Cinnamon Raisin Pancakes

Mother's Day. David sent flowers — hydrangeas, which he sends every year because I once told him I liked them, twenty years ago, and David is the kind of son who remembers a preference stated once and honors it indefinitely, which is either devotion or a failure of imagination, and I choose to believe it's devotion. Rebecca called at eight in the morning, which for Rebecca on a Sunday is practically dawn, and we talked for an hour about nothing and everything — about the semester ending, about a paper she's writing on Chekhov's letters, about Marvin, always about Marvin, the subject that lives underneath every other subject like groundwater.

I thought about Sylvia. Mother's Day always brings Sylvia back with a particular sharpness — not the grief of her death, which has softened to a dull permanent ache, but the specific missing of her: her voice, her opinions, her hands on the cutting board, the way she would have held Noah and said something simultaneously critical and adoring. "He's small," she would have said. "Feed him." And then she would have made soup.

I made Sylvia's kugel — the noodle kugel, sweet, with cottage cheese and sour cream and raisins and a cinnamon-sugar top that caramelizes in the oven into something that is technically a side dish but functions as dessert. I make it on Mother's Day because Sylvia made it on Mother's Day because her mother made it on whatever the equivalent of Mother's Day was in the shtetl, which was probably just every day, because in the shtetl, every day was a mother's day in the sense that mothers did everything, always, without recognition or rest. I ate the kugel and thought of Sylvia and missed her and was grateful, simultaneously, for the missing, because the missing means she mattered. She mattered enormously.

Marvin gave me a card. He didn't remember that it was Mother's Day — I think David reminded him by phone — but the card was sweet and his handwriting, though shakier than it used to be, was still recognizably Marvin's. He wrote, "To the best mother I know." I put it in the nightstand drawer with the others. The drawer is getting full.

The kugel was gone by evening — Marvin had two pieces, which felt like a small miracle — and the next morning I stood in the kitchen with the smell of cinnamon still somehow in the air, or maybe just in my memory, which amounts to the same thing. I didn’t want the sweetness to end. Sylvia would have understood that: the way a food can carry a person forward through the next day, the way you make something that tastes like someone you love and then you just — keep going. These Cinnamon Raisin Pancakes are not kugel, but they speak the same language: warm, sweet, raisins and cinnamon, the flavors that mean home and mother and enough.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4 (about 12 pancakes)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup whole milk
1 large egg
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the pan
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup raisins
Maple syrup and additional butter, for serving

Instructions

Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt until evenly combined.
Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl or large measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk, milk, egg, melted butter, and vanilla extract.
Combine the batter. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a spatula until just combined — a few small lumps are fine. Do not overmix. Fold in the raisins.
Rest the batter. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes while you heat the pan. This allows the baking powder to activate and produces fluffier pancakes.
Cook the pancakes. Heat a large skillet or griddle over medium heat and brush lightly with butter. Pour approximately 1/4 cup of batter per pancake onto the surface. Cook until bubbles form across the surface and the edges look set, about 2 to 3 minutes. Flip and cook for 1 to 2 minutes more, until golden on the bottom.
Keep warm and serve. Transfer finished pancakes to a low oven (200°F) to keep warm while you cook the remaining batter. Serve stacked with butter and warm maple syrup.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cinnamon Raisin Pancakes — The Sweetness Sylvia Left Behind