A Pancake Full of Memories

I was raised on a farm in Morristown, New Jersey, near the Jockey Hollow National Historical Park. One of my earliest childhood memories centered around an ancient cast iron pan and the memories it contained. One of these memories were the pancakes that Gertrude, my governess, cooked for me.

Gertrude was from Germany. She took care of my sister and I. She and Estelle (our cook) taught me about the old ways, the old methods of cooking with love!

Gertrude would heat her cast iron pan, the one that never saw soap, and into the oven it would go. 400 degrees hot!

She would add ingredients to a bowl, singing softly under her voice in German about pancakes and children and life.

The pan was hot after a while. The ingredients would enter the pan, and the pan would leave its memories in the batch of German pancakes.

She would drizzle raw honey from our farm over the pancakes and add some lemon juice. Divine!

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 1 cup non-fat milk or 1/2 cup non-fat and 1/2 cup clabber
• 1 cup organic-all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons margarine, melted
• 3/4 cup buttermilk

Directions

1. Place the eggs, milk, flour and salt in a bowl and mix gently by hand. Use a wooden spoon. Pour the butter into an ungreased cast iron pan. Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes.
2. Remove from oven with dry oven mitt, be careful the pan will be very hot!
3. When pancake is on a plate, drizzle with raw honey and lemon juice.
4. Serve with a Halbtrocken Riesling.