Rachael Ray

Danit just told me, as I was making her pancakes, that I never have made her pancakes before. My heart just sunk. The second I gave her the pancakes I sat down to write this post. I have batter on the back of my hand.

It’s funny, really, the kind of emotional disconnect there is between people who cook and people who eat. To us it’s all emotion, control, and projected appetites, mixed in with tenderness and nurturing love. To the person you hand it to, it might be all those things as well. Or it might just be a plate of food. Have you ever cooked something for someone who said they were hungry, and who then let the food just sit there while they talked on the phone, or did a jigsaw puzzle? To them, your anger and rejection are mere hysteria, an act of self-important narcissism, or at best immature.

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Maybe they are even right. No, they’re not. They should eat the food you serve them, especially if you went out of your way to make it good. Remember Beyonce’s boyfriend in her If I Were A Boy video? He cheated on her, turned off his phone, and other bad boyfriend behaviors, but what made me really hate him was when she made him breakfast and he didn’t even eat a bite of it. If my wife did that to me I would seethe inwardly. I would consume myself with anger. How do I know this? Because it’s happened? It always happens; it’s part of married life. I have turned down sex, which is far worse than turning down food, and felt bad about it.

But it’s something else when somebody tells you that they can’t remember you ever making them pancakes. Even if it were true, why would you say it? I made pancakes for Danit in our cold winter brooklyn apartmeng over and over, the half-aerated Aunt Jemima mix sitting in a giant wooden salad bowl on one burner while I ladeled pancake after pancake into my cast iron pan, carefully spreading softened butter and a thin layer of syrup across each pancake, so that the finished stack was almost like a breakfast lasagna, rather than the usual pile of lukewarm starch gloppily toppped, sundae-style, with cloying gushers of maple syrup and unmelted chunks of butter. I made that not once, but many times, and only for Danit: I don’t make pancakes for myself, and I don’t know anyone that does.

I really wish she had pretended that she remembers. I think Danit, like many women, over-value honesty. Don’t tell me you don’t remember my pancakes. And go through the mummery of pretending to eat the food I made you, even if you don’t feel like it. The cook has feelings too. That’s why he’s cooking for you to begin with.