Banana Oatmeal Pancakes

Mother's Day. The third where I'm both daughter and mother. The first where the word "Alzheimer's" is in the room. Anaya made me a card at Montessori — a handprint in red paint, the same tradition as last year, the same small hand getting bigger. She also drew a picture: two stick figures at a stove. "That's Amma and Paati cooking together," she said. Amma and Paati cooking together. I looked at the drawing — two figures, one tall, one short (Amma is shorter than me now; when did that happen?), standing at an orange rectangle that represents a stove, with yellow circles that might be pots or might be planets. I put it on the refrigerator. Next to everything else. The refrigerator as gallery. The refrigerator as life. I went to Amma's house for brunch. I cooked. Not her — me. For the second Mother's Day in a row, I stood in her kitchen and made her food for her. Idli sambar, her recipe, her pots, her stove. She sat at the table and watched. "The sambar is right," she said. Not "close." Not "more asafoetida." Right. This is the thing I wanted to hear for five years. And now that I've heard it, in the context of a diagnosis that explains WHY she's letting me cook in her kitchen — because she can't always trust herself to do it alone anymore — the rightness is also loss. Appa hovered. He's been hovering since the diagnosis — staying close, watching, the way I watch. Two watchers, two guardians, two people standing between Lakshmi and the fog. Venkatesh Krishnamurthy, seventy-two, has started learning to cook. Not well — not even adequately — but he's trying. Rice in the rice cooker. Dal from a recipe I wrote out for him in large print. Chai that's too sweet but drinkable. My father is learning to cook at seventy-two because his wife might not always be able to. I left Amma's house and cried in the car. The tradition. The car-crying. The place where the tears go when they can't go anywhere else. Happy Mother's Day. The sambar is right. The drawing is on the refrigerator. The word got lost, not the knowing. For now.

I came home from Amma’s house with her voice still in my ears — “the sambar is right” — and Anaya was waiting at the door, still wearing paint on her fingers from the card she’d made me. She wanted pancakes. Not idli, not sambar — pancakes, the way I make them, with the bananas getting soft on the counter and the oats she calls “the flaky ones.” So I stood at my own stove, in my own kitchen, and I made them for her, the way someday she might make them for me. This is that recipe — two ingredients you almost always have, one bowl, and enough warmth to carry a complicated afternoon all the way to evening.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 4 (about 8 pancakes)

Ingredients

2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup rolled oats
2 large eggs
1/4 cup milk (dairy or non-dairy)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon butter or neutral oil, for the pan

Instructions

Mash the bananas. In a large bowl, mash the ripe bananas with a fork until mostly smooth — a few lumps are fine and add texture.
Mix the batter. Add the oats, eggs, milk, vanilla extract, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt to the mashed bananas. Stir until fully combined. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes so the oats can absorb some moisture and the batter thickens slightly.
Heat the pan. Warm a non-stick skillet or griddle over medium heat. Add a small amount of butter or oil and swirl to coat.
Cook the pancakes. Drop approximately 1/4 cup of batter per pancake onto the skillet. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until bubbles form on the surface and the edges look set. Flip and cook another 1 to 2 minutes until golden on the underside.
Repeat and serve. Continue with remaining batter, adding butter or oil to the pan as needed between batches. Serve warm with maple syrup, fresh fruit, or a dusting of powdered sugar.

Nutrition (per serving)

Banana Oatmeal Pancakes — What I Made for Anaya While the Sambar Cooled