World Famous Pancakes

Last Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday.  In my native province it is celebrated as Pancake Night, another one of those calendar customs that share religious roots but evolve into something quite different over time.  It seemed we all had pancakes on that night and for extra fun, my mother would put money in ours, pennies, nickels and dimes.  This would have been back in the sixties and change like this was rare for us children to have and much coveted as a result.
I continue the practice and always try out different recipes (minus any money).  Here is the pancake recipe I have been favouring lately.  It is from Gwyneth Paltrow's book My Father's Daughter and I'm sorry about the photo; I'd already frozen my extras by the time I thought of getting a photo.  This recipe can make about 3 dozen pancakes, depending on the size you make them, so it is great for a crowd.

Bruce Paltrow's World-Famous Pancakes

3 cups flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp plus 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
3 cups buttermilk
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled plus more for cooking
6 organic large eggs
Up to 1 cup milk, as needed to thin the batter
Real Vermont maple syrup, warmed for serving

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Whisk the buttermilk, butter and eggs together in another bowl.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, whisking just enough to combine, small lumps are okay.  Let the batter sit, covered, overnight.  The next morning, heat up your griddle or nonstick pan and slick it with a little butter.  Add enough milk to the batter to thin it to the consistency you like.  Cook the pancakes, flipping when bubbles appear on the surface of the uncooked side.  Let cook 2 - 3 minutes more, then remove and eat with lots of syrup.
The first time I made them, I did not have buttermilk and did not let the batter sit overnight.  I soured my milk with a little vinegar and used that instead and I mixed the batter in the morning and it sat all day.  I used our local maple syrup, of course, too.  Anyway, the pancakes were quite good and I have been making this recipe for the past year.  This time I did let the batter sit overnight and used real buttermilk and liked the result even more.  

Happy Pancake Making!

Oh, For No News

"Just once how I'd like to see the headline say,
Not much to print today, can't find anything bad to say"

Each time I remember to tune into the news, there it is again...another war, well, not exactly war, but a conflict, coup, uprising, people fleeing, refugees, etc.  It is disparaging how this seems to just keep looping around the globe; as the curtain lowers on one drama, it is rising on another.  Is it all just the same despicable story told and retold time and time again? 
I was just beginning university when a million people in Biafra were dying from famine or war; I remember thinking  at the time everyone knows what's going wrong there, why aren't they just fixing it.  What blissful naivety that seems to me now to think there is a "they" that can simply fix world problems.
I've read that people over sixty shouldn't read the news.  I'm starting to understand and believe that.  It is certainly not helpful to me to have to think about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or the Syrian Conflict, or the Ukraine crisis, or the effect of melting ice on polar bear survival or the unbelievable depth of ill treatment women and children suffer around the world.... In fact, these things are downright upsetting to me.
The news, it is mostly a grim business and I'm not sure what my role even as listener should be.

The Long, Hungry Month of March

Where I grew up, in the old days, this month was often referred to as "the long, hungry month of March".  People would have to delve into the far reaches of their cellars to get the last of their winter stores.  And not just people would be finding their food scarce, all the creatures, those roaming the land or those hiberanting would be growing continually thinner at this point of the season too.
In our time, long winter days bring a different kind of problem.  We on the contrary have been feeling fuller with each passing month.  Hubby is convinced his middle is puffier; I admit to feeling a little sluggish which may or may not have something to do with my ample hips and thighs.  As a result,we decided to cut back on our more decadent desserts and try to limit our portion sizes.  Baking is one of my favourite past times so that will be hard for me; eating whatever I bake is one of hubby's favourite past times so he thinks it's a tossup as to which of us will suffer more.  But our pact may not last.
Last night I presented hubby with his after dinner treat, ten grapes and a piece of cheese.  He eyed this dubiously; that cheese is our good stuff, I tell him, aged fourteen years.  Still long faced, I remind him he still has some chocolates left from the very large box he got for Christmas. Instant happy face.  
 

Lunch time, being good....
...pita with almond butter and banana and blood oranges.

American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine...A Favourite

"The enjoyment of quiltmaking should not come just from the end result but from the process of getting there."

                          Lynette Jensen




Today I want to share with you my favourite quilting magazine, American Patchwork and Quilting.  I enjoy their regular columns which always include tips from readers, stories from quilting women, a little fabric/thread/quilting history and an overabundance of inspiration.  The 'projects' department is a major section of each issue and includes designs both easy and more complex.  There are also full sized patterns included in each issue to go along with the projects.  I always find something that I know I could successfully attempt myself. 
This magazine has been on the go since 1993 and they really do pack a lot into each issue.  They have also gone online with a website called AllPeopleQuilt.com.  I have happily incorporated several tips I read in the back issues, like using a thick pot holder to press out small blocks and always stopping sewing at a point where everything is a go for the next session....bobbin full, etc.  Yes, I guess some of us need to be told these things.  One of their issues showed all-time favourite patchwork blocks; I was curious to see which ones my mother had used and sure enough, I recognized a number from her work.  It is interesting to think of quilting women as part of an international community and it seems they've been that way for many decades. 

