Diner Pancakes

 

It's a pancake kind of day.  Not that every day can't be welcomed with a stack of steaming cakes, but today in the Chicago area, I am looking out onto a Winter Wonderland.  We received about nine inches of snow and it's still coming down.  My husband got out the snow blower just to be able to leave the driveway, and now more is coming.  Chicago winters. Gotta love them.  I do love them, actually, and it's days like these that I am so happy to cook all day long and be perfectly content not to leave the house. 

 

Even before making pancakes this morning, I started a beef stew which has to simmer slowly for hours.  The kitchen started smelling wonderful even before 8:00 am.  For our pancakes, I made one my favorites, cinnamon buckwheat.  A snowy day needs a hearty pancake.  After enjoying our breakfast, I remembered a cookbook I bought while visiting my mom recently, called The Pancake Handbook by Steve Siegelman, Bette Kroening, and Sue Conley, who were among the original founders of "Bette's Oceanview Diner" in Berkeley, California.  I found the book at the Cowgirl Creamy (founded by author Conley when she left the diner) in Point Reyes, California, while I was there to buy some cheese.  This delightful book is the second edition with over fifteen new recipes. 

 

It will be difficult to decide our next pancake venture because they all sound so tempting.  There is the classic buttermilk pancake,  gingerbread, cornmeal, spicy pumpkin, blueberry yogurt, bananas and sour cream, and even double-chocolate devil's food pancakes.  There are also oven pancakes, both sweet and savory.  If you are in the mood for crepes, try the classic crepes Suzette, cheese blintzes, or ham and cheese.  One of these days, I will make the "Souffled Lemon-Poppyseed Pancakes" as the authors say to enjoy them "...on a Spring morning, with sunlight pouring through the kitchen window."  Alas, all I see now is white, but Spring will be here soon enough.