Sprung At Last

It’s a Long Story: My Doll Becky

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When was three or so, I owned a doll named Becky and another, smaller doll, who was Becky’s friend and whose name I don’t remember. I don’t really remember Becky much, either, except that I think she had curly dark hair, and a red dress.

One day, I came downstairs, and Becky and her friend were on the kitchen table, in a plastic bag. I asked my mother, Why.

She said, I’m donating them to children who don’t have any toys.

But I don’t want to give Becky away. I want to keep her.

No you don’t, said my mother. You’re done with her.

Her tone was final: the decision was made. So I  stared at Becky in the plastic bag, missing her before she was gone, hoping those other children would love her, fearing they would just throw her away.

 

 

Spiced Banana Pancakes

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Mr. Faraway does a lot of driving. It’s about four hours to see me, but it’s also an hour just to get to Costco or Wal-Mart from his house. It’s a way of life I have trouble relating to: Costco is ten minutes from my house, and though I grant you it takes another half hour to park once I get there, I don’t have to circle the lot five times before I leave – it’s only ten minutes home for me. He can’t get home before the ice cream melts.

 

So, it’s really no surprise that his car habits are different than mine: I have a little car (zoom-zoom), where he drives a large limo-service type of car, designed for maximum passenger comfort, but not great with rapid acceleration or parallel parking. And, he keeps food in his car. You get hungry on road trips, and his life, at times, is nothing but road trips. So he keeps fruit in the car, in case he gets hungry.

 

It’s not a car, it’s a boat, says The Child. A banana boat: He’s always got bananas in that boat.

 

I think you can see where this is going.

 

So, The Child makes a request for breakfast one Saturday morning: She wants the Spiced Banana Pancakes that inspired us to buy Flour, Too. I say, I’m sorry, I don’t have any bananas, and she shoots a look at him that says, I know you have bananas in your car, you always do. And he does, so he goes to get them.

 

Like everything I’ve tried from this cookbook series, these pancakes were delicious and not complicated at all to make, though there were definitely some little tricks to them. You have to press down hard on them after you flip them over, to force out all the uncooked batter, or the pancakes won’t cook through. You definitely have to cook them fairly slowly, for the same reason.

 

I loved Chang’s trick of using a rack placed on a cookies sheet in the oven to keep the pancakes warm but also keep them from getting soggy.  It seems like one of those things I should have known, but never learned, and it’s especially useful here because these pancakes are very moist and heavy and will definitely be soggy if you try to serve a great stack of them any other way. The recipe doesn’t make a lot (just eight or nine medium-sized pancakes) – but they are very filling.

 

I found the recipe a little peppery for my taste, but I had recently bought some very potent pepper that I used, so that may have been the cause. You might want to cut the quantity, though.

 

Spiced Banana Pancakes

 

Spiced Banana Pancakes
 
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Author:
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 cup/140 g all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp kosher salt
  • 1½ tsp ground allspice
  • ¾ tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 tbsp packed brown sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 cup/240 ml whole milk
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 4 medium ripe bananas, cut into ½-in dice
  • 2 to 3 tbsp unsalted butter for cooking pancakes, plus more for serving
  • Maple syrup for serving
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 200°F/95°C, and place a rack in the center of the oven. Put a wire rack on the baking sheet and place it in the oven.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, allspice, pepper, and brown sugar. In another medium bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, and vegetable oil until blended; add about 3 of the bananas (reserving the rest for serving). Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until combined. Don’t over-mix. It will be a thick, gloppy, lumpy batter. (Sounds delicious so far, doesn’t it?)
  3. In the skillet, melt about 1 tsp of the butter over medium heat. Sprinkle a few drops of water into the pan; if the water sizzles on contact, the pan is ready. Pour a scant 1⁄2 cup/120 ml of batter into the skillet and cook for about 3 minutes, or until the edges of the pancake start to brown and small bubbles begin forming along the edges and in the middle of the cake. With a flat metal or plastic spatula, carefully flip the pancake over; the first side should be golden brown. Cook slowly for another 2 to 3 minutes. Gently press the pancake in the middle with the spatula to flatten it out a bit and make sure the center is cooked through. Adjust the heat as needed so the pancake browns nicely but doesn’t burn on the second side. Remove the finished pancake from the skillet and place it on the wire rack in the oven to keep warm while you cook the remaining pancakes.
  4. Cook the remaining pancakes the same way, adding another 1 tsp or so of butter before adding the batter each time. For these pancakes, a slower and lower heat is better; once the pan has been seasoned by the first pancake, you should be able to cook the remaining pancakes on medium-low heat. Serve immediately with butter, maple syrup, and the remaining banana.
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Cauliflower, Leek, and Gruyere Soup

