Pancakes for the Tribe

I don't know about anyone else, but I have been on a cooking spree lately. Anything made with corn, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, basil, stone fruits, all the gorgeous summer goodness that is passing slowly away as we tilt towards fall and winter. I think all this cooking, freezing, roasting, canning--dare I say it?--nesting is all part of the way I am trying to savor and say farewell to summer. It is passing, winter is coming. It will not stop coming because I refuse to accept it. All right, then.

Thankfully, my faithful subscription to Gourmet magazine has kept me up to my ears in delicious recipes--really ever since I started subscribing. Plum Kuchen, Roasted Tomatoes, Roasted Garlic Tomato sauce, Cherry Buttermilk Cake, Corn and Tomato Pie, Peach Ice Cream, Baked Tomatoes with Hazelnut Breadcrumbs. (there's a lot of tomato stuff, I know. I've been very committed to learning to like them and let me tell you, it's working!)And, most recently, Corn Pancakes.

Sounds kind of weird, huh? This is actually one of my now favorite recipes that I passed up my first time around, but was rescued for me because after I've gleaned all I want from each month's issue, I usually cruise by Gourmet.com to see a feature called "Ruth's Favorite Recipes from the _____ issue." Ruth Reichel is one of my favorite food editors and seems to have impeccable taste, and it's happened more than once that I've tried a recipe I was not too excited about on her recommendation and fallen head over heels. I know, I know checking the website? A favorite food editor? I'm a super-dork for this kind of stuff, but hey, I eat well.

So there I was, on Saturday morning, sun streaming in the window, a hot cup of fresh, French-pressed coffee steaming on the counter, potatoes sizzling in the cast iron skillet and the hot griddle full of these delicious pancakes. I was in foodie heaven, the quiet house, the relaxing concentration of producing good food, the anticipation of the meal to come when BAM! loneliness hit me like a brick between the eyes.

Backstory: I love cooking for other people. Whether I'm dragging people over here for a dinner or baking a cake for bible study or insisting on whipping something up to share when someone invites me over, or at the holidays...don't even get me started. The issue has always been not having enough people to eat the food that I make. Living at home, where I took over cooking for my family at the age of 16, there was only three of us and my mother and sister, who both ate like birds anyway, were usually on some kind of diet, which made making desserts all but impossible. When I went away to college, through bible studies, cooperative dinner making and just plain having more hungry people around, things got much better. And here in Buffalo, I have established a fairly *ahem* positive reputation, so if I ever have any food to get rid of, all I have to do is whistle. So why is it not enough?

By and large, I still eat most of my meals alone, and, don't get me wrong, it is fantastic to cook once and eat for a few days without having to dirty more dishes or make more work (that is the fly in the ointment, those dishes). But there are just some times, some meals, where I know, deep down in my heart, that I want to be sharing this food.

My sister and I often talk about our envy for the family in the movie Dan in Real Life. Coming from a small family where we barely know the extended sides, those fictitious summers by the lake, with brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins all piled into one big house doing crazy, inventive fun stuff together sounds like paradise. But this desire, I think, has not so much to do with wanting a big family (I'm going to be very happy with my sister's 10 kids). I want a tribe. I want a group of people who are around, in the day to day, in your face, life kind of way. I want people who don't just live in my neighborhood or in my city but in my house! I want people to empty the cookie jar without asking if it's okay. I want people to groan over the injuries of Wipeout with. I want a noisy house, where people run around and yell up the stairs instead of walking up and knocking quietly on doors. I want a huge dining room table, where anyone could invite anyone to join us and we'd all just scrunch together a little more and add a little water to the soup. I want to walk in with the skillet of steaming corn pancakes and go around and give second helpings to anyone that wanted them, right from the skillet to the plate.

Oh well. This is one of those things where there's no reason why it wouldn't work out and there's a million reasons why it wouldn't work out. And I guess I'm just a little more blue than usual because all of my buddies are either out of town or doing med school rotations or visiting relatives or taking more college classes or celebrating their anniversary or driving to Ohio or writing grants or...busy. Really, really busy. Not their fault, but still rough.

So, if you've ever felt like inviting yourself over for dinner, but thought it might be rude, just do it. I would be so, so happy to whip up a quick batch of corn pancakes, just for me and you. Or me and you and everyone we know.