One Last Hurrah, One First Hurrah

August, you beast! You've contained multitudes, and you've done quite well for yourself. You should feel accomplished. September, go ahead then! It's your turn to shine and make us proud. With, you know, things like Labor Days and pancakes. And we're talking here about pancakes that make you feel like moving around and getting things done on your day off, not pancakes that make you feel like taking a four-hour nap at midday. And with all this recent talk about "summer's over," I think it best that we steer clear of anything that could be mistaken for hibernation. Onward!

Zucchini Bread-Banana Bread Pancakes
This pancake base uses oat flour, rather than all-purpose flour, and the almond meal is completely optional. I sometimes use ground flax or brown rice protein instead. Don't worry about messing these up -- it's pretty much impossible to do!  (photo viewable on Instagram link)

1/4 C grated zucchini, moisture squeezed out
1 small ripe banana
1 egg
1 t agave
1/4 C milk (any kind will do -- I lean toward unsweetened coconut milk)
1/4 C oat flour or ground oats
1/8 C almond meal
1/4 t cinnamon
1/2 t vanilla
pinch of baking powder
dash each of nutmeg and allspice
pinch of salt

Mash banana in a bowl. Mix in egg with a fork. Add zucchini, banana, milk, vanilla, and agave. Combine oat flour, almond meal, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, baking powder, and salt. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until combined. Cook by 1/3 cupfuls on a hot, greased griddle and flip when bubbles appear on the tops and undersides are golden brown.

You can also make these with just the zucchini or just the banana. I've added applesauce and pumpkin to the batter before, and (as mentioned above) they just aren't very mess-up-able. As long as you have what looks like pancake batter, you should be just fine!

Stack pancakes sandwich-style with almond butter in between and anything you'd like on top. I lean towards apricots and apples lately, but nearly any fruit would do! These keep well in the fridge, and can be heated up nicely in the toaster or microwave. Makes 3-5 pancakes.

Tea Party

Spring is springing, you know, and that means we shall all put our kettles and teacups away! We're soon due, you know, for vats and vats of iced tea. Prepare your pitchers and pans and glasses! Prepare your ice (only the finest!) and assemble your tea bags. Most importantly, though, get your iced tea spoons ready! What's that, you say? You haven't any iced tea spoons? Sit down, then, and listen up. I'll tell you a story.

My maternal grandmother was by no stretch of the imagination a Southern belle. She did, however, take iced tea very, very seriously. In her house, there were iced tea glasses, iced tea spoons, and an iced tea pitcher. This is what you called them, and this is what they were for. Iced tea. When one set the table for lunch or supper (a job designated to me my entire childhood and beyond), one set the iced tea spoons and iced tea glasses in their proper places. Even if you weren't a sugar-in-the-tea person, you still got a spoon, since you never knew when someone might become a sugar convert overnight. I loved this job. I still do, and when I set my table or my mom's table now, a wave of quiet nostalgia sweeps through me, and I deeply miss my grandma's tables, her dishes, and her tea.

What next, you may ask? Well, the table-setter has been designated, and now the vote is cast: tea or water? Even if we weren't at my grandma's, and it was just dinner at home with my immediate family, a vote was always necessary. This is still the ritual: the cook tells the table-setter when the food is nearly ready, although sometimes the cook handles this task herself if everyone else is off galavanting around. Typically the vote takes place five minutes before the food hits the plates (because no one likes melted iced in their drinks). The cook's command is, take the drink orders! or more commonly, see what people want to drink! or sometimes simply do the glasses!, or if things are feeling more rushed, damn it! we still need drinks! someone?!

Everyone is asked if they want tea or water. This means you may have either tea or water. If you want an additional beverage, you can get it yourself. But everyone has tea or water. You can choose, but come hell or high water, we will all be properly hydrated. There's a reason that this system has worked for generations. I mean, the hydration has paid off -- 

we do all have really nice skin, after all! The votes are collected, and the drinks are poured. 

Everyone gets ice. The tea isn't flavored. It's regular black tea, although it's always decaffeinated if you're in my parent's house or my house. Sometimes you drink a lot of tea at a meal, and you don't want to be more affected than necessary (the liquor that you're drinking alongside your tea will take care of getting you affected). I do wish I had a nickel for every time I've asked tea or water?, as I've likely spoken this more than I've said anything else in my life. It's good to think about this; about how much good fortune has roared through me during my life; how many family meals I've been lucky enough to be a part of. 

