Lemon Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes: Breakfast on the Burke-Gilman Trail

Some of you may know that I am a bit iffy on pancakes. The ones I like are light, either thin with raspberries bits strewn throughout, or soft and moist with ricotta cheese and lemon curd. Big, hefty, bready pancakes I do not like. They sit in my stomach for hours feeling leaden: they weigh me down,

There is one exception to this pancake rule of mine, and that has to do with bicycles. If a bicycle is involved, then hefty pancakes are okay. In fact, they are encouraged. On a bicycle, you need that sort of fuel.

I discovered this while on a three-day bike trip with my friend Michelle, along the California coast. We biked north from San Francisco, stopping for lunch along Tomales Bay, rolling past fields of cows near Valley Ford, and camping that night just north of Bodega Bay, a place of craggy cliffs, sand dunes, and cypress trees.



The next morning we woke to a world shrouded in fog and chill, and backtracked into town for a hot breakfast. Michelle had pancakes and I had an omelet—figuring the eggs and cheese would keep me going—but an hour later, when we crested the hills above the coastal town of Jenner and turned inland, following the sinuous curves of the green Russian River, I was hungry already. Michelle, with a belly still full of pancakes, was fine.

Ever since then I live by this rule: if a bike is involved, it’s time for pancakes.

I thought of this recently, one morning as I planned to explore the Burke-Gilman Trail. I had heard of this trail even before I arrived in Seattle. When my friends Melinda and Brian left the Bay Area three years ago, to move back to Seattle, they said they were looking forward to being on the Burke-Gilman Trail again. Because I grew up on the slopes of Mt. Tam, and consider the Matt Davis Trail as one of the things that makes life worth living, I assumed this must be some woodsy, Northwest hiking trail. I imagined pine trees and salal bushes.

But the Burke-Gilman Trail is a bike trail. I saw it on my Seattle Bicycle Route Map (the city Department of Transportation will send you one for free, if only you ask them). I noticed that I could join up with the trail on the campus of the University of Washington, not far from my house. One Sunday, earlier this summer, I decided to check it out.

But first I made pancakes.

I had recently read an old post of Molly’s on Orangette, where she was talking about putting leftover pancakes in ziplock bags and taking them with her on airplanes. I don’t often have leftover pancakes, because I usually make partial recipes, but I was intrigued by the ziplock bag idea. Perhaps this was the best of all possible worlds, perhaps I could have my bicycle and my pancakes—to go!

Of course, for this I’d need a hefty pancake—no crepe-like raspberry thing or tender bit of ricotta fluff. For this I’d need a new pancake recipe, something sturdy and filling—and since my mother had just been to visit, bringing with her a goodly amount of blueberries from the island (thanks, mom!), that something would be blueberry.

A blueberry buckwheat pancake—with lemon.



A little research and a few trials and errors later, I had come up with a recipe I was happy with. The nutty flavor of the buckwheat flour played with the tart-sweet berries, extra juicy now from the heat of the pan. There was a little citrus there in the background, waking things up, and the whole thing tasted like something you would want to wake up early for. It was hard to not eat them all fresh off the stove, but I dutifully wrapped them up and slid them into my bicycle bag. I had a trail to explore.



The Burke-Gilman Sammamish Trail is built on an old railroad route. In 1970, a group of locals convinced the city to purchase the land. After extended negotiations, the land was bought, the rail ties removed, and the trail opened for use in 1974. It is now a 27-mile bike and pedestrian trail that runs from the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, west and north along Lake Washington. It is part of the 90 miles of signed bike routes in the city of Seattle, 175 in King County (with plans to become 300 miles, yippie!).

That paragraph above, while perhaps of interest to some, does not at all convey the experience of the Burke-Gilman Trail. It cannot explain the sheer pleasure of riding underneath a canopy of leafy green arching overhead. It cannot share the experience of smelling blackberries warming in the sun as you ride by, or hearing the trickle of flowing streams. It cannot make you understand what a joy it is to ride for miles—miles, I tell you—without having to worry about traffic and the possibility of someone opening their car door suddenly just as you are riding by.



Instead you glide for miles—miles, I tell you—past waves of green trees, lovely houses, and slices of the deep marine blue of Lake Washington. You see other cyclists and walkers, and families with strollers. There are wooded sections, with the smell of pine and damp, and leafy green areas where the sun filters down through a canopy of green, leaving a speckled pattern on the pavement as you coast by.



And then there are the parks. Pockets of grass and shoreline where you can lean you bike up against a tree, stick you feet in the water of the lake if you like, and eat your pancakes.



They are delicious, even more after the exercise and fresh air. The blueberries burst out of the pancake, and if you fold it over to munch away, you might end up accidentally squirting berry juice on your hand. You don’t mind. You're too busy enjoying the day and the delightful novelty of a breakfast picnic, far from home.



As you sit there you are thankful, for the day, for the berries and pancakes, and for the foresight that a group of people had, more than 35 years ago, to set aside this land for a bike trail. You appreciate it even more, perhaps, because similar efforts have been on the ballot in the county you grew up in, where they routinely fail to win approval. A measure last fall, to fund a 70-mile bike, pedestrian, and rail line through Marin and Sonoma Counties, was turned down by voters who didn’t want to approve a one quarter percentage increase in sales tax. But what joy, what beauty, what a gift those pennies might provide a community 35 years later.

With a gorgeous ride ahead of you, and a belly full of pancakes, Seattle seems a grand place to be.



LEMON BLUEBERRY BUCKWHEAT PANCAKES
These are mighty pancakes, filling enough to fuel a good bike ride or mountain hike.

1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp sugar (more if you like your pancakes on the sweet side, or if your berries are super tart)
1 tsp salt
1/2 stick cold, unsalted butter (1/4 cup) cut into small pieces
1 cup buttermilk (you can fake the buttermilk but adding 1 tsp lemon juice to 1 cup milk)
2 eggs
1 tsp grated lemon zest
2 cups blueberries
oil or butter for the pan

Mix the flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt, either in a bowl or in the bowl of a food processor and cut the butter into the mix—by pulsing the food processor or by using a pastry cutter or knife and fork—until the mixture resembles fine meal.

In a large bowl, mix the buttermilk and the eggs until smooth. Add the dry ingredient mixture and stir until incorporated. Add the lemon zest. Let sit five minutes before adding the blueberries. The batter will be thick.

Grease a fry pan or griddle and heat on medium high. Once the pan is hot enough so that a drop of water “dances” on the grease, pour the batter on in 1/2 cup scoops with a ladle. Don’t flip the pancakes until a generous amount of bubbles have appeared towards the center of the pancake. Adjust heat as needed.