The only problem was that once I’d gotten paid for it, I wasn’t all that interested in cooking breakfast for all those ladies unless there was something in it for me. I was too young to understand any larger picture.

She never asked for a piece of the action, and I didn’t think to cut her in, even though it would have been good business to kick back something for the cost of the ingredients and the room rental and the marketing to my “patrons.” (If I had been more of a schemer, I probably [...]

So what did I do? Pretty much what any self-respecting ten-year-old would have done: I pocketed the money and kept quiet. The very next weekend, I asked my parents if I could go visit Grandma Rancic again.

This, it turned out, was a genius move. Grandma Rancic loved to cook. She taught me how to make her special pancakes, and the time just flew. Let me tell you, at the end of the day, I was all over those pancakes. I was the pancake master. Next morning, I was feeling so good [...]