Small Things

Making Better Pancakes since January 2012

I love the Harvest Grain 'N Nut pancakes at IHOP, and for some time have wanted to make a nutty nutritious pancake at home. I've sprinkled in a handful of rolled oats with the regular Aunt Jemima mix, which was fine but nothing special. Today I had pecans on hand, so I modified a regular recipe from my trusty red-checkered cookbook. A lot. And they were fantastic. Soooo good. When I posted a boast on facebook, a few friends asked for the recipe. Now maybe they were only humoring me, but I am really so excited about these pancakes, I don't care if they are.

And my recipe makes enough to feed my family of 5 (well, 6, but the baby doesn't eat pancakes yet.) Have you noticed how recipes and mixes always tell you the batch will make 8-10, but really you get only 5 or 6? I hate that. This makes 8 very large pancakes. Like, 8 inch diameter pancakes. No, I didn't actually take out a tape measure. But I did think about it. Instead I held up an 8 inch cake pan and compared. I wanted to be solid on my claim.

1/2 cup pecans

1/2 cup rolled oats

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

2 cups milk

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

I wanted the texture to be subtle, so I put the pecans and oats in our small Ninja food processor and gave it 3 or 4 pulses. That's a big deal for me, I HATE pulling out small appliances, I prefer to beat mixes by hand and chop til the cows come home to avoid cleaning kitchen appliances. It has to really be worth it. This is. Just pulse it til it looks like big crumbs.

Then mix all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl. Except I always put the salt in the wet ingredients so that it disolves evenly. And if you are one of those people who doesn't understand why you need salt in a sweet recipe, just please go with it. Don't omit the salt. It's a tiny bit, and contrasts so nicely with the sweet of the syrup. Never make pancakes, french toast, or waffles without salt.

So then beat your eggs, milk, oil, and salt together, then dump it all into the dry. Whisk slowly just to combine. OVERMIXING WILL KILL YOUR PANCAKES. Keep it lumpy.

Now let it bubble up a bit while you preheat your pan and find your spatula. I keep the burner right at medium high, put in a bit of butter to test it, and a quick sizzle means it's ready.

I pour a big pancake. And I like it thick. Of course, it's ready to flip when edges are dry and there are lots and lots of bubbles. One pancake is enough for each of my kids.

Can I take this opportunity to point out that corn syrup does not need to be refrigerated? So you can keep your Log Cabin bottle in the pantry, and it won't make your pancakes cold. Or if you have real maple syrup on hand, like we did today, which does need to be refigerated, you can warm a bit in the microwave. I use a small glass beaker-looking thing from my son's Pumpkins and Potions birthday party in October. Microwave half a cup or so for 40 seconds at 40% power.

Enjoy. They're good for you!

 

 

How public schools thwart excellence

I know there are some excellent public schools. I went to schools in Huntsville, Alabama where students excelled all around me, and 80% of my senior class went on to four-year universities, some of them the most selective in the country. I know it is possible.

We were fortunate to live in a community where families emphasized education, and the best teachers in a technology town taught at our school. And expected a whole lot out of us,

But most schools are not like that. I can see now that public school systems are focused on competency, not excellence. They set minimum goals, rather than feed unlimited potential. My daughters first grade teacher signs her emails with the tagline, "Failure is not an option." My sons second grade class spent a month on "spiral review" to make sure as many kids as possible made passing scores on the California Standards Test.

My son made a perfect score on the language section, and the principal stopped me in the hallway to congratulate Jimmy and say they're proud of him. I, on the other hand, am troubled by the news. He spent a month doing busy work. Instead of working and learning and reaching for more complex concepts.

Here in California, they test kids for the GATE program in second grade. Gifted and Talented Education, that is. Now that my son is in 3rd grade, we just today received the official notice the he "has qualified for . . . enrichment opportunities." It says we may contact his teacher or principal for information on opportunities at our school.

I have already heard from other parents and his teacher that there really are no "enrichment opportunities" at his school right now. There used to be a parent volunteer who helped organized some . . . "enrichment" activities. But this year there is no plan for that. I will be meeting with the principal, and will have to calm down pull my thoughts together to figure out what I am going to ask, because this is clearly an emotional issue for me.

Another teacher I know told me that I need to ask how my son's teacher is "differentiating instruction" for him. I can only imagine how warmly teachers welcome that request for students who are ahead of the curve already.

And I should probably stop now, because I want to grumble about inclusion vs. tracking, and the pragmatism behind grouping kids in a classroom of students with widely varying needs and abilities. There are benefits, yes, but also disadvantages.

In college, my Introduction to Education professor spent a lot of time discussing natural "dilemmas" in education. A major one being "Equality vs. Excellence." When schools push hard for everyone to be equal, they stunt the potential to excel beyond the standard.

Indeed, if a kid masters the standards quickly, that's one less kid to worry about.

If a kid has lots of potential, they might get a form letter saying they "qualify" for "enrichment opportunities."

But not for an education that reaches for excellence.

Because in this country, where we have the freedom to excel, supposedly unlimited opportunity for achievement and success, the standard 99% does not like the 1% that reaches for more.

Why should we spend public money, and public educator's time and energy, on excelling beyond the standard?

If excellence and potential were tangible, I have no doubt there would be many decrying it's injustice, the "excellence inequalty", the gap between the supersmart and the average. And demanding someone do something about it.

But they wouldn't have to. It's already been done. It's todays standards-based public education.

