PANCAKES WITH
PERSONALITY
Sheryl
J. Bize Boutte
sjbizeboutte@2013
On
a recent New Year’s Eve and my husband, daughter and I decided to satisfy our
pancake joneses at the Oakland Grill. * Brunch at this
welcoming and homey bistro located in the heart of the Oakland produce section is
one of our favorites for the short stack; two stacked pancakes with a choice of
sides.
After
we had talked and laughed and ate all we could manage, I could not help but notice how
our individual personalities were reflected in the way we approached and finished our buttery, syrupy entrees.
My
husband, the designer and mathematician’s pancakes are cut precisely down the
middle. He eyeballed it, but I’ll
bet you if you measured and could somehow recreate the portion he had already
eaten, you would find that each half would be exactly the same size. A true perfectionist with a creative
bent, for him symmetry and neatness with just a little something akimbo mark
his life approach. Note the off-center placement of the melon rinds in this
pancake still life.
Our
daughter, the scientist and artist, approached her pancakes by starting at one
edge and moving to the inside.
This is much the same way she conducts experiments; purposely making her
way from the outer perimeter to the inner core to find the answer to the
question. All the while she is multitasking,
getting a forkful while maneuvering the cakes by removing the top stack to see
what lies beneath. All of this is
done with minimal mess and disruption; as smooth as the way she moves through
the world. A colleague once
described her as being like a duck: paddling furiously underneath the water while maintaining a silky fluidity on the surface. She
leaves randomly sized pieces and a fork with an asymmetrical lean. She is truly
the best of both of us.
I
started my pancake with evenly spaced pie cuts, which I approached from the
outside. A true Gemini, I quickly
became bored with that and moved toward the center. I change my mind like that all the time and usually get to
the gooey middle of everything right away. This is the trait that causes people to describe me as a
“bottom line” kind of person. When
I look at this picture I think I must have been thinking about seafood because
my pancake looks like a giant prawn.
Of
course, this is no scientific study.
But it was a fun thing to do. While we differed I how we cut, sliced and
left our pancakes on the plates, sharing this meal reminded us of the different
ways in which we approach life and situations. Those
differences feed and enrich our relationships and bring joy and vitality to our
discourse. Our individualities
joined with our commonalities form the mix that makes us family and at "the grill", community.
Here’s hoping
life brings you pancakes just the way you like them and that you always get to
eat them your way
*Oakland Grill
301 Franklin Street
Oakland, Ca
94607
Sjbb 9.2013