Fluffy Pumpkin Waffles

Halloween week. The Filipino Community Halloween Pageant Saturday. Three hundred people. I was on lumpia duty with Lourdes. We made three hundred fifty lumpia in the Mountain View basement on Friday.

Lourdes is 75. She is slower. She still cooks. She still tells me to find a husband even though I have one. Joseph called Saturday. He told me Lourdes calls him every day. He answers every day. The pattern has held for 7 years.

I made lechon kawali Saturday. The pork belly, the brining, the deep fry, the crackle. The kitchen smelled of hot oil for two days.

I drafted a blog post on Tuesday and almost did not publish it. I published it Friday. The publishing was the practice.

Angela came over Saturday with the kids. We cooked. We argued about pancit proportions — she uses more soy, I use more calamansi. We are both wrong, according to Lourdes.

I went to bed Sunday at nine. I slept for ten hours. The sleeping was the inheritance.

The neighbors invited us over for a small dinner Thursday. They are an Iñupiaq family — Aana and her grandson Joe. We ate caribou stew and rice. I brought lumpia. The kitchens of Anchorage have always been the small UN. The food is the proof.

The Filipino Community newsletter announced a fundraiser for typhoon relief in Samar. I committed to making three hundred lumpia. The number is the number. The number has always been the number. Three hundred is what I make. The math has stopped surprising me.

The salmon in the freezer is from August. Joseph's catch. The bag is labeled in his handwriting — "for Grace." I will use it next week.

Auntie Norma called Sunday afternoon. She is now seventy-nine. She wanted a recipe. I gave it to her. She wanted to know how my week was. I told her, briefly. She told me about her week. The exchange took eighteen minutes. The eighteen minutes was the keeping.

I read three chapters of the novel Saturday night before sleep. The novel was about a Filipina nurse in California. The nurse was being undone by her work. I knew the unraveling. I had lived the unraveling. I read on. The reading was the witnessing.

Angela texted me a photo of the kids. I texted back a heart. The exchange took thirty seconds. The thirty seconds was the keeping.

I checked email at the kitchen table while the rice cooked. There were one hundred and twenty unread messages. I closed the laptop. The unread can wait.

The break room had cake Tuesday. Someone's birthday. We ate the cake. We did not ask whose birthday. The cake was the cake.

I sat on the balcony in the cold for ten minutes Sunday night with a cup of broth in my hands. The cold was the cold. The broth was the broth. The body held both.

I took a walk on the coastal trail Saturday. The light was good. The body was tired but moving.

The light was good Saturday morning. I sat on the porch with a cup of coffee and watched the inlet for forty minutes. The watching was the small therapy. The therapy was free.

Lourdes called me twice this week. The first call was about a church event. The second was about a recipe variation she had remembered from her childhood. The remembering was the gift.

A blog reader sent me a photograph of her grandmother's wooden mortar and pestle, used since 1962. The photograph was holy. I wrote her back. The writing back is the work.

I drove the Glenn Highway out to Eklutna on Saturday. The mountains were the mountains. The lake was the lake. The body needed the open road. The open road did its work.

After a week that smelled of hot oil and pork crackle from the lechon kawali, what my body wanted Saturday morning was something gentle — something that could sit across from a cup of coffee while I watched the inlet. Angela and the kids were coming over, and I wanted the kitchen to feel different from the deep-fry days, quieter, sweeter. Pumpkin waffles were the answer: the spice was familiar, the batter came together fast, and the kids ate four between them without argument, which is its own kind of miracle.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 6 waffles

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup pure pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, room temperature
2 large eggs, separated
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Nonstick cooking spray or butter for the waffle iron

Instructions

Preheat the waffle iron. Heat your waffle iron to medium-high according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Lightly grease with nonstick spray or a small knob of butter just before each waffle.
Whisk the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves until evenly combined.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, buttermilk, egg yolks, melted butter, and vanilla until smooth.
Beat the egg whites. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites with a hand mixer or whisk until stiff peaks form. This is the step that earns the “fluffy” in the name — do not skip it.
Combine wet and dry. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined. A few lumps are fine. Do not overmix.
Fold in the egg whites. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter in two additions, maintaining as much volume as possible.
Cook the waffles. Pour approximately 3/4 cup of batter onto the center of the greased waffle iron. Close the lid and cook until the waffle is golden brown and releases cleanly from the iron, about 3 to 4 minutes. Repeat with remaining batter.
Serve immediately. Serve waffles hot with maple syrup, a pat of butter, or a spoonful of whipped cream. They also hold well in a 200°F oven on a wire rack if you’re feeding a table of kids and adults at once.

Nutrition (per serving)

Fluffy Pumpkin Waffles — The Week the Kitchen Held Everything