 

When troops come home

National Military Family Association: President Says Troops Coming Home From Iraq.

The news this week that all troops will be leaving Iraq is a happy headline. The military community hopes Obama is right, and that Iraq can continue the hard-won progress for which so many Americans gave life and limb. And there are so many soldiers who've been deployed there for too long, there will happy families this Christmas.

But our military families understand this does not mean war and deployments are now behind us. We are an all-volunteer force, and so unless your contract is up, there will always be detachments and deployments, and duty to serve.

While this may seem like the end of the war for many Americans, that’s just not so for military families. We know service members and their families will keep serving, sacrificing, and dealing with deployments to dangerous places. Many service members—almost 100,000—are still fighting in Afghanistan. Many are away from home in other operations. Others are working long hours at their home stations in support of those in harm’s way. Those returning may soon be leaving for other assignments.

As a military wife of 14 years, who's weathered 7 deployments and homecomings, I am thrilled to think of all the joyous homecomings there will be this fall. I love to watch them on TV and on Youtube with a box of kleenex.

I also know the stress couples will feel as they try to return to normal daily life together.

It's a common joke among my Navy wife friends that at some point after a homecoming, about 3 weeks for me, that you think to yourself "Doesn't he have a boat to go to already!?"

And that thought is usually followed by guilt, because you know how much you longed for him while he was gone. How desperately you wanted him home every day.

But sharing and compromise is not easy to jump back into when you've been running a household, raising kids, living your life singly for many months on end. At first you're happy to compromise on what movie to watch, you don't care that he never does his dishes, it feels good to see him safely on the sofa watching NASCAR all weekend long, and it's not a big deal keeping the kids up late to have dinner with Dad when he comes home from work at 7 pm.

But after a couple weeks, it's irritating that his dirty clothes are everywhere, he still hasn't unpacked two seabags, and every time you try to coordinate your plans with him he's noncommittal. Then suddeny he's arguing with you over finances and how to discipline the children, and that's when you think, "Don't you have a boat to go to!?"

Most of us do it. There can be some big fights between couples about three weeks after a homecoming. Because it is hard for two independent adults who have gotten used to making independent decisions to compromise. Not about big things, but about little things, like what time to eat dinner, and where to toss your dirty socks. It wears you down and makes you cranky.

You just gotta figure it out. For us, I just have to accept that he has a right to change some of our routines, he is the Dad and my partner, and it's his house, too. He has to acknowledge that I've been running things my way for a reason, and I know what I'm doing. Messing with the routine has consequences.

Of course the answer is compromise and patience. The troops coming home this fall will probably be counseled on "transitioning" back to family life. In the initial Homecoming Honeymoon, compromise and patience will come pretty easily. But when the honeymoon's over, they'll have to take a deep breath and work at it.

I just hope they know it's normal. It gets better. It helps if you get off the couch and wash some dishes at halftime.

Another move, but for the better

We have just moved for the 7th time in our married life. Only this time it was not cross country, it was just across the neighborhood. From a little condo that we bought years ago, when we had only one baby and were excited to have a brand-new home where we could choose all our finishes and so didn't care that it was short on living space. To a much larger home up the hill, where there is room for everyone to spread out and have their own projects going on, without sitting on each other and going deaf from the decibel level.

It's been stressful and chaotic, as all moves are, but more so because this time the Navy wasn't packing us, so we had to do it ourselves. And we had a hard time getting on the same page, so to speak. It became clearer than ever before that we don't work well together. I am not patient with him and he doesn't take suggestions from me. I won't elaborate, but I am ashamed, deeply ashamed, to confess that my 5-year-old now knows all the swear words.

I began taking carloads of stuff over to the new house a week before the big moving day, and enlisted my 8-year-old to help. He was painfully reluctant. Whiny. Begged and moaned to be released from unloading. The second day of carloads, he cried on the way over to the new house, and I was beginning to think it wasn't about the work. It was about leaving his home, his room, his street of friends.

As we pulled up to our house, we found four boys on bikes and scooters on our lawn. They didn't move when we parked inthe driveway, so I announced it looked like we'd be meeting some neighbors. My son was already bent over in the passenger seat, wiping his face to erase his tears. We got out and he let me do the talking at first while we unloaded. I found out their names and ages, they all went to my son's school and were close in age. All very friendly. One said he knew my son from playing soccer at recess. Next thing I knew my son had disappeared with them into the garage, showing them his nerf guns.

Soon we had to close up and head back to the condo. My son asked if on the next run we could bring over his scooter.

I said sure.

And then he said he thought he was going to like the new house. I looked over at him, and he was smiling. Not a tear about moving since.

And the pack of boys on our street is indeed a wonder to behold. They drag out our ramp on a Saturday morning and circle around jumping it in turns, loud choruses of CARRRR! shouted down the street if a car turns down our way.

This was a good move.

Someone ate my peace lily

We have a pretty green plant in the corner of our living room, a shade loving plant with large, dark green glossy leaves, which forgives our careless lack of routine and survives beautifully year after year. When it needs water, it gets itself noticed by completely wilting down to the tabletop, and once we add water, it perks up good as new within 12 hours.

I believe it is called a peace lily.

Every once in awhile it sends up a slender stalk with a sophisticated pale green bloom. Last week one began to get close to opening. I was watching each day, happy to see its continued blossoming.

Yesterday the bloom waa gone. Ripped off and discarded under the table by one of our 2 cats or 4 kids.

No peace lily for me this summer. I get it. No peace lily for now.