                                                

As I set the table each time, I'd crack the ice cubes from their trays into the ice pan, and my grandma would remind me to put 7 ice cubes in her iced-tea glass and 8 in my grandpa's. Was this just a trick to make me learn how to count? Certainly not. You may recall that I tend to be quite particular about things like ice amounts, so it's no surprise. Precision runs in the family. To this day, I find myself counting the ice cubes in my own glass, perhaps taking one out, putting some back in, taking another out. It needs to be right. A good, properly crafted drink is a very important thing.

I don't really recall a time when I didn't drink iced tea at my grandparents' house, and my mother remembers it the same way. Was I drinking iced tea when I was two years old? It's quite possible. The iced tea at my grandma's, as well as the iced tea of my mom's, was and is straightforward. Black tea, or a black tea/orange pekoe blend, typically in the form of Lipton, is the name of the game. These days, my mom and I usually make decaf iced tea, and I tend to mix it up a bit; green tea sometimes, rooibos or herbal tea the next. Sometimes a mixture if I'm feeling adventuresome! 

My grandma made it incredibly strong and dark, and, back in the day, she'd doctor hers up with spoonfuls of white sugar. Later on, she moved on to Sweet n' Low packets, which she called pinkies. As in, Honey, hand me a few pinkies, would you? I loved it when I could beat her to the punch and offer her the pinkies before she even asked me to pass them.

The glasses were tall, and without iced tea spoons, you were completely screwed, because Lord knows you would never stir your tea with a table knife, lest you be sent away from the family forever. I have always taken my iced tea without sugar, although I love using iced tea spoons, so sometimes I will stir my tea in its glass and pretend that I'm making something happen. Occasionally, I will make a pitcher of sweetened iced tea, so the sugar will already be in it, but sometimes I'll add sugar to my glass of tea just so I can taste the syrupy sludge at the bottom of the glass.

I think often about long, elegant iced tea spoons, and other such utensils that basically only have one purpose. It seems crazy, and yet I am madly in love with this kind of crazy. My own iced tea spoons live in a drawer where they rarely see the light of day. And while they seem so elegant, one will read in any etiquette manual that they should never be part of place setting for a fancy meal. When the iced tea spoon has been used for stirring, I've learned, one should never place it back on the table. Either place it on a saucer or on an iced tea spoon rest. If there is no designated resting place for it, and it's a very informal setting, you may rest it on the edge or your plate, but if it's an affair that's a bit fancier, or you're surrounded by people you don't know very well, you keep the spoon in the glass and hold it to the side while you drink. Take notes, people! You never know where you'll end up and what kinds of things you'll be offered.

Iced tea spoons are often called soda spoons, too, and at my grandparents', they were the tool of choice for an ice cream soda, such as a purple cow, a Boston cooler, or a Coke float. If you order a milkshake or an ice cream soda at any restaurant, chances are very good that you'll be provided with an iced tea spoon to get the job done well. And if you're in the South and you're in the market for a set of flatware, you'll likely find iced tea spoons as a part of the set, as they will typically take the place of soup spoons. I mean, who wants to eat soup when you're soggy and melting? Head up north a bit, though, and it'll become trickier and trickier to locate iced tea spoons, especially in the winter. 

My iced tea spoons are from a thrift shop, and I tend to polish them even when they don't need to be polished. My mom and my grandma taught me how to polish silver, and when I open the jar of polish and wet the sponge, I suddenly feel like I'm doing something very useful and important, akin to the setting of the table. I'll keep on track with this system, I know, because our roots are divine. Our traditions hold us. Even now, when I eat lunch or dinner at home by myself, I always ask myself the question: tea or water? In the winter, I may lean towards water, but once spring and summer are upon us, I'll always always go for the tea. 

 

Take Two

If it's 6 pm and I'm drinking coffee, then something must be wrong.

It's similar, I'd reckon, to a regular person having a cocktail at 10 am. In my case, though, I'm currently drinking to try and find myself, not to try and lose myself. And, sadly, it's decaf. And there's a good chance it'll be followed by a cocktail. But still, you're welcome to feel a little sorry for me if you'd like.

