By August is here and I can feel the summer turning. Not the heat — the heat is still brutal — but something underneath, something that says September is coming and with September comes change and school and the rhythm of fall that is different from the lazy sway of summer. Sofia starts community college in a few weeks. She enrolled in prerequisite courses — biology, chemistry, English — the building blocks that will carry her to nursing school. She is ready. I am not.
At the hospital, August means preparing for the fall rush, the same way it did last year and the year before and every year for twenty years. I am doing inventory, ordering supplies, reviewing menus. The fall menu this year includes a new item I am proud of — a root vegetable soup with calabaza and boniato and yuca, all Caribbean root vegetables, blended smooth with a touch of coconut milk. It is the kind of soup that says I see you to every Latin American and Caribbean patient and visitor in this hospital, and I see you is the most powerful thing food can say.
David called from Brooklyn with restaurant news — the restaurant is being reviewed by a food blogger, a big one, and David is nervous. My son, the sous chef who can butcher a whole pig and make mofongo blindfolded, is nervous about a food blogger. I said, David, you are cooking your grandmother food. Nobody can review your grandmother food and find it lacking because your grandmother food is beyond review. It is beyond criticism. It is beyond the opinion of a person with a blog and a camera. He laughed. He said, Mami, the food blogger has fifty thousand followers. I said, I have Abuela Consuelo recipe. That is worth more than fifty thousand followers. He laughed again. He cooked. The review was good. Of course it was good. The sofrito was his. The foundation was mine. The love was Abuela Consuelo. You cannot review love, mi amor. You can only eat it and be grateful.
Made mondongo this weekend — tripe stew, the August preparation meal, the one that says hurricane season is here. Not that Hartford gets hurricanes. But the tradition lives in my body, the August instinct to make heavy food, to stock up, to prepare for what is coming. Mami taught me that August is for preparation, September is for whatever comes, and the kitchen must be ready. I do not know what is coming. The kitchen is ready anyway. It always is.
The mondongo was simmering and September was already pressing at the door, and I kept thinking about root vegetables — boniato, calabaza, yuca — and what it means to return to something that holds. Sweet potato is the closest thing Hartford has to boniato, and when Sofia was small I used to make her sweet potato pancakes on weekend mornings before anything big happened, before the first day of school, before doctor’s appointments, before anything that asked her to be brave. With her first college classes coming and the kitchen already in its August preparation mode, I made them again — not the heavy stew, but the softer offering, the breakfast that says: the ground is still here, the roots still hold, go ahead and be ready.
Sweet Potato Pancakes
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 medium sweet potato (about 1 cup mashed)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 cup whole milk
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the pan
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Cook the sweet potato. Pierce the sweet potato several times with a fork. Microwave on high for 5—6 minutes, turning once, until completely tender. Let cool slightly, then scoop out 1 cup of the flesh and mash until very smooth. Set aside.
- Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt until evenly combined.
- Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the mashed sweet potato, eggs, milk, melted butter, and vanilla extract until smooth and uniform.
- Combine. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir gently until just combined. A few small lumps are fine — do not overmix or the pancakes will be tough.
- Cook the pancakes. Heat a non-stick skillet or griddle over medium heat and brush lightly with butter. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter per pancake. Cook until bubbles form across the surface and the edges look set, about 2—3 minutes. Flip and cook another 1—2 minutes until golden on the bottom and cooked through.
- Serve. Serve warm with maple syrup, a pat of butter, or a dusting of powdered sugar. Leftover batter keeps refrigerated for one day; cooked pancakes freeze well for up to one month.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 290 | Protein: 8g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 44g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 375mg