Pancake Animals

I think I have fallen in love again, with making multi-grain sourdough applesauce buttermilk pancakes. Maybe because my house is cold and pancake-making is a job that keeps me warm standing between the 1960's Westinghouse electric griddle and the built in 1960's Thermador oven. The pancakes are portable too, so I sent my husband off with a stack of them.
Pancakes remind me of my happiest childhood moments when my step father would get up early on a Saturday morning and mix up the batter and pour it into animal shapes. They were hilarious batter-renderings of an elephant, horse, rhino, giraffe, brontosaurus, turtle, snake, pig, dog, wolf, cat, sketches that we could eat. My sister and brother and I were thrilled to share a rare and precious moment with him and to be having fun. It doesn't get any better than this. Sadly my mother felt upstaged, and put a stop to it all.