Sacrificial Pancakes Vs. Cookies

When I was a kid Grandpa Drake made the best pancakes on the planet Earth. It was the ultimate treat to wake up on a weekend morning at their house, especially in the winter, and have those hot steamy pancakes before going to church with Grandma. They were the best pancakes ever, and after he died I spent a good amount of time trying to recreate them.

Christa and I spent a lot of Saturdays or Sundays at Grandmas, making Aunt Jemima pancake mix, or Log Cabin pancake mix, always thinking our pancakes were quite tasty but never quite making the grade of "Grandpas" pancakes.

I always wondered if it was just the magic of it being GRANDPA that made them that caused them to be so good, but then one day I saw this.

OH.

Yeah.

There it is.

And forever after I had the magic within me as well to make pancakes.

I'm pretty good at it. I disagree with Alton Brown (sorry dude) and don't reduce the amount of butter in my pan because butter crispy goodness around the edges is part of what makes my pancakes AMAZING.  I've made a lot of pancakes over my 47 years, these days I usually make them for my family on a weekend or holiday, because some how actually making a proper breakfast has become a special event in this world but that's a whole other subject. (Not nother subject. Nother is not word.)

What I was thinking about this morning was this. When I bake cookies, cookies are this science of chemistry that you simply follow the instructions and they turn out properly. Baking is SCIENCE. Baking always works out if you do it all exactly as it says to do. (Aside - providing the recipe provides all the info you need, and you actually DID it all as it said no don't whine to me, you probably didn't did you? Admit it. You skipped stuff. You didn't combine wet and dry apart form one another did you?) Anyway, cooking usually looks like this at my house. It's a fun magical time of us combining things and delicious wonder occurs.

Then there's the matter at hand from this morning, PANCAKES.

What's the deal with pancakes that no matter how hard I try, how diligent I am at following the instructions there is always ONE sacrificial pancake?

I try to wait out to make sure it's been long enough to flip. I make sure the pan is properly hot before I drop batter in. I do everything I would do for every SUBSEQUENT PANCAKE  yet each and every time, in my entire pancake making existence, ONE PANCAKE GOES TO THE PANCAKE GODS.

Also, don't google PANCAKE GODS. Weird stuff shows up.

So every time I make pancakes, I try to save that first pancake. I do everything I can imagine but every time, every single farking time, the pancakes gods take their sacrifice. I must know that the first pancake will go awry somewhere in my heart, because I normally make them two at a time but that first one goes in solo. I've surrendered before I start I guess.

I guess I'm just glad there are no cookie gods, I would lose my mind if I lost a dozen cookies every single time I bake.

There you see the sacrificial pancake on the alter, surrounded by butter. We barely knew thee.
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