Hope, That Thing With Feathers

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

                                                                 Joseph Addison


I tried gambling once in my life.  I was on a cruise and for an obvious reason, you had to pass through part of the casino to get to the main dining room.  Enroute to have dinner one night, I decided to put a loonie in one of those pull down sort of machines (I think the kind that have given rise to the expression 'one armed bandit'). The speed at which I lost my money astounded me...mere nanoseconds.  I then understood how people managed to lose entire fortunes in casinos; at my rate of loss, the house could be gone in less than an hour.  It reinforced my notion that gambling to try to make money made about as much sense as people smoking cigarettes to cure their breathing problems like they actually did in the old days. 
I've always thought it was my unwillingness to part with my hard earned money that kept me from gambling.  But no, I now realize I am missing an essential ingredient to become a gambler. I am not a good hoper.  I know the house always wins and I would hold no hope that I could ever beat those odds.   A gambler, on the other hand, always has hope; he always believes his luck will change and he holds steady to the hope that the next minute will bring him better fortune.  Gamblers must be the best hopers in the world.  Seems a shame all that  hope couldn't be directed in a more positive direction somehow. 
Two of my birding friends are ancient symbols of hope...the dove and the swallow.  The swallow became so because it was often the first bird to be seen at the end of winter and the start of spring. We could sure use a swallow now...still wind chill warnings and no hope of spring in sight...yet.    

Maudlin Monday=Long Thoughts

"Have in me the strong loneliness

of sunless cliffs,

And of grey waters."

         Ezra Pound

Here it feels like a maudlin Monday in March.  I'm indulging myself with some long thoughts this morning.  I was thinking about how I am a bit of a chameleon in that I can take on the colours of wherever I am set down.  In my present form, I am white-haired, trying my hand at gardening, loving big dogs and taking long country walks.  It has been a process to shake the sense that I am not just visiting, that I won't stand up one day and say to my host, thanks so much for having me but I must be on my way. 
I think part of this thinking is due to the fact that my family moved around a bit when I was growing up; we lived in five different communities.  I moved twice during high school.  In my first marriage which lasted almost four decades, I lived mostly in places where it is understood you are passing through, where there is a strong sense of transiency ( though I hasten to add, a wonderful life can be lived in any of those communities if it is your choice). 
 However, for awhile there I thought perhaps I was one of those people who is meant to be permanently mobile.  And I have always had a strong sense of the positives about such a lifestyle... besides all the wonderful experiences of different places and people, it has made me independent with an ability to embrace change, qualities not to be underestimated.
And now, present time,  I've landed here in this country place.  Like a plant, most likely a weed, I am taking my nourishment where I find it and I am finding a good life for myself here.  The closeness to nature, the birds, the woodsy walks, the hubby and his cups of tea, are all sustaining.  As I sit in the big leather chair and hoist my cup of coffee and eye the birds at the feeder, I must admit it is plentiful and peaceful. 

Orchids and One Food That Qualifies As Medicine

For Valentine's Day hubby surprised me with this lovely orchid.  I'm not impressed with that particular holiday and he knows this but thought I would enjoy the challenge of keeping an orchid alive.  The instructions are very specific...lots of light but no direct sunlight and I must feed it three ice cubes once a week.  It came with tiny hair clips holding the flowers upright and attached to the main stem.  I would like to see what would happen if I removed one but I'm afraid.  Gosh, hope I don't kill it or at least not for a while.
I'm deliberately showing you this flower today to cheer myself.  We have just had three days of frost bite warnings and today it is dark and gloomy and snowing.  About ten centimeters are forecast by tonight.  Though the calendar is steadily moving us towards spring, the weather is surely not.

Some time ago I told you about a busy day when I put a whole chicken into my slow cooker and left to run errands.  Here is the soup I made.  Many years ago I would watch Martha Stewart's t.v. show and jot down recipes; this chicken soup recipe was one of them.  She had a guest cook, as she often did in those days, and this woman made the simplest soup I had ever seen.  The recipe consists of the whole chicken, a container of chicken broth, chopped carrots, turnip, parsnips and potato.  The chicken is boiled first for about 45 minutes, most of the bones removed, the vegetables added and a few simple seasonings such as salt and pepper while the vegetables cook through.  It is the kind of chicken soup that would hearten you if you felt sick and I have made it often ever since.  The secret to this soup is in the broth and to get good flavour  you have to start with a good chicken.  I don't think you would have the best success if you use a utility type chicken. 
There are not a lot of solid examples of food as medicine but chicken soup actually has some research backing its value; I believe in its goodness.