Thai Pancake

She holds the little brown coconut in her left hand, and with her right, smacks down with a cleaver the length of her forearm. Smack, turn, smack, the coconut is open and the water flows to the ground. She scrapes out the perfect halves, then stretches a chunk of dough so thin that the full pane is translucent. The hot disc gets a spread the color of Velveeta, which melts, then pancake is placed to sizzle, spread by fingertip. The dough is covered in coconut shreds, wrapped to the top, flip, Nutella spread across everything. Slid onto a plate, cleaved to squares, passed to me: “very hot,” she cautions, safety first.

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