pancake breakfast

It's the Fourth of July, which is a big holiday in our town. There's a pancake breakfast, a parade, a picnic with Boy Scouts selling burgers and hot dogs, and block parties all over town during the afternoon. It all has that "community" feeling that is often lacking in an urban environment like ours. This is the sort of thing that our kids will remember when they are adults -- with warm and fuzzy feelings, I hope.

This year, I announce to my awake-but-still-sleepy-eyed family that we are going to the Pancake Breakfast. We had made it to the breakfast a few years ago, but nobody else in my family remembers this, so this is our chance to do it again. I have fond memories of attending at least one pancake breakfast when I was a child, and I think my kids should have this experience, too.

I admit, the food at pancake breakfasts is not known to be particularly memorable, so I am not surprised that it made no lasting impression on them. As a child, pancake breakfast food did make a big impression on me. I remember going in the early morning to the parking lot at Spot Market near the corner of Western Avenue and Crenshaw Avenue. (City leaders later decided to change the name of "Crenshaw" to "Marine" -- but that's another story.) We must have purchased tickets from our family friend, Dr. Yoshida, who was a member of the Lions Club, because I can't think of any other reason why we would have gone. My mother was a generous soul, but frugal when it came to feeding us -- I can only imagine how hard it must have been to pay so much for pancakes! As I went through the line, I thought is was curious that there were so many older white gentleman serving us the food. I had never seen so many old white men in one place at one time. They all seemed super-friendly and loud. Dr. Yoshida was there, too, and we made sure to say "hi" as we passed by his section of the buffet line. He seemed normal. Not overly-friendly, and definitely not so loud.

When I sat down to eat my food, I marveled at the eggs. They were perfectly yellow and uniform throughout. I had never seen scrambled eggs like this in my life! And they tasted ... different. Kind of spongy. I decided this must be how white people made scrambled eggs. I liked them fine, but I liked my mom's better.

It took me decades to figure out what the difference was between my mom's eggs and the fluffy, beaten-by-an-eggbeater pancake breakfast eggs. I made the discovery as I was making breakfast one day. After I had already cracked the pre-sunnyside-up eggs into the pan, I decided to make scrambled instead. I took my long cooking hashi (chopsticks) and whisked them in the pan. Half-set before I mixed them up, the eggs took on a nicely marbled state, yellow and white still visible in the finished product. Just like my mom's.

As we go through the Pancake Breakfast line, I am feeling a bit nostalgic for the type of scrambled eggs the Lions Club cooked up for us when I was a kid. We have forked over about $25 for two adults and two kids, and I am looking forward to the eggs -- partly because I want to tell the kids my story about pancake breakfasts and their grandmother's eggs. Fortunately for them, they are spared the "back when I was a kid ..." ramblings of their mother, because there are no eggs. A couple of pancakes, a strip of bacon or a link of sausage, some fruit ... and no eggs.

Happy Egg-less Fourth of July, everyone!