Low-Cholesterol Pancakes

July. The heat arrives and I retreat to the dawn kitchen, the five AM cooking, the dashi in the dark. The summer routine is the winter routine shifted earlier, the same practice at a different hour, the clock adjusted for heat the way a recipe is adjusted for altitude. The dashi is the same. The hour is different. The soup does not care what time it is.

I made Fumiko's anniversary meal on the date she died — August 1st (or near enough; the exact date is seared into my memory the way the smell of her apartment is seared into my memory: permanently, involuntarily, part of the brain's architecture). I made ozoni — not New Year's ozoni but memorial ozoni, the soup that honors the dead, the bowl that holds the absence. I made it alone, at five AM, before Miya woke, in the dark kitchen, with the chipped bowl, and I drank it and I said: "Five years, Obaachan. The soup is right. The book is coming. Miya reads your recipe cards. The shiso is growing. Everything you planted is still growing." The kitchen was dark. The soup steamed. The absence was present, which is the paradox of grief: the person is gone and the person is here, the person is absent and the absence is the most present thing in the room.

Later I showed Miya the photograph of Fumiko that I keep in a frame in the kitchen — Fumiko in her Sacramento apartment, small and serious, standing in her kitchen with a pot of something on the stove. Miya looked at the photograph and said, "She looks strict." She does. Fumiko looked strict. The strictness was the precision. The precision was the love. The love was strict. I explained this to Miya: "She was strict about food. She was strict because the food mattered. The food was how she loved people." Miya said, "Like you." Like me. The comparison was the highest compliment and the deepest inheritance and I held it the way I hold the chipped bowl: carefully, knowing it is irreplaceable, knowing it will chip further, knowing I will use it every day regardless.

By the time the soup had cooled and the dark had softened into early morning, I knew Miya would be awake soon — and that the kitchen, which had just held so much, needed to hold something ordinary next. Fumiko was strict about food because the food was love; I understood that morning, more than I ever had, that feeding Miya is the same inheritance, the same daily act. These pancakes — light, simple, the kind of thing you make without thinking once you’ve made them enough times — were what I made when she padded in, still sleepy, and asked what was for breakfast. The bowl had held grief. The griddle held this.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4 (about 8 pancakes)

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup low-fat buttermilk
3 egg whites (from large eggs)
1 tablespoon canola oil, plus more for the pan
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions

Whisk the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until evenly combined.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk, egg whites, canola oil, and vanilla extract until smooth.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined — a few small lumps are fine. Do not overmix or the pancakes will be tough.
Rest the batter. Let the batter sit for 5 minutes while you heat the pan. This allows the leavening to activate and the flour to hydrate.
Heat the griddle. Warm a nonstick skillet or griddle over medium heat. Lightly brush with canola oil. The pan is ready when a drop of water skips and evaporates on contact.
Cook the pancakes. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter per pancake onto the griddle. Cook until bubbles form across the surface and the edges look set, about 2–3 minutes. Flip and cook the other side until golden, 1–2 minutes more.
Serve. Transfer to plates and serve immediately with fresh fruit, a light drizzle of maple syrup, or however the people at your table like them best.

Nutrition (per serving)

Low-Cholesterol Pancakes — What I Made for Miya After