Cooking, Pancakes, and the Crisis of Year 2000.

Cooking is part science and part art, so they say. When I cook, I am usually hoping for a dash of dumb-luck, since I am untrained in the culinary ways. Vegetable beef soup suits me just fine because one can throw things in until it tastes right, if it doesn't, give it a new name, and serve it up. The fact is that many common dishes are the result of necessity, scarcity or abundance, and leftovers. Pizza, being the most famous.

My favorite time to cook has always been in the morning, especially when my children were, well children. It's quiet, the coffee smells good as it brews and one has the time to prepare without interruption. Saturday morning was usually french toast, sometimes waffles and sometimes pancakes, plus eggs, bacon and orange juice. For the french toast, I'd buy a fresh baguette, slice it, and make small almost bite-size pieces. Small slices have more crispy sides per square inch, easily slide around the pan, and kids love them (put a little extra oil in the pan, get it "french-fry" hot and the toast will be crispy).

A couple years ago my wife bought a wheat grinder and buckets of whole grain wheat kernels. I think this was the "stock up for the coming crisis in the year 2000" era in our home. On day 2, year 2000, we were still there, with electricity and everything else before the crisis, so I decided I better figure out a way to consume a garage full of wheat. (I'm not exaggerating by much, trust me). Hence, whole wheat pancakes.

Here's the good part.

Whole wheat pancakes, made from freshly ground wheat, are about as good and tasty a breakfast as one can have. This I am not exaggerating. They have all the good taste of pancakes with the addition of a rich, nutty flavor from the whole wheat -- and if made right, fluffy too.

What made me think of this was a recipe for whole-wheat pancakes in the New York Times this week. The author claims to get fluffy pancakes from whole wheat flour. I never had that much trouble with it and I used the Betty Crocker cookbook recipe that my wife has had forever. The two recipes are similar, the Betty Crocker recipe uses buttermilk, which I prefer.
Whichever recipe you use, remember:
-- Do separate the eggs, whip the whites (I do it with a fork), and fold them into the batter.
-- Don't over stir when adding the wet and the dry ingredients. 5 - 7 seconds is plenty.
-- For a special breakfast, find some real maple syrup, even a grade B. There is a difference.

Here's the recipe: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/dining/161mrex.html?ref=dining

Tomorrow: my crazy (but I think, best) way to eat whole wheat pancakes

Speaking of Food Memories . . .

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a story on the end of the HyDrox cookie production and on their loyal but disappointed customers. In 2003, Kellogg's, today's owner of the product, pulled from the production lines this American cookie classic. Loyal followers have done everything possible including petitions and websites to convince the company to re-introduce the line, but to no avail. It seems that Oreo's, a top-ten snack seller and HyDrox' competitor, could not be challenged profitably and Kellogg's decided to stop trying.

Honestly, I was more of an Oreo fan but HyDrox, created by Sunshine Cookies in the early 1900's, was the original.

In the same issue, and on a more serious note, the Journal reported the death of Richard Knerr, co-founder of Wham-o Toys. Folks my age remember the Hula Hoop. Everyone knows the Frisbee, but they also invented Silly String, the Super Ball and the Slip & Slide. Few products of such simplicity become a part of a culture, the Hula-hoop was one of the first, the Frisbee maybe one of the biggest. I seem to remember a hula-hoop champion on the Ed Sullivan Show gyrating his body with a dozen rotating hula-hoops. I am not sure why we were fascinated by that but we were. Almost spellbound, actually.

There was an American quality to Wham-o's inventive products. They required a user's physical involvement, they could be easily mass produced and distributed -- and mass marketed, and of course, they were made of plastic, something new at the time of the hula-hoop. Besides Monopoly, Barbie, and a few other games and toys, it's hard to think of other products as widely known and loved.

Make That a Big Mac . . .chiato.

You have probably read by now that McDonald's is store-testing the sale of espresso and cappuccino, and as a part of that test, how well they can train their own "baristas" to make said drinks.

They are after a bigger swig of the retail, brewed-coffee sales especially after the success of their new, premium coffee. The question remains whether cappuccino sippers will be interested in imbibing while surrounded by kids, kids meals, and construction workers in a hurry -- even if it is cheaper. And there is the obvious problem of store quality and consistency, it's one thing to teach someone to make coffee, another to make a good caramel macchiato -- training that Starbucks does amazingly well. I happen to like Starbucks coffee (sorry Jeromey) but I also know they are selling more than coffee. They are also selling escape and image, something McDonald's can't do, at least in the present store configuration.

The other side of this venture is old-fashioned, corporate warfare. McDonald's sees a chastened, and now vulnerable, Starbucks whose stock value has halved in the last year and who has dramatically slowed domestic store growth, which at its peak was 2,500 new stores a year (over 6 stores a day, a mind-numbing figure).

Personally, I think McDonald's could pull off the espresso move and not hurt Starbucks. It's not necessarily a crossover market.

The reality is as I have said, Starbucks to date has had no nation-wide competition. Dunkin Donuts is trying, 7-11 has their steady share of quick-coffee buyers, and McDonald's at present is low-fat competition. Starbucks created the U.S. coffee as a meeting/reading/relaxation concept and is king of the hill. Their current setbacks notwithstanding, they are here for a long while and are very, very profitable. Krispy-Kreme they ain't.

I like the McDonald's move, but my research uncovered one final question: Will we soon refer to them as Mickey D . . . caf ? Sorry.