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I have a talk with the Cleaning Lady, and we say our goodbyes, and the whole thing is surprisingly easier than I thought it would be; it probably doesn’t hurt that I feel so bad about it that I cry as I tell her I simply can’t afford her services anymore.

 

The Child pitches in, as she had promised she would, and helps out with the vacuuming, and sometimes surprises me by making my bed for me or cleaning my bathroom. I do the same for her, and the whole thing is off to a good start, and she wants to talk about vacations. She remembers our trip to Belize, and thinks how nice it would be to go back, but without The Departed. It would, I agree, but it’s not in the cards. I show her the cruise I am thinking about, on a ship that leaves from Seattle (no additional airfare), everything included in the price (so I don’t have to spend the trip worrying about money). She looks at the video tour of the cruise ship, mesmerized by the size of it and all the buffets it has (she can eat what she wants and lots of it).

 

She keeps helping out around the house, and though I don’t love how she loads the dishwasher, I do love that she’s not only willing to do it, but loads it better than the Cleaning Lady, and in far less time than The Departed, so that even when we procrastinate a bit about cleanup, it’s not an insurmountable obstacle to having dinner at a reasonable hour.

 

It was on such a night that I made this soup: The Child cleaned the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher while I walked the Red Dog, and when I came home, I simply cooked in my clean-ish kitchen. I forget where I found this recipe, originally from the Saltie cookbook, but I had been waiting to try it. The Child likes both cauliflower and gruyere cheese, so I figured I had a winner on my hands.

 

The soup was very easy to make, and I made only two adjustments to the recipe: I omitted the cup of fresh parsley it called for, both because it seemed like too much parsley and also because I forgot to buy any; I also used packaged vegetable broth instead of chicken broth, since The Child theoretically might eat it. The soup turned out more brothy than I expected – I somehow thought that it would be a thicker, cheesier affair, at the end – but I didn’t mind. The cheese added a lot of flavor to the broth, and the final result was filling and oh so delicious.

 

I slurped with abandon.

 

The Child was more mixed in her praise, which is a roundabout way of saying that she couldn’t decide if she liked it or not. She thought oyster crackers might help. I thought it was perfect just as is.

 

Cauliflower and Gruyere Soup

 

Cauliflower, Leek, and Gruyere Soup
 
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Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 head cauliflower
  • 3 tbs. unsalted butter
  • 3 tbs. olive oil
  • 4 leeks, white and tender green parts, thinly sliced
  • salt
  • 1 chunk Gruyère (about 5 ounces)
  • Vegetable stock, as needed (about 4 cups)
Instructions
  1. Prep the cauliflower: Remove the outer leaves, cut into large florets, and break apart into small florets with your hands or a knife.
  2. In a soup pot over medium-high heat, melt the butter in the olive oil. When the butter begins to sizzle, add the leeks and a pinch of salt. Sauté the leeks until they begin to wilt, about 5 minutes. Add the cauliflower and another pinch of salt, and cook the cauliflower and leeks until they start to come together, about 3 minutes longer.
  3. Add the gruyere, and give everything a good stir. Add just enough stock to cover the vegetables. Turn the heat down to low, and simmer until the cauliflower is tender, 20 to 30 minutes. At this point, the cheese will have mostly melted.
  4. Taste and adjust the seasoning and serve hot.
Notes
The original recipe calls for chicken broth, but I substituted vegetable broth. The original recipe also calls for the addition of one cup of fresh parsley at the end of the cooking, which I omitted.
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