Like most Vancouverites, Emile and I enjoy walking the Sea Wall.
So often we make our way down there – winding through the tourists – and walk the sea wall. Saturday was a particularly gorgeous day – and we spoke frequently about how spring is so much better when you don’t have to go through the melt.
Often I’ll run along the sea wall and I feel like I belong here. Running in my Yoga jacket with my iPhone. Yes, I’m that girl. Running along. There she goes. . .
Anyways, we enjoy walking and talking down the sea wall. Our route almost always takes us around the outside of the Vancouver Convention Centre with the Water sculpture. Located there is a restaurant called De Dutch. Emile – being Dutch – and I always talk about finding out what a Dutch restaurant serves but have never been.
We finally made it on Saturday morning. We laughing reviewed the menu as Emile told me stories about his mother’s cooking. The traditional luncheon meal at Emile’s house is a piece of bread with ham and a fried egg on it. He told me it is actually called an uitsmijter as listed on the menu. He remembered his Dutch when he ordered a Boer’s Breakfast. His Farmer’s Breakfast featured all the regular morning offerings and included a large Dutch Pannekoek (pancakes). Dutch pannekoeks are somewhere between a regular pancake and a crepe.
He bit into his pannekoek and stated “There is that tang.” Emile started to tell me about stories from Holland that I had never had. His dad’s mom made Emile and his sister pannekoeks for breakfast when they were in Holland. Not cereal on most mornings like at home, but his Oma’s pannekoeks. Made without a mix, and without a recipe probably just like her mother before her did.
The next morning Emile tried to reproduce his Oma’s Dutch pannekoek. He called home to ask his mom how to make them. Her side of the family wasn’t a pannekoek home and his dad was no help. Afterall, he only just ate them. A first attempt using an internet recipe was heavy, dense and lacking the tanginess.
March 9th, 2013 Extra-Ordinary: A unexpected memory from breakfast and the beginning of a quest for a Dutch Pannekoek recipe like his Oma’s.
The Daily EO 