2 min read

Popovers

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Yesterday, I woke up especially early – 430am – and, after a half-hour or so of coming to grips with being awake, I went downstairs. I decided to make something that I hadn't made in at least six or seven years for everyone: popovers.

When I was in my 20s, the only thing I owned that went in an oven was a popover pan. I would make them for people to prove that I could cook... but, literally, it was my only pan for at least five years. So I ate and cooked a decent number of popovers, and I got pretty good at it.

At one point, my then-fiancée, now-wife and I thought about opening an all-popover restaurant, which would have been a terrible idea. Thankfully, every test recipe we made for other people was met with groans, and pretty soon people stopped coming over if we told them we were making popovers.

We got burned out on them, and they're also kind of annoying: you need to eat them right after they come out of the oven. Biscuits can last for days and take the same amount of time; popovers are fussy. The magic of them puffing up and being hollow inside is definitely cool... once.

Still, I decided that kiddo should try them. This is always a bad idea, because one of the few things that kiddo has full control of in life is what he has for breakfast. Today, it was chicken fingers and a bagel while I put my campaign for father-of-the-year on hold.

I found a recipe that seemed legit (it was in parts, except that it forgets to tell you to butter the pan and the second cycle is about 5 minutes too long for my oven) and set myself to baking. By the time everyone was coming downstairs at 630 or so, they were ready... and I was told, unequivocally, that kiddo would never, ever, in a million years eat one of those disgusting things.

Then, after about 10 minutes of cajoling, we got a tiny bite, and kiddo told me it was the worst thing he ever tasted.

Five minutes later, he'd eaten half of a popover, slathered in jam.

20 minutes after that, he'd eaten two and a half popovers and was telling me that I might be too good to go on Nailed It. This is maybe the highest praise he's ever had of my cooking, telling me that I don't suck.

I'll take not sucking as a compliment.

nailed it.

Before he had the chicken fingers and bagels this morning, I was secretly hoping that he was going to ask for more popovers. He didn't. Still, it doesn't take away yesterday's small victory.

That's it for today! Thanks for reading.

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