Pancake Day, a chance to give into the world around you!
While you may not observe every quirky holiday on the national calendar of days, it’s fun to pause and consider where these simple blurbs on the year come from. National Pancake day was started by IHOP in 2006 as a charitable giving concept. Your pancakes are free, but it is suggested that you leave a donation which goes to children’s hospitals and health organizations.
Pancakes are pretty simple to make. In my house we are Bisquick fans. My husband is famous for his chocolate chip pancakes. His dad famously made pancakes every Sunday morning for the family as they returned home from Mass. They were generally accompanied by fried polish sausages.
The few simple ingredients required to make the pancakes are not noteworthy. Flour, eggs, baking powder, baking soda, maybe a dash of vanilla or sugar depending on your pallet. But if you observe how a pancake master attends to each cake that is where the magic happens. For example, my husband lovingly pours out the batter for three cakes at a time, then by hand places each chip on top in a homogeneous pattern, he comes back around with a spoon coated in batter to cover the chips. Each pancake gets that attention. We have four children, back in the day a batch of pancakes took time. Likewise, his dad cooked each cake to perfection, serving mom’s stack first and in order down the line of kids. My husband is number seven so you can imagine how long that took.
The process of taking the very common and simple elements that make up the cake and turning it into perfection is the secret to excellent pancakes. The heat must be just right. You cannot walk away during the process, you must flip them at the right moment…
Perhaps you feel like you aren’t made of great stuff. Perhaps you were not born with lots of externally obvious talents. But what you are made of is more than enough to shine excellently in this bland and dark world. Your attention to create something amazing out of the ingredients you have been handed is one simple turn away from glory. Stay at it. Mind the process.
If a truly simple dish can solve world problems, like pancakes and childrens’ health, don’t underestimate your role in the great scheme of things, you are amazing!
Happy Honeymooning!
Psalm 139:14 “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”