and Uncle Gene fussed at her to get out of his “kitchen” and mind her own business and eat what was put before her. Of course, even Mom loved those pancakes, even if, in good conscience, she couldn’t eat more than one. Or two.

But I still love them. I still think of them with great fondness, and a kind of bright-hearted happiness that I had when I was on those trips, away from home, being cared for as if I were the most special kid in the group. And, I have to admit, I’ve been trying to recapture those pancakes forever.

There’s a crepe shack across the street from our house. It’s a single wide trailer with lights and awnings that never moves. It opens for lunch, and stays open late into the long, light summer evenings, and when the midnight pub crowds dwindle, they often head over to get a bit of food into themselves before they wander home. We’ve seen the crepe place and heard that the crepes were “okay, if you like that kind of thing” from a couple of people, and so in a fit of randomness D. brought home a couple flavored with lemon and sugar, and one with hazelnut chocolate. They smelled nice, and looked beautiful, but they were eggy, rubbery, and not good. I sampled bites from both and gave up. When D. came up with this recipe, he was remembering the thinness of the crepes — but fortunately, without using eggs, we get a lovely, light bubbly batter for our pancakes.

Whole wheat flour can be not the most “light” ingredient, and my conscience, not to mention my pot belly, urges me not to indulge in deep fried anything. But D. came up with a pretty good sans eggs compromise on the pancakes of my imagination. Uncle Gene would probably not agree to any compromises, but he’s just not the compromising type, trust me on this. He is eighty-some odd years old, has weathered cancer and the annoyances of aging with aplomb and is still going strong way up in Oregon, growing his blackberries and with my every-young Auntie Joy at his side.

Compromise Corn Cakes

• 1 block silken tofu
• 1 cup medium corn polenta
• 1 cup AP flour
• 2 tbsp. ground flax seed
• 2 tbsp. wheat germ
• 2 tbsp. xylitol or sugar
• 1 tbsp oil
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp. lavender cordial
• 1 tsp. agave nectar
• 1/8 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon and nutmeg, freshly ground
• 1 T baking powder
• 1 bottle (8oz./250ml) root beer
• 1 c. water

Blend the liquid ingredients, including the tofu and flaxseed, in a blender or Cuisinart type of thing. Add cornmeal and other dry ingredients, being sure the blending of each is thorough. (We’d hate for you to get the impression that we were careful about this, but fine cornmeal will clump sometimes, so keep an eye out.) Add the rest — flour, spices, wheat germ, baking powder, and the last of the root beer. The blending will get rid of most of the frothiness, but there will be myriad tiny bubbles in this mix.

A hot pan with just a tiny bit of oil will give you what you’re looking for — light, lacy looking, very thin pancakes. They release even from a stainless steel pan with very little effort.

Yields about two dozen, medium sized, very thin pancakes, which we served with two tablespoons of a store-bought raspberry preserve, thinned down with lime juice. YUM. A serving of four pancakes is 409 calories.

*What? You don’t know Sardines? Children, let me tell you.

It’s a nighttime game, and it’s basically hide and seek reversed. The group of “Hidees” stands around and counts to 100, and the object is to find the sole “Hider”… and quietly hide with them. Whole groups of people can disappear into the wilderness, if you’ve got a good enough spot. And it’s hilarious to watch people circling, circling, trying to find you, and the rest of the gang.

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