First of all, my coffee was terrible this morning. Something in the preparation went completely awry. I made it the exact same way I always do, and yet it was horrible: thin, weak, and with basically no redeeming qualities at all. I drank half of it and then gave up, too frustrated and too hurried to try again. I contemplated getting my hands on another coffee once I was at work, but I convinced myself that water was a better choice. I was wrong.

I was obsessed with my mistake all day. My morning's broken ritual caused me to feel like my day hadn't ever really begun, and as a result, I felt like I was spinning myself around in a hamster wheel for hours. I thought obsessively about everything I would do right when I made coffee next, everything I would do to avoid another cup of coffee that was not only reminiscent of diner coffee, but also a complete embarrassment and a day-wrecker. Once I was home, and we had gone for our out-of-sorts walk on the beach, and I had cleaned up the out-of-sorts kitchen and given Murray his out-of-sorts supper, I just couldn't take it anymore. The espresso pot taunted me and the coffee beans smelled like a miracle. And I had to have coffee. I had to try again. I had to prove that I could make a decent cup of coffee and I had to re-start my day. And I did.

So here I am now, having consumed a very civilized cup of coffee, ready to start my day. It's 6:24 pm, so I'll have to make it quick, but it can be done. I'm feeling a great deal better, more equipped then I've been for the past ten hours. I'm thinking about what Abraham Lincoln said when presented one day with a beverage by a hotel waiter: If this is coffee, please bring me some tea, but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee. 

I get that Abe, I really do. I have such little tolerance for food and drink that isn't up to par. The thing, though, is this. I really don't want the beluga sturgeon caviar and the foie gras from the fanciest goose. I just want the thing I order to be a good version of the thing it's supposed to be. And in the case of this morning, I needed to kindly ask the server (um, that would be me) to go back to the kitchen and fix the mistake. This isn't a free-for-all, I told her. This isn't a small matter. This is the tool that carves my day! This is important. This is coffee. So let's start fresh, because it's never too late for a second take. And considering the way things are going, there might even be pancakes for dinner.

Peas On Earth

Let's talk about that pea under your mattress. You know, that one that's there to determine whether or not you're a princess. The one that was so unbearably painful to sleep on last night. While it's been useful for its intended purpose, I recommend we put it to even better use! I recommend to you an incredibly comforting, yet wildly unsexy dish: peas & peanuts.

I'm so anxious to know all sorts of things: have you had peas & peanuts before? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Did you grow up eating it? Do you live in Michigan? Tell me everything!

I'll tell you what I know about peas & peanuts. It's remarkable, I think. And yet I totally understand how someone might think it's too strange to fully embrace. Many things are like this, I think. Egg salad, bulldogs, Devendra Banhart, unagi, children, dollar stores. You know.

Peas & peanuts is definitely a salad, I'd say. I'm unsure as to its origin, although it seems to be pretty popular in Michigan, and its pure quirkiness (as well as its unapologetic mayonnaise base) tells me that its been around for many decades. I first had peas & peanuts at Bluebird in Leland, Michigan, and theirs is still the best I've had. Even though this recipe has very few ingredients, I've found that it's tricky to get it perfectly balanced. I've seen recipes that call for a myriad of other ingredients, like Miracle Whip, bacon, or raw onion, and I've gotta say I'd recommend keeping it a bit simpler than that. Experiment with the base and then, after that, feel free to go crazy. I've been working in the perfect balance of salt and sweet with this recipe, and I feel confident that this is a good starter pack for the peas & peanuts novice.

Peas & peanuts. It's crunchy, it's smooth, it has snap and it has flair. It's not necessarily sophisticated, but who on earth needs sophisticated when you've got something so remarkably satisfying and delicious in front of you? It's good in moderation, but it also can be addictive enough to warrant eating an entire bowlful. I have come to love it as the start to a meal, but it's also excellent with pizza for some reason. I love peas & peanuts because it's extremely unlikely. It's somewhat ridiculous, this salad, but it's comforting and incredibly good. It's just the thing you need, whether you're a princess or not.

Peas and Peanuts For One

1/3 C frozen peas, thawed
1/3 C Spanish peanuts
2 T sour cream
1 t mayonnaise
1 t sugar
1/4 t garlic powder
drizzle of Worcestershire
squeeze of lemon
dashes of salt and pepper

Whisk together sour cream, mayo, sugar, garlic powder, Worcestershire, lemon, salt, and pepper. Add peas and peanuts and stir to combine. Season to taste. Serve with a terrible romantic comedy on the couch.