NaPoWriMo - Day 2

Today's prompt is to write a poem inspired by or in the form of a recipe. Which is perfect, because yesterday after I wrote my poem, I made pancakes. And then I really wanted to write a poem about pancakes. So even though it is evening and I'm about to eat some beef barley soup (a little barley goes a long way, by the way!), I give you a poem about pancakes.



Pancakes

Those simple round delights
That's where it all started for me
My love of cooking.

When I was small
My mother would put my high chair
Next to the counter
And I would stand in it,
Spatula in hand,
Guarding the griddle,
Watching as the bubbles popped
Leaving little pock-mark
Air holes in the creamy white surface
Of almost fully cooked pancake.
Tenderly, I would insert the spatula,
Lift up the edge of the pancake
To double check that the bubbles
Weren't lying.
I would inspect the other side
And when the color was satisfactorily
Creamy brown,
I would carefully push the spatula all the way under
Then
Carefully lift
The pancake
And slowly
S l o w l y
F       P
  L  I
It over.
Always,
using two hands.

Those simple round delights
That's where it all started for me
My love of cooking.

When I was older,
I found a worn out cookbook
Of my mother's
Inside, I found a recipe
for "Sweet Milk Pancakes"
I followed the directions
S l o w l y
Meticulously
I made with my own two hands
My very first from-scratch-no-parental-supervision pancakes.
I piled them,
golden brown on a plate
And took them in to my mother
For breakfast in bed on the most sacred of days:
Mother's Day.
Was a child ever so proud of a stack of pancakes?
My mother was proud
She ate them pleased,
My father looked on - jealously.

Those simple round delights
That's where it all started for me
My love of cooking.

When you do it just right
The pancakes will get
A crispy-crunchy, buttery
Ring around the edge.
My siblings and I,
We always fought over those,
The most coveted of pancakes.
The trick, I think,
Is to cook them in butter.
But I'm still not certain
Why they grace the edges of some pancakes
But not others.

Those simple round delights
That's where it all started for me
My love of cooking.

"Don't change things.
Always follow the directions
The first time you make the recipe."
Sage advice
From my mother.
Just the other day,
I wanted some pancakes
But I was feeling lazy
So I used some biscuit mix
But I didn't follow the recipe.
Subbed butter for oil
Used less milk
Added in some vanilla
More than a dash of cinnamon.
Cooked them in butter in a pan
Overcooked them a little.
They came out dense,
But with that perfect
crispy-crunchy
golden brown
edge.

Pancakes.
Those simple round delights.

My life through pancakes?

Happy writing!

Sharon