Pancake Showdown

In this corner we have Matthew Schaffer, amateur cook and 26 year old guy who is always trying to save a little bit of money. And in the other corner we have Emily, with a pastry degree from Johnson & Wales University and at times an overly large ego about her cooking abilities.

The battle: pancakes! You know those sometimes fluffy, sometimes oily, hopefully done in the middle morning foods. Matt and I don't often battle it out over food. Let's be honest I would win and he would be sad, or he would win and I would be furious. Either way it doesn't sound too fun. It's just that Matt and pancakes weren't getting along.

I think it was probably about 2 weeks ago that Matt told me he bought pancake mix and messed up the pancakes. It was an epic fail according to him. Seriously concerned I thought to myself, how does someone mess up box pancakes. It would be kind of like saying, I made box brownies and they turned out awful. Ummm if that's the case you should be banned from ever stepping into a kitchen again. Anyway I listened to Matt's story two days in a row of how he made the mix and it got messed up. It kind of sounded like they were sticking, and I was having a few good laughs over the situation.

When I flew into Providence yesterday, I had two goals. The first goal was to go grocery shopping so I wouldn't starve once I got to Boston and the second goal was to teach Matt how to make pancakes. Well there was one other minor goal of surprising Matt with my new haircut, but he didn't notice it until I told him, I CHOPPED OFF HALF MY HAIR! I'm beginning to think his pancakes abilities are the least of my worries.

This morning was d-day. We were going to make pancakes. I, being the overly cocky expert pancake maker that I am, poured some oil into his pan. It was actually way too much oil and I had to pour some out, but who is paying attention to little details like that. I heat up the oil in the pan and pour in some pancake mix. It sizzles just right and looks good. I grab the spatula to flip it and DISASTER. Even with 1/8 inch of oil coating the entire bottom of the pan the pancakes were sticking.

Dude your pans suck! No now was not the appropriate time to discuss the quality of his pans. Should I have played fair and admitted that his mishaps might have been the pan and not his lack of pancake skills? YES! Did I? NO WAY JOSE! I managed to be tough with the pan and create some half decent pancakes. They weren't perfectly shaped or remotely pretty, but they were edible. And that was with a pastry degree. I can imagine why he said he was about to give up on pancakes. His pan was just awful.

There is one light at the end of this dark pancake tunnel. I think I have convinced Matt to buy a nonstick pan. Just one nice frying pan. When that happens, I will hopefully be able to show Matt once and for all why I laughed so hard when he said he couldn't make pancakes. THEY ARE LIKE THE EASIEST THINGS IN THE WHOLE WORLD!

Happy Eating!!!

Emily