“You’re odd.”

“It makes me tired just watching you.”

These are just a few of the morning greetings that await me at breakfast.

“Jeffrey, pancakes aren’t your thing. You’re more of a cold cereal person.”

Flapjacks, griddlecakes, golden circles of joy or hotcakes, no matter the moniker, I love pancakes.

The problem is they can be so confusing and complicated.

I’m not talking about whipping up a batch of golden-brown, melt in your mouth griddlecakes or trying to decide between a tasty stack of banana, blueberry or buttermilk flapjacks.

My pancake predicament occurs when the naked pancake gets together with maple syrup and butter.

To be more specific, what’s the correct way to eat the humble hotcake?

It sure isn’t my method.

When I go out with friends for breakfast there’s one strict rule: I can’t order pancakes.

The reason? How I prepare a stack of cakes for consumption. Here’s the blueprint.

1. Make a circle of maple syrup the size of a pancake in the center of a round plate.

2. Place one pancake on top of the circle.

3. Add a thin layer of butter on top of the first cake.

4. Place pancake number two on top of the first cake add a layer of grape jelly and drizzle with maple syrup.

5. The third and final cake is placed on top of the stack.

6. A generous layer of peanut butter is placed on the top cake.

7. Next, a hearty dose of butter followed by a drizzle of maple syrup finishes off the stack.

8. By this time the cakes are cold and need reheated before eating.

9. Breakfast is finally served!

Yes, it’s a drawn-out detailed process making me look like the official poster child for being a doofus or simpleton.
With that in mind it would be nice to find a more streamline approach to pancake preparation. A solution that is easy yet provides the correct ratio of butter, jelly, peanut butter and syrup per cake.

That’s the important issue, an equal balance of flavors per bite.

I searched hither and yon for answers, checked the Internet, consulted friends and studied etiquette books.

No luck, still clueless about cakes.

What to do?

Is it better to top a stack of pancakes with a slab of butter and maple syrup until it slowly cascades down the sides and pools onto the plate?

Is it proper to forgo a knife and use a fork to cut the pancakes into pieces?

Is butter placed on the cake first and syrup comes second? Or is it the other way around?

Does one cut an entire pancake into bite-size pieces and dunk each piece into syrup?

Having cakes and eggs, is it acceptable to place the eggs on top of the cakes?

How many pancakes should be in a stack? 3 or 5?

Are silver dollar pancakes meant for children or may adults partake in them too?

Is it even legal in Pennsylvania to add jelly and peanut butter to pancakes? (I have this horrible dream I’m eating a stack of butter, jelly, peanut butter and maple syrup pancakes. Martha Stewart appears and tells me I’m not eating pancakes correctly. She slaps me in the face before grabbing my pancakes and replacing them with a bowl of plain Cream of Wheat and a linen napkin folded into the shape of a swan.)

Questions and more questions with no answers until I was enlightened by Julia Child. The beloved TV chef was known for her epicurean skills and her wit and wisdom in the kitchen. “Everything can have drama if it’s done right. Even a pancake.” Her comment on drama made me realize I wasn’t being an oddball with my pancake preparation. I was merely adding some drama to the ho-hum hotcake.

In a way I was like a modern-day Picasso or Renoir by using the naked pancake as a canvas for my culinary expressions. I was turning my back on the ordinary and going for extraordinary!

No longer would I be pancake shamed since I was creating something beautiful and tasty.

Did my friends ever change their outlook when I told them about my artistic work with batter and syrup?

Sure did.

“Jeff, I was wrong when I said you were odd,” said a friend. “You’re extremely odd!”

Everything pancakes

The R. T. Davis Milling Company introduced the world’s first pancake mix, Aunt Jemima, in 1890.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary “Flat as a pancake” has been a catchphrase since the early 1600s.

In 2010 Dominic Cuzzacrea set the record for the highest pancake flip with a lofty height of 31 feet 1 inch.

Forgo wishing on a star and opt for a pancake instead. It’s an old tradition in France to make a wish while flipping a pancake in a frying pan and holding onto a coin in the other hand.

William Shakespeare mentions pancakes in several of his plays including “As You Like It,”

“Everything can have drama if it’s done right. Even a pancake.” – Julia Child

“In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it’s not perfect, that’s okay, there are a lot more coming along.” – Antonin Scalia

“Just ’cause you pour syrup on something doesn’t make it pancakes.” – Samuel L. Jackson

“Women always try to see the one good part of ‘The Weird Guy’ because the dating landscape is so bleak. Women will say, ‘He’s very odd, but he likes to cook. He’s creepy, but he makes good pancakes!” – Zoe Lister-Jones

“It was like the way you wanted sunshine on Saturdays, or pancakes for breakfast. They just made you feel good.” – Sarah Addison Allen

“Bill Clinton’s foreign policy experience stems mainly from having breakfast at the International House of Pancakes.” – Pat Buchanan

“The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves.” – W.C. Fields