Sunday Pancakes!

Probably the main thing I inherited from my dad is a pancake recipe he made every weekend. When he was dying I was pretty much in denial, so I had to be prodded to go ask for the recipe. It was a surreal experience, to admit to myself that I didn't know the recipe, and that I was desperate to preserve it. He didn't seem surprised that I asked.

So it's not really the recipe that I've inherited after all, but the will to simply make pancakes that we all inherited from DOD (he often styled himself as Dear Old Dad in emails as a bit of humor @ the department of defense). I've been horrified to learn that my brother and sister often use a box mix - Bisquick, and I prayed dearly for their lost souls. But honestly I can't blame them, my dad's recipe is kind of a lot of trouble and isn't as good as I somehow remember it. People are often disappointed in in their blandness in comparison to the high-salt, high-fat affairs found at breakfast restaurants.

I've been especially suspicious lately that the recipe is partly based on his sense of cheapness, for which he was renowned. For instance a split of olive oil and canola oil? Chemically these act on the final pancakes in the same way, but the olive oil is better for you and the corn oil is cheaper. A tablespoon of each is a bit of a cut corner IMO. Also, I grew up eating pancakes made out of cheap flour while taking flintstones vitamins. In my adulthood I sort of see something perverse about eating food lacking some of the vital ingredients of "food," like without the flinststones we'd all be at risk for rickets or scurvy or something.

After experimenting with ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg for the last year or so, I finally decided to try some more extreme experiments. It helps to imagine Christopher Kimball is in the kitchen with you when performing these experiments. Claire and little K were so pleased with the results yesterday that I was asked for a repeat, and today I doubled down on my change. The problem with buttermilk pancakes, is, in my considered opinion, the buttermilk. It's never around, and if it's in the fridge, it's usually bad. But how can you even tell? It smells terrible in it's original state. And the pancakes get a bitter aftertaste from it (which I usually cut with a bit of ginger) making it almost unpalatable with a strong cup of coffee. Cultured buttermilk... what else is "cultured..." wine, cheese, bread, beer.... yogurt!

Whisk together:

1 egg (God's eggs aren't uniformly white)

4 oz of fruit flavored yogurt(yesterday pear/squash, today apple/sweet potato)

4 oz of 2% or whole milk (whole milk is like 3% milkfat. If you can get milk that's not ultrapasturized, I think that's better because more protein is intact, but this is hard. Also 8oz of yogurt and no milk will work too, but I had to keep my dad's sense of cheapness in there somewhere...)

Almost 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (you can probably use as little as one)

1 heaping tblsp full of granulated sugar

1/4 tsp of koshering salt (that's 1/8th tsp of small grain table salt!)

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 tsp of baking soda

1 cup of AP king arthur flour (1/2 cup at a time)

Cook on medium heat - an iron skillet is best but pretty much anything works - use spray olive oil that smokes in the pan before making 6in diameter pours, and flip when you get more than 1 or 2 bubbles that pop. I use two pans at once so the process doesn't drag out forever, and stick them on a plate in a 170 degree oven until there's a respectable stack to serve. In case you didn't know about the salt thing, bigger grains have more air between them so if you want to cut the salt, start by using koshering salt in smaller amounts.

Top with the same fruit as your yogurt flavor, and stay away from syrups with HFCS (good luck with that!). Chronic consumption of fructose is bad for you, so don't eat it!