From my counter seat at Leo’s Place yesterday, I had a great view of Richie Bezjian’s work at the griddle. He had a constantly changing array of food to keep an eye on: heaps of home fries, bacon, omelettes. What caught my eye was the way he worked the pancakes. Down the center of the griddle there was a column of three thick pancakes the size of salad plates. The time came to flip them. Starting with the one furthest from him, he thrust a long spatula underneath in one decisive motion. I expected him to simply flip it over, but instead there was a subtle pause, a moment of stillness so brief that I almost wasn’t sure I had seen it, as though he was balancing the pancake on the spatula. Then, effortlessly, he turned it and replaced it exactly where it had been before. The second and third pancakes were flipped in exactly the same sequence, and he moved on to some waiting potatoes.