THE COOKWARE YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED. I certainly never knew that I needed it.

UPDATE: Reader Michelle Dulak Thompson emails:

Oh, you do want one of those. Seriously. Ebelskiver are fantastic. I never tried using ordinary pancake batter, actually — I have a recipe via a Danish grandparent involving buttermilk and beaten egg whites, which is why I don’t make them all that often. But I grew up with these as a special breakfast treat from my Mom, and there’s nothing to top them. Well, except blueberry preserves ;-)

Yes, flipping them over is a bitch, because what you have halfway through the cooking process is a thin, crisp shell conforming to the hemispherical depression in the pan, surrounding a pool of batter that’s not cooked at all and will splash everywhere unless you flip neatly. I never tried chopsticks, I must say, and I can’t see how it would even work, but then my chopstick technique is lousy. I use a really, really cheapo metal spoon — the kind stamped out of a thin metal sheet. That seems thin enough to get between the pan surface and the cooked crust without kludging things up.

Just what I need, something delicious and bad for me . . .