The Golden Hotcake

My grandpa has always defined the word stubborn for me. Being stubborn can have many negative effects on someone’s life, and my grandpa has proved that within his health alone — but stubborn and persistent can also help you receive the world’s best hotcakes recipe. In this story, that is exactly what this old man’s stubbornness did.

Grandpa Ken’s Hotcakes date way back to 1995 when he stopped in at a truck stop about an hour from home and ordered himself a stack. They were dense, not fluffy. They were topped with a cube of butter and hot maple syrup. You hardly needed to chew these ones, they melted right in your mouth. He loved them so much he insisted the owner give him the recipe. But like most chefs, he turned him down.

This didn’t stop my grandpa. He went back time and time again for a hot stack of flapjacks, leaving a generous tip and reminding the waitress to ‘work on coming across that recipe.’ Was it persistence? Or stubbornness? Eventually the owner caved and before closing his restaurant he gave Ken the recipe. And thus, the tradition began; Grandpa Ken’s Hotcakes were born.

Weekends were my favorite spent sleeping over at my grandparents. I’m not sure if it was the chance to leave the stresses that took place at home as a child, or the sheer enjoyment that came with a weekend at Grandma and Grandpa’s, but either way I was never disappointed. I bonded closely with my grandma. We enjoyed shopping and a stop at Nell’s In-And-Out for a chocolate coke and a grilled cheese sandwich. We would park the car under a tree and chat as the hours passed. We would go downtown looking through the same stores’ week after week. At her home, we would make jewelry, and she would let me play with her old antique toys. My grandma was my adult version of a child’s best friend. I could share any secret with her, and it was safe.

My memories with my grandpa are just as sacred. Riding around in one of his old classic cars on Friday nights, listening to music in his Jukebox, and having ongoing debates with him were all normal rituals with my grandpa. He was relentless in the pursuit of being right. He has taught me many things even today about finances and business. As a child, both my grandparents did what most grandparents did, spoil. A trip to grandma and grandpas meant that there would be ice cream cones, chocolate to be found in the ‘hidden’ candy drawer, and hotcakes for breakfast.

Often my cousin, five months older than I, would stay the weekend with me over at our grandparents. Though I may have enjoyed my time there alone most, Kylie and I were very close. And there was one thing that Kylie was superior at, and that was eating a stack of hotcakes.

A Saturday morning started as most did. Sleepy girls would slowly emerge from the back bedroom and flop down to the couch as if no sleep had been had all night, and likely this was due to a very late bedtime. Grandpa would come from the bathroom with his few hairs smoothed down into position with a touch of what I assumed to be hair gel. He would begin by singing a made up tune that included our names and hotcakes. “How about a stack of hotcakes?” he would ask. It was a silly question really; I don’t know what else he would have made us for breakfast had we said no. He would go into the kitchen and pull out the buttermilk, eggs, flour, and whatever else were in those delicious stacks of heavy, dense, cakes. As he whipped the batter, he would heat up the griddle until there was smoke. Then we would turn it down a bit to what he knew was the perfect temperature. Adding butter across the bottom of the griddle he would yell for us to come in and get a plate ready. Getting ready was a matter of sitting at the table with an empty plate. I always thought he called us in a little prematurely as the hotcakes had hardly hit the griddle when he called us in. He wanted us to witness the process, and he enjoyed our company. Grandma would emerge and begin warming up the maple syrup on the stove. There was an unsaid rule that you couldn’t eat these hotcakes with cold syrup. I never questioned why. At my house the syrup was in the cupboard, not the fridge, so it was never cold. But grandma kept her syrup in the fridge, and so, it was warmed up.

“Who wants the first hotcake?” Grandpa would ask as he brought over a big round flapjack and flopped it down onto one of our plates complete with a perfect square of butter on top. These were not your standard four-inch pancakes. Grandpa made them large, the size of our plate. Because of the density and lack of chewing one cake required, these golden, round hotcakes went down fast. Kylie liked to drown hers in hot syrup, whereas I preferred to drizzle just a little bit, spread it around as fast as possible and then flip it onto the other side once or twice, thus spreading around the tiny, tiniest dibble of syrup possible.

The first bite was like no other, hot, buttery, and to die for! Every reason to escape the minimal childhood responsibilities to sleep at grandma and grandpa’s house came back to you in that first bite. This was possibly why you didn’t want this meal to end. And, most days, it didn’t have to. Grandpa would keep bringing more and more hotcakes. Who’s to truly know how many calories Kylie and I could consume in hotcakes and orange juice. A combination I didn’t really understand. Maple syrup and orange juice just didn’t jive well together, but at home, mom never bought the good orange juice with the pulp the way I liked it. Therefore, the combination worked. It became a contest, who could eat the most hotcakes? I may have been the chubbier of the two, but my cousin could put those cakes away. One weekend she made it up to eight big ol’ round hotcakes smothered in syrup. How she did it, I will never know?

As we grew older, there were always still hotcakes. Our sleepovers and camping trips with our grandparents grew fewer and further between as our schedules got busier. But Grandpa still needed his opportunity to make hotcakes, and so we started having family breakfasts one Saturday a month. Now having to share hotcakes with our entire extended family. They were never as large, and the syrup wasn’t always warmed to perfection, but there was good orange juice, and Grandpa did try to force mass amounts of hotcakes on everyone, not just Kylie and I. Nobody was ever able to eat as many as Kylie could. This includes Kylie and I’s kids who don’t seem to truly understand the big deal, that is, Grandpa Ken’s Hotcakes.

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