Good morning. Eggs, milk, flour. Combine them with butter, salt, sugar and vanilla and you’ve got the makings for a German pancake (above), puffy and crisp, with a puddinglike interior. It’s the perfect canvas for a compote of berries, for maple syrup and powdered sugar — a Saturday breakfast of distinction.
Except, says the house guest visiting from a city far away, that’s called a Dutch baby. She likes them with banana coins lightly sautéed in butter and brown sugar. (Her husband prefers a savory version, with bacon and Camembert.)
Everyone’s right. “Deutsch” is German for “German.” A long time ago, a restaurant in Seattle started making personal-size German pancakes instead of big ones. But because American English is wild, “Deutsch” there became “Dutch,” and the “baby” came about because the portion was small.
Whatever you call it, the pancake’s a simple, elegant, weekend-starting confection, and one I think you ought to make tomorrow morning, in advance of adventure — a long walk in the snowy woods, perhaps, or a trip to the Met to see the American wing.
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German Pancake
For dinner that night, how about cottage pie? (I was all set to make mine until a veto came in from one of the children, who wanted pork chops in lemon-caper sauce instead, with latkes to push through the gravy.) Or maybe Peruvian roasted chicken with spicy cilantro sauce? And baked apples for dessert?
I’m thinking about hoecakes for Sunday breakfast, with oven bacon and a big mug of milky tea. But slow-cooker steel-cut oats might grant me an extra half-hour of sleep if I think to set them after cleaning up dinner.
Whichever, I’ll get out into the world for a few hours afterward, snarf a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, and then have both the time and the energy to set up a proper Sunday dinner for neighbors and friends: a Sunday gravy to spoon over pasta, say, with salad to eat afterward on the red-streaked plates. I hope you’ll join me.
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Now, it’s nothing to do with allspice or raspberries, but I’ve been enjoying the Polish political thriller “The Eastern Gate,” on Max, starring Lena Gora.
Here’s Burkhard Bilger in The New Yorker on the art and athleticism of high-school marching bands, worth reading.
Emily Eakin, in The New York Times Book Review, wrote a review of Michelle de Kretser’s novel “Theory & Practice” that sent me to the bookstore that very day.
Finally, Sabrina Carpenter has reworked her “Please Please Please” as a country song, with harmonies delivered by Dolly Parton. “I beg you, don’t embarrass me like the others.” I’ll see you on Sunday.
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