Remoted - Hybrid” – Day 574 (Monday)

The Monday holiday morning kicked off with a bout of insomnia after being awakened by Winston at 3:00 a.m. so he could go out to potty. We went back to bed, where he fell asleep with a light snore and I remained awake for a solid 1.5 hours. Unlike Moosie, who was up at 6:00 a.m. no matter what went on at night, Winston sleeps as late as possible, often until he is hungry, thirsty, or needs to potty.

Despite deliberately keeping the alarm set for 6:15 in an attempt to maintain a regular schedule for Winston’s insulin as much as to not “waste” the morning, the alarm was snoozed. The next thing I knew, it was 8:00, but at least I got back the sleep lost from earlier. Then it was the routine making of coffee, doling of kibble, and sitting on the couch for a slow waking up and easing into the day.

Batter in the pan.

Part of the waking up included a riveting inner dialogue about making Finnish pancakes. Not pannakakku, the pancake baked in the oven in a pan. The debate was about the small, thin ones closer to a crepe that are cooked in a cast iron pan. We grew up knowing these as “blet-doos” and it was only recently I learned the name is actually “lettu.” I haven’t made these since I lived in Tennessee, but I have wanted them many times. IKEA has a frozen Swedish pancake that is much like this and is really good.

My family always made them in the cast iron pan with seven mini circles. These were one of my favorite dishes growing up, right up there with American Chop Suey and Mom’s meatballs with spaghetti. After I moved back from Tennessee, when Mom asked what I wanted for lunch or dinner, my answer was often “blet-doos.” They are kind of a pain to make and messy, so the request was not always fulfilled. 

The Finnish Cookbook was consulted for ingredients, but after seeing “buttermilk” the book was placed back on the shelf. This led to a frantic search through the recipe box for the family recipe, which certainly does not use buttermilk. We are not fancy buttermilk people and our recipe uses regular milk. It took a lot of rifling and trying to remember if the recipe was filed under “B” for the incorrect name “blet-doos,” or “F” for Finnish pancakes, or “L” for the correct name “lettu,” or in the catchall miscellaneous. It was finally located.

Mummu’s recipe uses two eggs, one cup of sugar, one cup of flour, two cups of milk, an unspecified amount of salt, and butter for the pan. Compared to other recipes found, my family’s uses about four times the sugar. I don’t know why.

There was no milk in the house, just half and half, the volume of which was depleted by using a bunch of it in the mac and cheese on Sunday. Milk was procured at Family Dollar, where buttermilk is definitely not available. The batter was mixed. The pan was heated. The mess began.

The first batch never, ever comes out right. The pan just isn’t ready. The batter makes many batches of seven, which takes forever. So many batches. Many pancakes were eaten like a cave woman while standing over the stove and still cooking more pancakes. Few came out crispy and browned like the ideal, which I later learned is probably due to using too much batter for each one. They taste like I remember. There is a plate of extras in the fridge and another bunch layered with wax paper in a container and frozen.

So many little lettu left over.

Rebuttering each little circle in the pan ends up using a lot, lot of butter. Mucho butter. The butter and the batter seem to splatter all over the place, and the stove and counter and dish cleanup can take a while, which is why I rarely make these. There was spraying and scrubbing and now the stove is too clean to use again for a while, but that’s okay. The refrigerator is loaded with mac and cheese and lettu and apple crisp and other prepared food that could be microwaved while I stand nearby admiring the clean stove.

There were lessons learned after the fact, based on an Internet search that should have been done on the front end, but I didn’t want to lose enthusiasm. Less batter in each circle for thinner and crisper is the big takeaway. Maybe next time I’ll cut the recipe in half so there aren’t a million pancakes that take forever to make.