As flat as a pancake

No. I haven't lost that much weight....I think I'd have to be a negative weight to be considered "as flat as a pancake."

No...today's post is about the unfairness of summer.

You read correctly. The unfairness of summer.

No--I'm not going to wax lyrically about being a grown up who will spend almost every weekday between now and the autumn inside, at my desk, cursing a blue streak at a computer screen because the muse has left me, in favour of a patio, a pina colada and a lovely waiter named (well, does it really matter...).

No...I'm talking about ironing.

In the dead of winter, when the kitchen is warm with baking and roasting, my wardrobe choice is pretty easy: jeans and a rumply sweater. It's easy. It's warm. It's low maintenance.

Fast forward a few months when grass carpets the ground and mosquitos queue up to snack on my various parts and it's quite a different story. The oven sprouts cobwebs and the fridge is filled with leafy greens and purple and red berries. I don't want to think of anything heat-born. My wardrobe choice, while just as obvious as in the cold months is nowhere near as low maintenance: light and crisp cotton.

Cotton needs ironing, so every so many days I'm behind a folding board: a spray bottle filled with lavender water in one hand, a searing hot iron in the other and the most pathetic, put upon expression on my face.

I know I could forego pressing my clothes and go for the easy, breezy carefree look. But really. Who really wants to go around looking like a 5'1" wadded up Kleenex?

I suppose I could just look for no-iron synthetics...but I remember the the synthetics of the 1970s...and all I have to say is "Ew. Gross." And yes...many things from the 1970s elicit that reaction: leisure suits, powder blue eyeshadow, Paul Anka's song "Having My Baby"...

Note to marketers of new polysynthetic fibres: Please don't email me or leave comments telling me how wonderful the new generation of fake fibres are. I'm really not interested...and besides, I won't publish your comments.

In a few weeks, when I curse my hot weather laundry ritual, waiting for the day someone invents 100 per cent cotton clothes that miraculously stay freshly pressed, I'll also be looking for relatively effortless ways of feeding myself.

Even though salads and sandwiches are fine, often I need something a bit more sustaining, but nearly as effortless ways of feeding myself. I've written about my preference for breakfast for supper previously. Even though a good waffle is a thing of beauty, sometimes beauty takes too long.

At times like that, I don't have to sacrifice satsifaction for speed. Nigella Express has an incredibly instant pancake mix recipe that produces delicious pancake at pretty much the drop of a hat. All I have to do is keep a supply of the mix on hand.

When a pancake craving hits, all I need to do is scoop out a cup of the mix, and combine it with a cup of milk, a tablespoon of melted butter and an egg, and drop two or three tablespoonfuls onto a hot, buttered pan et voilà! The flapjacks, although not flat, are fluffy and so gosh-darned tasty, especially when served butter and maple syrup. The Divine Ms Lawson has made her recipe available here.

I think, if you're the type to make your pancakes from a boxed mix, once you try these, you won't go back.


cheers!
jasmine


What I'm reading: The Children's Book by A.S Byatt

I'm a quill for hire!