Flipping for Pancakes

My mother was notorious for the way she served pancakes. After she whipped up a batch of batter, she would carefully ladle out her gooey concoction onto a warm griddle and then strategically place blueberries onto each pancake to ensure we’d get a taste of blueberry in every bite. Once the pancakes were ready for consumption she would have me and my siblings line up at the other end of the kitchen with our breakfast plate in hand and that’s when the fun began!

Mom would grab her oversized spatula and slip it underneath a golden brown flap-jack. She would then have us hold out our plate as we looked to catch our breakfast. We’d get the old countdown “One, two, three…” and then the toss. Like a baseball player up at bat waiting to strike the ball as it came over home plate, we knew not to take our eyes off of the flying flapjack - for if the flapjack hit the floor we still had to eat it (which in my mother’s house was no big deal as her floors were cleaner than an episode of Little House on the Prairie).

Once we managed to collect our breakfast the family would sit down at the table and with hands folded, heads bowed and eyes closed we would recite a simple morning prayer:

“God is great
God is good
Let us thank Him for our food
By His hands we'll all be fed
Give us Lord our daily bread”

While mom’s recipe for pancakes may have involved a yellow box of Bisquick (I’m sorry to report they were not made from scratch), she never cut corners when it came to maple syrup. Light amber, grade A Vermont maple syrup was always on the breakfast table when waffles or pancakes were served (Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth were two ladies that only visited the homes of the neighborhood kids). After we spread some Land O’Lakes butter over each layer of pancake we would pour this maple goodness over top and watch it run down the sides of our breakfast.

My college friends enjoyed coming home to Connecticut with me on holiday weekends as they knew breakfast was more like a sporting event at my home. I recently had an old college girlfriend ask me if my ”Mom’s toss was still boss?". I’m happy to report – most definitely! On the rare occasions that I find myself over Mom’s house for breakfast, if pancakes are being served, they are still being made with love and tossed with affection.