You're a politician and want to flip a pancake. Please don't.

An ode to the time-honoured tradition of Calgary Stampede pancake breakfasts and the politicians that impose themselves upon them.

The Calgary Stampede is in full swing, and yesterday, footage emerged of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's spectacularly failed attempt to flip a pancake at a Calgary area Stampede breakfast. But, even as a Conservative Member of Parliament who spends most of her days opposing his government, I have to grudgingly admit that I almost felt bad for the guy.

Watching the video, it's clear that Trudeau was in trouble before he began his ill-fated flip. Before he picked up the flipper, his advance team didn't catch that the grill was glistening with the sheen of too much oil. The grill was too hot, as that oil had begun to smoke, and burnt half-cooked pancakes littered its surface. And worse, the pancake, which was the subject of Trudeau's upcoming ministrations, was still raw and needed more time to be ready for action.

But Trudeau had been pushed onto the grill and was surrounded by cameras and thousands of onlookers. It was showtime.

So with ostentatious flair, he scooped up that runny half-formed flapjack, over-executed the flip, with the pancake re-entering the grill's atmosphere with a dramatically explosive splat that sent batter shrapnel flying across the entire grill. Gasps and groans from the crowd ensued. In short, it was the worst-case scenario for a pancake-flipping photo-op, a politician's worst Stampede nightmare. Instead of a flip, it was a flop.

Zero out of ten stars.

But as a Calgary-area MP who was once a rookie performative political pancake flipper, I've experienced the dreaded #FlipFail once before myself. So in the spirit of preventing future flapjack failures, here is my hard-learned list of protips for the perfect political pancake experience:

1.) REMEMBER THAT NO ONE CAME TO SEE A POLITICIAN. THEY WANT A PANCAKE. A Calgary Stampede breakfast is no joke. It's an integral part of Calgary's community ethos, has a special place in the city's history, and is a place where people from all walks of life gather to enjoy free carbohydrates and, most importantly, each other's company. People will wait hours in lines of more than a thousand people to get a pancake, with volunteers racing against time to cook enough to feed the masses in the typical two hours a breakfast usually runs for.

If you, as a politician, feel you MUST take a picture of yourself flipping a pancake at one of these events, etiquette dictates that you ask to flip a pre-cooked one. Otherwise you're pulling a volunteer trying to cook hundreds of pancakes in an hour, off their cooking rhythm. That means people wait longer in line, and you're the one to blame.

2) If this is your first time cooking, a Stampede breakfast grill line is not the place to learn. If you need to learn how to judge and adjust the grill's temperature, the batter's consistency, and where the hot and cold spots are on the grill, DON'T GET ON THE GRILL. There are tests you can perform to figure this out, but again, you will be pulling a volunteer off their cooking rhythm if you barge in. So if you want to flip, pick a griddle and stick with it for at least an hour. Make yourself helpful in uniting people with their pancakes instead of posing for a picture.

3) Know your grill, love your grill, and be kind to your grill. A grill that's too hot will burn the outside of your pancake before the inside is cooked (see Trudeau’s flipfail for an example). A grill that's too cold doesn't cook the pancake. You need to get that sucker in the sweet spot and keep it there while figuring out where its hot and cold spots are. If these instructions make no sense to you, see point two above.

4) DON'T PREMATURELY FLIP. BE PATIENT. If you flip too soon, you will get batter splatter everywhere and waste precious time scraping and cleaning the grill (again, see Trudeau’s splattergate for an example). It's time to flip when the edges are brown, it's bubbling, and the top side starts forming a thin, cooked skin. If you jump the gun, you risk serving someone a raw pancake to someone who has waited over an hour.

5) Don't over-grease the grill. Too much oil causes explosive or split pancakes (see Trudeau explosive pancake incident). 

6) Don't be fancy. This is not Coyote Ugly breakfast edition. If you flip something up in the air and it ends up on the ground, you've wasted someone's breakfast. Splattering a raw pancake on the grill amounts to the same thing (again, I’m looking at you, Trudeau). Wasting pancakes is bad juju. 

7.) WASH YOUR HANDS. You've just shaken the hands of everyone in the breakfast line. Should you be touching food? Come on now.

8.) LEAVE IT TO THE PROFESSIONALS. Many people in Calgary get their safe food handling certifications just to be able to volunteer on the grills at breakfasts. As a politician, you're better off getting a picture thanking them for their service to the community instead of messing up their grill. After years of learning this the hard way, I now know this is the best way.

So, to any politician reading this, consider yourself warned. Pancake splatter, wastage, and failure is entirely preventable. The future is in your hands.

Happy Stampede, everyone.

(Today’s post is a lighthearted one in honour of the start of the Calgary Stampede, one of Canada’s most important cultural events. This year’s Stampede is on track to have its best year of attendance ever, a welcome trend after a tough few pandemic years. Congrats to all the volunteers who have already made the 2023 Calgary Stampede a success. And thanks to you, dear reader, for letting me share a bit of the magic of this city-wide event with you. ~MRG).