Deep Dish Mixed Berry Skillet Pancake — The Art of Making Necessity Look Like a Choice

The weeks after Noah's birth were a blur of driving to White Plains and cooking and holding babies and making sure Marvin took his medication and teaching and writing and all the other verbs that constitute a life being lived at full velocity. I am sixty-one and I am tired in a way that I have not been tired since David and Rebecca were toddlers simultaneously, which was a period of my life I survived through a combination of coffee, stubbornness, and Sylvia's matzo ball soup, all three of which I am deploying again now.

Marvin has good days and bad days. The bad days are more frequent now — mornings where he sits at the kitchen table and looks at me with an expression that hovers between recognition and uncertainty, as if I am a woman he almost knows. These moments pass. They always pass. He blinks, and I am Ruth again, and the morning resumes, and I make him breakfast and pretend the moment didn't happen, and the pretending is exhausting but the alternative — acknowledging every moment, cataloguing every lapse, living in constant awareness of the loss — would be worse.

I made mamaliga this week — Romanian cornmeal porridge, the Ashkenazi polenta, the food that Jewish grandmothers in Eastern Europe made when there was nothing else, when the potatoes were gone and the flour was gone and all that remained was cornmeal and water and the determination to feed. Sylvia made mamaliga on the days when Irving's paycheck was late, which happened more often than either of them admitted. She made it with butter and cheese and served it like it was intentional, like she had chosen mamaliga out of abundance rather than necessity. This is the art of poverty cooking: you make the necessity look like a choice. You make the constraint look like creativity. You feed your family and you do not apologize.

I am learning this art in a new context. I am learning to make the necessary look chosen, to make the caregiving look natural, to make the decline look manageable. Marvin cannot drive anymore. I chose to drive him. Marvin cannot manage his medication. I chose to manage it. Marvin cannot remember the day of the week. I chose to write it on a note. These are not choices. These are necessities dressed up in the language of choice, the way mamaliga is poverty dressed up as dinner. But the dressing matters. The dressing is dignity.

Noah is one month old. He sleeps and eats and grows. The simplest chain: sleep, eat, grow. I wish all chains were this simple. I wish the chain of Marvin's decline were as predictable as a baby's growth. But it is not. It is erratic, unpredictable, a chain that drops links without warning. I hold the chain anyway. I hold it and I cook and the mamaliga is warm and the baby is sleeping and the man in the recliner is my husband and I love him and the love is not diminished. Not yet. Not ever.

Mamaliga is not on offer here — not every kitchen has the Romanian grandmother’s hand — but this deep dish mixed berry skillet pancake carries the same spirit I was reaching for all week: something humble elevated by attention, something warm assembled from simple things, something that looks chosen even when it is necessary. I made this on a Saturday morning when Marvin had a good hour and Noah was mercifully asleep, and I stood at the stove and let the skillet do most of the work, which is what you need when you are sixty-one and the verbs of your life are multiplying faster than you can conjugate them. It is not mamaliga. But it is warm, and it is made with love dressed up as ease, and that is close enough.

Deep Dish Mixed Berry Skillet Pancake

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
• 2 cups mixed fresh or frozen berries (blueberries, sliced strawberries, raspberries)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• Powdered sugar, for serving
• Maple syrup or sour cream, optional for serving

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven. Place a 10-inch cast iron skillet in the oven and preheat to 425°F. Allowing the skillet to heat with the oven is what gives this pancake its dramatic, puffed edges.
2. Make the batter. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, flour, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, baking powder, and salt until smooth with no lumps remaining. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes while the oven finishes preheating.
3. Prepare the berries. In a small bowl, toss the mixed berries with the brown sugar and set aside. If using frozen berries, do not thaw — use them straight from the freezer to prevent bleeding.
4. Butter the skillet. Carefully remove the hot skillet from the oven using oven mitts. Add 2 tablespoons of the butter and swirl until fully melted and coating the bottom and sides of the pan. Work quickly so the skillet stays hot.
5. Pour and top. Immediately pour the batter into the hot buttered skillet. Scatter the sugared berries evenly over the surface. Dot the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter in small pieces over the top of the berries.
6. Bake. Return the skillet to the oven and bake for 22 to 26 minutes, until the pancake is puffed at the edges, golden brown on the bottom, and just set in the center. It will deflate slightly as it cools — this is expected.
7. Serve. Dust generously with powdered sugar and bring the skillet straight to the table. Slice into wedges and serve warm with maple syrup or a small dollop of sour cream if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 215 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 8g | Carbs: 29g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 175mg