Pancake Power- The Foodie Friday Way To Start The Day

While most mornings a bowl of cereal or a Pop-Tart will be the standard for most households. There are sometimes when breakfast needs to be something special.

It needs to be pancakes.

Chef Jill McCoy and I were discussing the connection we feel between food, flavor, and our favorite memories. That is how we arrived at today's idea for Foodie Friday.

For me, pancakes always meant it was a special morning. My Dad was seldom home in the summer months. He worked as a cotton research scientist and was gone most of the growing season. During the late fall and winter he would be at home for breakfast and he would make pancakes. For a little boy who really missed his Dad, that was a breakfast worth waking up early for.

So I asked Chef Jill to give me some pancakes. I told her they needed to be hearty enough to fuel a grown man for a hard day at work, but I wanted them delicate and elegant enough to satisfy the sophisticated palate of a lady of leisure. Here is what Chef Jill whipped up to fill my request.

I am sure the word that has gotten you out of your comfort zone just by reading the title is lavender. We know the color, we know the fragrance, but do you know the flavor?  The sweet floral flavor of lavender tastes just like it smells. It is an excellent accompaniment for the tartness of lemon. Put both of those subtle yet invigorating flavors together with the natural bite of a fresh blueberries and you've got a pancake that demands you wake up and taste it.

The batter Chef Jill employs might seem to be a lot more work than just adding hot water to Bisquik. It also tastes a hell of a lot better too. This batter makes a cake that cooks up into a very tender morsel. The edges will get just the right amount of crisp so you have the inviting crunch that a pancake edge should have.The inside of the cake is light and tender with an inviting texture that won't lay heavy on your metabolism.

Even if you don't go all in with the lavender and the blueberries, I think your family will appreciate pancakes for breakfast. Sometimes the best memories are made in the morning and drizzled with syrup. At least for me that's certainly the way it seemed to be.