By Bethany Christman
How can you even begin to describe a pure moment, one so rich with heartfelt memories? This moment was not your typical “this is the best dish I ever ate” moment—this moment in time is indescribable—but somehow my life was altered with a single bite. I asked myself how this can be possible? How can this possibly taste like my father’s cooking? But some way, somehow it did just that.
This morning was unlike any other. I woke up before everyone else, as always, and decided that I was going to make chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. I mixed the goop until it became one unified smooth mixture. The pan was hot and ready to go. I poured the delectable river of gold onto the sizzling pan, followed shortly by tantalizing mounds of chocolate chips. One by one my roommates fled their nice, warm hideouts and followed the delicious aroma into our kitchen. Swiftly, I finished cooking and gave out my last short stack of hotcakes. In the moment when I raised those first bites of three pancakes to my mouth, with the glistening silver fork, opening my mind, body, and soul to this very first bite, was when it happened.
I was six standing beside my father in the kitchen. I had woken up early like I always do and was helping him cook. My father always said “the early bird gets the worm.” At the time I didn’t know a what it meant, but he let me pick what was for breakfast. I always picked his mouth-watering chocolate chip pancakes. That morning was special, he let me have a pancake right off of the griddle before anyone else was up. That pancake was unlike any other pancake, it was at the top of an elite class of pancakes, and I knew no pancake, no matter who made it, could ever top it. Just like that I was back in my dorm, wearing my obnoxiously teal donut pajamas with my roommates, eating our chocolate chip pancakes.