Lesson From Pancake

warm greetings from chiang-mai! yesterday i didn’t get to blog because i was kept busy throughout the day. there were lots of activities going on for a life in the city with family and friends like burning pancake, having a fight with mom (such a healthy way to celebrate the sabbath…uggh…more details to follow), going to church, learning about the muslims and how christians should reach out to them through a muslim-converted-christian teacher, grocery shopping, movie watching and cookies making. as you can see, every single time i meant to sit down and engage myself in the blog, i was called to do something else.

anyway, what i want to write today is about my pancake. for many of you, making pancake is as easy as peeling a banana (that’s a thai way to say “a piece of cake”). for me, it was sweat and toil. here’s how it all happened:

on saturday morning, i spotted a maple syrup bottle in the fridge so i thought that it’d be brilliant to have pancake the next morning for breakfast. the last time i made pancake helped my friend make pancake was a year ago, i think. and with mom, that was probably a century ago. anyway, i went to the supermarket and got a box of pancake mix.

sunday morning, i got up early intending to prepare pancake breakfast for everyone. i mixed the powder, milk and eggs in to the bowl and did everything according to the instruction. i turned on the stove and poured some oil into the pan. then the trouble began – i had no idea what i was doing. the heat was too hot and once i poured some portion into the pan, it quickly turned black…not “brown gold” as i was expecting. to add up to my woe, a swarm of bullying mosquitoes were feasting on my legs. so now you get a picture of me, jumping, twitching and scratching my calves, while trying to figure out how to not burn my pancake.

that irritated mom – me not knowing what i was doing. i thought she knew how to make pancake and i, vice versa. and so we ended up a hopeless angry pair. she was upset with me and i was frustrated at her. we had quite a harsh verbal fight. i totally regretted it.

but as nature of a mother goes, despite my sting, she came back and helped me solve the problem as best as she could. all the while, she was giving me this lesson:

“mink, y’know, life is just like us making pancake. sometimes you think it’s easy and you’re so confident that you’re gonna get it. but life isn’t always simple like that. you usually come across troubles and get stuck. you don’t always get what you want in the 1st try. but despite the circumstance, as helpless as it may be, you can’t leave in the middle of the fight. you’re gonna have to see it through. and do it better the next time.”

so we did see it through and here’s my pancake. despite its look, it tasted good, i might say, according to my victims…well, apart from the black part of course. 😉

my sad burnt pancake

i’m not so sure if i’m gonna make a good noble wife…but i promised to myself that i’ll master the pancake making in the near future. im gonna make myself and mom proud.