Batter Up: Adding Spice to Life (Essay About Cooking)

I admit to not always being the most optimistic person, especially in times where there seems to be no end in sight. It often seems easier to complain than seek the positives, and having to deal with the weight of a pandemic on your shoulders doesn’t help either. Halfway through 2020, I had begun to feel the endless loop of quarantine wear in. My eyes were numb from staring at a screen all day, and my feet longed to get out of my house. I needed something that would -quite literally- spice up my life. I thought this thing could only be the end of quarantine; it was a pancake recipe instead. 

From the minute I walked into my kitchen on that weekend morning, I was craving pancakes. At the time I viewed cooking only as a time-waster, and with quarantine, time seemed to be the only thing plentiful. So with the clock only at 7:00 AM, I decided to find a recipe. I ended up choosing one from a blog that featured a photo of a beautiful stack of pancakes dripping with maple syrup and fresh fruit. It looked straight from a Vogue magazine cover. Although I knew I had zero chance at recreating it, I grabbed the ingredients anyways. 

I’m not good at cooking, and this only made that more evident. Within a minute, I had misread two teaspoons of oil for two tablespoons and exploded a bottle of cinnamon in my batter. What was weird was that, despite my mistakes, I was actually enjoying it. I couldn’t believe it. How could I, a 13-year-old with zero prior cooking experience, suffering through quarantine, enjoy it as I accidentally dumped the whole bottle of cinnamon into my batter? I couldn’t enjoy such a thing. Not right now. Not with quarantine.  When I glanced back up at the microwave to check the time, I was taken aback by the digital numbers in front of me. 7:45. Had I really just spent 45 minutes making batter? The recipe called for 15. Time to work quicker. I scooped up some of the batter, poured it onto the pan, and waited for it to bubble. When it did, I prepared myself -both mentally and physically- for the biggest test of all: flipping it.

I carefully lodged the rubber spatula under the pancake and turned it over.  At first, it looked promising. The sizzling pancake flipped in midair, but on its way down, it collapsed in on itself like a house of cards. Disappointment and self-doubt flooded me. I could already hear a voice yelling at me, “Don’t you see? Why are you even trying? You need quarantine to end, not pancakes.”  It was loud. Overwhelming. Impossible to ignore. I so badly wanted to go back to my old habit of mindlessly complaining… but I didn’t. Scrapping off the remnants, I did my best to save what I could of the pancake. I poured a new batch of batter and calmed myself as it began to bubble. 

Focus. Biting my lip to concentrate, I slid my spatula under the batter and took a deep breath. The pancake kept sizzling, a ticking time bomb waiting to burn, so in the flick of the wrist, I flipped the pancake over.

It circled in the air and came sailing down, only this time it didn’t crumble. Immediately, the stress of quarantine dissipated, and a wave of relief and pride hit me. I no longer cared about quarantine, or that all I was doing was making pancakes on a weekend morning. I no longer cared how they would taste or look. I just let myself smell the pungent scent of too much cinnamon and enjoy the overwhelming feeling of long-suppressed emotions. To be honest, pancakes can’t do much. I was still in quarantine; I still couldn’t go anywhere. But that’s just how the world works. I might not have control over the circumstances, but that doesn’t mean my perspective is out of my control too.