This morning at breakfast Anna commented to me, “These pancakes are GOOD!”
“That’s because I made them from scratch,” I replied. (Right down to grinding my own wheat into flour).
I prepare breakfast for my children four out of the five school days each week. Pancakes make a weekly appearance. Mainly because the simplicity of adding water to Costco’s Kodiak Cake mix means I can sleep until 5:45 and still whip them up before Anna is out the door.
Pancake mixes are lifesavers, for sure. As far as I’m concerned, any breakfast that appears on the table at 6:00 a.m. is a freaking labor of love. But to suggest that a mix and pancakes from scratch are one and the same is simply untrue.
Think about it. When attending an event where dessert is potluck, which ones disappear the fastest? Including the crumbs.
No one’s calling up the local grocery store bakery to get their chocolate chip cookie recipe. But you can bet they want mine.
I’m a creature of convenience as much as the next person. Despite my cache of tried-and-true recipes for whole wheat bread, granola bars and banana muffins, I (more often than not) raid the snack aisle for goldfish crackers and wheat thins.
I might even have snagged a giant bag of Costco rolls a time or two. My kids don’t mind a bit.
In my heart, though, I know that I’m giving my best when I’ve slaved over a stove or oven to present a fresh, unprocessed version of the same.
It’s not just because homemade(or homegrown, for that matter) tastes better. Or even that it lacks the lengthy easy-to-mispronounce ingredient list on the side of store-bought packages. Although, that’s part of it.
Somehow it satisfies me to know that my vanilla ice cream recipe contains only four ingredients compared to the 19 listed on our favorite store brand. I even brag to my kids that my recipe is “healthy”, though arguably anything containing heavy whipping cream is most certainly anything BUT.
Still, homemade goodness is more than just goodness. It’s love.
It’s the message it sends. Messages like, “I was willing to get up a few minutes earlier to make you pancakes from scratch.” Or, “I know how much you love my homemade granola bars so here’s a few dozen to tide you over for, oh, two days”. Or, “I appreciate how hard you work to put food on the table for our family so I’m willing to sacrifice my time to make that food delicious.”
Food just might be a love language, I’m convinced. Its power cannot be underestimated. While you won’t find me swearing off prepared foods entirely, you can bet I’ll keep sending love notes in the form of edibles for years to come.