Someone Left The (Pan)Cake In The Rain
"Hey, how about if Lane's band rehearses in the kitchen - we don't use that either," - Lorelai
"Macarthur Park" might not have been the first song to use a baking analogy to explain a relationship but it was definitely the most inane. Lorelai can't help wondering what happened in Jimmy Webb's love life that caused him to wax poetic about "sweet green icing" in a way no reasonable song-writer would contemplate.
Food, love and relationships have connected regularly in the world's metaphoric imagination: there's 'like oil and water', or 'chalk and cheese'; 'the way to a man's heart is through his stomach', 'donít put all your eggs in one basket', and 'the early bird catches the worm' - which might not have anything to do with relationships but reminds her of a guy she dated when Rory was a baby who was bird-like and ordered spaghetti at dinner.
Then there are those cooking shows on the cable networks with sexy, twenty-something British types, who promote cooking as a weapon of mass seduction. All it takes is that extra dash of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and your dinner date will be putty in your hands.
Who is she to argue against the tide of popular sentiment? Who is she to say when it comes to cooking there are those who can and those who can't and nothing should be read into it?
She hoped to start out small and simple - progress to profiteroles and bouillabaisse at the end of lesson twelve (there's twelve of everything - especially in cooking). She promised Luke breakfast, insisting she would provide.
Sookie volunteered a recipe involving marscapone and a kind of organic flour available by direct order from Palo Alto. Rory dictated a list over the phone: "flour, eggs, water and mix them all together." While it was slightly more realistic than Sookie's advice, it was impossible to forget that Rory was her mother's daughter and her expertise was dubious at best.
Substantially more helpful was Kirk's suggestion which involved a plastic bottle pulled surreptitiously from the shelf at the market. He directed her attention to the instructions on the back. "No one need ever know," he told her, conspiratorially.
She sleeps on the idea, has dreams about being chased by large blob-like monsters that leave sticky, doughy residue in their wake and smell vaguely like maple syrup. She is thinking about omens and portents when she wakes and wonders if such vivid imagery isn't redundant when she is already sure she's about to make a mess of 1930s, b-grade, disaster movie proportions.
On the table in the kitchen is the bottle of pancake mixture where she left it last night after being too afraid to put it away lest the kitchen cupboard vortex swallow it overnight.
The instructions on the back call for "1 cup" of water and she's immediately thrown into disarray, pulling a myriad of different sized mugs from the shelf and pondering the exact nature of a "cup."
She calls Sookie. "How much is '1 cup'?"
"In fluid ounces?"
"In English!"
Sookie tries to explain using one-syllable words and references to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Lorelai gives up trying to understand and settles on using the Winnie the Pooh mug with the broken handle - the Emily mug looks mean and the Starbucks mug is stolen and potentially bad karma and who wants to tempt fate?
It turns out mug sizing is nothing compared to finding the right pan and getting it to the right temperature. Sookie said the butter is supposed to sizzle and it sizzles plenty, zipping around the pan leaving a trail of sizzle that turns brown within seconds.
She pours the mixture in and waits. Five minutes pass and the pancake still looks gooey in the middle. A further three minutes pass and she's sure the edges look black.
She notes the bottle doesn't come with flipping instructions. Kirk's parting advice was to not, under any circumstances, attempt to flip on her first try, but without detailed flipping instructions (with pictures) she is at a loss to imagine how the pancake might be turned over otherwise.
She lifts the pan and moves it cautiously up and down. When nothing happens she makes her movements more jerky and less fluid. The gooey mixture on top runs so that one side of the pancake is thicker than the other, however, the pancake is still more or less in one place and seemingly intent on staying that way.
She gives the pan a hard thrust upward, starting with the pan almost at knee level. Half the pancake breaks away and lands on the wall by the stove. The other half stays in the pan, the goo in the middle spilling into the space the half on the wall has vacated.
The piece on the wall slides slowly to the floor, leaving a trail of pancake goo behind it. She stares at it for a while, contemplating the mess.
"Paper towels," she says out loud, and is disappointed that no one answers with, "Here they are." Rory didn't use the kitchen often but when she did she remembered where she put things. It's yet another reason to wish she'd locked Rory in her bedroom when she turned seventeen - that and the Joan Crawford connection.
She sorts through the cupboards below the sink and comes up with not one but three rolls of paper towels. She puts them all on the kitchen table in case of emergency, silently congratulating herself on her Girl Scout preparedness.
