This cake is good. I mean really good. So good, that I really did invite 6 friends over to help me eat it, because I knew that if I didn't get any help, I was in fact going to eat the whole thing myself.
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.