I've been working on this recipe for a year now, minor adjustments - adding raisins, removing raisins. Flip-flopping between rolled and quick oats. It's been sort of a project. You see, people have strong convictions about their oatmeal cookies.
Because his family is a true-to-the-bone pancake family, I really wanted him to share with me the secrets to making a good pancake, thin and delicate, perfectly browned on the outside, soft on the inside. He gave me a recipe, one that he has memorized. A set of very specific instructions, the right temp, the right amount of time for frying. I followed it to a tee, and sure enough, the pancakes came out the way I had always dreamed they would.