After cleaning up the mess she starts again. This time she spreads the mixture thinner by rolling the pan side to side causing the blob in the middle to look less threatening.
She attempts the tossing manoeuvre again with a smaller and gentler practice run first. This time the mixture lifts slightly off the base. She throw is up again, harder this time. It does a full turn before landing half in the pan and half on the stove top. She is mildly disturbed to note the mixture smells reminiscent of burning rubber as it burns.
The stove top is too hot to clean, even turned off, so she cleans as much as she can without causing injury and leaves the rest for when the stove cools. Five more sheets of paper towelling find their way to the garbage.
She regrets, mostly, that she never asked Kirk what the procedure for flipping pancakes was if tossing was out of the question. She regrets most of all that if anyone asks she will be obliged to tell them she should have listened to Kirk.
She wipes her hands on her jeans and resolves to have one last try. She repeats the process of rolling the pan gently and spreading the mixture throughout the pan. She waits until the mixture moves easily off the base and tries the flip again.
She realises instantly that she's flipped it an arc toward herself. She takes a step back, her free hand feeling for the table behind her. Instead she finds the mixing bowl, knocking it over as she tries to grab hold of a solid surface behind her. She turns to see pancake mixture running in a river across the kitchen table just as the flipped pancake lands on the handle of the pan.
She reaches for the paper towels but stops mid-reach. She stands motionless for a moment and then calmly places the pan on the sink, and falls into a chair. She pulls the chair up to the table, places her elbows on top, and hangs her head between them resting her hands on her neck.
He finds her like that. She hears the back door open and close and the sound of two - maybe three - steps before Luke says, "What the hell happened?"
She doesn't look up. "It's no use," she says. Her nose is an inch away from the table. "We're doomed."
"You and me or you and the pancakes?"
"Us. I can't make pancakes."
"I can make pancakes."
She lifts her head and leans back in her chair. Her arms fall to her sides. She looks straight ahead, not at him. "But I can't. It's a portent."
"We're doomed because you can't make pancakes?"
"It's the song."
"What song?"
"The song about the cake being out in the rain and he took so long to bake it and he'll never have that recipe again."
Luke leans one hand on the sink while the other rubs his chin. "That's the most ridiculous song ever written, you know that right?"
"It's symbolic."
"Are you sure? Because pastry chefs the world over think it's an accurate portrayal of the emotional ups and downs of baking."
She finally looks at him. "Do you have any idea how bad I am at baking?"
"Yes."
"But don't you see?" She gets to her feet. "It didn't work. I tried and it didn't work. I tried three times in fact and I just made a bigger and bigger mess." She waves her hands in the air indicating a sizeable mess. "I just wanted it to work this time."
Luke takes his cap off and places it on the corner of the chair. He runs his hand through his hair and rubs the back of his neck. "Let's clean this up," he says.
He reaches for the paper towels. "Three rolls?"
"Always be prepared," she says, and she tries to smile.
They get down on their hands and knees and wipe pancake mixture from underneath the table. Before they get to their feet again, Luke catches her arm and holds her in place, meeting her eyes. Before she can say anything he reaches for a clean paper towel and wipes pancake mixture from the side of her face and her hair, his eyes never leaving hers.
When he's finished he leans forward and kisses her lightly. The pressure against her lips is warm and gentle and seductive, and she's amazed that he can be all those wonderful things at once. He takes her hands and raises her to her feet. "Let's try this again," he says.
Luke makes pancakes from eggs and flour which he brought with him and which she wisely refuses to comment on. He praises her use of the Winnie the Pooh mug and agrees with her on her decision to forego Emily. He shows he how to wait for the bubbles on the surface to form craters and then he reaches into a drawer by the sink and extracts a utensil.
"What is that?" she says.
"A spatula. Don't tell me you've never used a spatula?"
"I used it once to stop the door from closing when I couldn't find the key."
He shows her how to flip the pancake without tossing the pancake in the air and she refrains from telling him that Kirk actually gave her good advice.
When it's cooked, he slides it easily from the pan onto a plate and says, "Now you try."
He hands her the spatula, taking hold of her wrist as he does. He runs his thumb reassuringly across the top of her hand.
She swallows. It's probably silly, and maybe Luke's right to think she's worries over nothing but she's full of affectations and eccentricities and she's always thought that was something she could depend on about herself.
"What if I make a mess of it?" she says. He's still holding her hand. She rolls her wrist so that her hand clasps his.
"We'll clean it up," he says.
Her eyes fall to their hands and she knows this too is something she can depend on.