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Nov. 12th, 2006 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickIt's a cold and rainy grey morning of the sort that, if I lived in a picturesque place like, say, James Herriott's Yorkshire, would be called raw. Since I don't live in a place like that, it's just ordinary November weather but I still don't like it any more than people living in picturesque places do. To cheer myself up, I was going to make pancakes for breakfast. Now, breakfast at my house, at least in the winter, is scheduled for after I get up and fix the fire.
Usually, the order of operation is as follows:
Get up. Pee. Fix coffee pot to start. Investigate fire situation in stove. Go outside and get appropriate wood for making there be heat. (If there are nice coals left, I can use bigger pieces of wood. If there's bupkus, I have to get good, dry, kindling-size wood. It makes a difference in my selections from the woodpile and how much smaller I make the pieces with the maul. That's why I investigate the fire before going out to fetch wood.) Dump arms of wood by stove. Toddle over to coffee pot and fix coffee. (For the amount of fixing that I do, you'd think most of the stuff in my life is broken.) Drag coffee back and assemble fire with coffee for moral support. While fire is getting properly underway, contemplate breakfast options. When stove door can be shut (fire is well and truly caught, flue is heated up), I can proceed to actually making breakfast.
The point, here, is that I have some time to wake up and contemplate what I'm going to have for breakfast before I actually get to have it. There's time for anticipation. (People who know me quite well, and that list includes at least my mom, brother-the-younger and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
not_your_real, can already tell where this story is going despite the fact that the narrrative thread is weak. The rest of you, hang in there. I'm getting to the point here directly.)
I was all geared up to have pancakes for breakfast because they would make me feel better about the totally dank weather outside. I checked to make sure that I had syrup. I did have syrup. I checked to see that I had eggs and milk. I did have eggs and milk. Hell, the eggs were even non-expired eggs. Huzzah! So I did the dishes (to have room to work) and cleaned the cat fur off the cast-iron skillet and got out my Bisquick and went to mix up a batch of pancake batter. The Bisquick box has instructions for making fourteen pancakes. I cannot eat fourteen pancakes and retain any measure of self-respect. I think that the Bisquick box should have (like with fractions) the simplifed version of pancakes -- the smallest number you can make where the non-divisible ingredients come out even. In pancakes, that'd be the number of pancakes you can make with one egg. (Because it's near impossible to have half of an egg.) Anyway, I looked at the (unsatisfactory) directions and then sort of did my own thing to make a batter of the appropriate thickness for pancakes and of a volume for about four medium pancakes. I didn't follow the directions, but this is not rocket science. It's pancakes. With pancakes, the odds of having a massive systems failure that covers half a continent with radioactive debris are pretty slim. But, damn it, the batter was wrong. It was wrong. Unusable-wrong, to boot.
See, I do not use my Bisquick very often and I store it on a normal cupboard shelf because it is a dry good. I did crumple the top down firmly the last time I used it, but that was apparently not sufficient to keep whatever small critters got into the box out, witness the fact that they were IN the box when I opened it back up. (The small critter problem is the reason I keep flour and barley in the freezer. Sugar, which the tiny critters do not eat, is also stored in the freezer because of ants. Dried beans I use a packet at a time so that there are never any exposed to the small critter problem. Same goes for rice.) I didn't fucking think that the small critters would eat fucking Bisquick. I was wrong. These are, just so that you know, wee tiny small critters. They're not obvious until you mix up the batter and they or their shed exoskeletons or whatever all float to the top. I'm not talking like mice. I'm talking like weevils or similar. Even though they're itty-bitty, I do not choose to eat them... so no pancakes for me. Fuck.
Yes, I know that I can make pancakes without Bisquick. I've made them in the past and I do not like them, Sam-I-Am. I like the Bisquick kind.
I am now not-having-pancakes-for-breakfast after a happy half-hour spent anticipating having-pancakes-for-breakfast. This has done nothing to improve my general mood.
Questions from the field:
Why don't you go to the fucking store and buy some Bisquick?
The store is about forty minutes away, round trip. I do not generally make special trips to the store for one ingredient.
What's wrong with having crepes? They're kind of like pancakes.
I wanted Bisquick pancakes. If you do not understand how crepes are not a suitable substitute, there is not a whole lot I can do to explain this to you.
Good lord, are you really this damn tetchy about breakfast food choices?
Yes.
What are you having for breakfast, then?
Beef-and-barley soup.
That's not a breakfast food!
It is at my house.
Usually, the order of operation is as follows:
Get up. Pee. Fix coffee pot to start. Investigate fire situation in stove. Go outside and get appropriate wood for making there be heat. (If there are nice coals left, I can use bigger pieces of wood. If there's bupkus, I have to get good, dry, kindling-size wood. It makes a difference in my selections from the woodpile and how much smaller I make the pieces with the maul. That's why I investigate the fire before going out to fetch wood.) Dump arms of wood by stove. Toddle over to coffee pot and fix coffee. (For the amount of fixing that I do, you'd think most of the stuff in my life is broken.) Drag coffee back and assemble fire with coffee for moral support. While fire is getting properly underway, contemplate breakfast options. When stove door can be shut (fire is well and truly caught, flue is heated up), I can proceed to actually making breakfast.
The point, here, is that I have some time to wake up and contemplate what I'm going to have for breakfast before I actually get to have it. There's time for anticipation. (People who know me quite well, and that list includes at least my mom, brother-the-younger and
not_your_real, can already tell where this story is going despite the fact that the narrrative thread is weak. The rest of you, hang in there. I'm getting to the point here directly.)I was all geared up to have pancakes for breakfast because they would make me feel better about the totally dank weather outside. I checked to make sure that I had syrup. I did have syrup. I checked to see that I had eggs and milk. I did have eggs and milk. Hell, the eggs were even non-expired eggs. Huzzah! So I did the dishes (to have room to work) and cleaned the cat fur off the cast-iron skillet and got out my Bisquick and went to mix up a batch of pancake batter. The Bisquick box has instructions for making fourteen pancakes. I cannot eat fourteen pancakes and retain any measure of self-respect. I think that the Bisquick box should have (like with fractions) the simplifed version of pancakes -- the smallest number you can make where the non-divisible ingredients come out even. In pancakes, that'd be the number of pancakes you can make with one egg. (Because it's near impossible to have half of an egg.) Anyway, I looked at the (unsatisfactory) directions and then sort of did my own thing to make a batter of the appropriate thickness for pancakes and of a volume for about four medium pancakes. I didn't follow the directions, but this is not rocket science. It's pancakes. With pancakes, the odds of having a massive systems failure that covers half a continent with radioactive debris are pretty slim. But, damn it, the batter was wrong. It was wrong. Unusable-wrong, to boot.
See, I do not use my Bisquick very often and I store it on a normal cupboard shelf because it is a dry good. I did crumple the top down firmly the last time I used it, but that was apparently not sufficient to keep whatever small critters got into the box out, witness the fact that they were IN the box when I opened it back up. (The small critter problem is the reason I keep flour and barley in the freezer. Sugar, which the tiny critters do not eat, is also stored in the freezer because of ants. Dried beans I use a packet at a time so that there are never any exposed to the small critter problem. Same goes for rice.) I didn't fucking think that the small critters would eat fucking Bisquick. I was wrong. These are, just so that you know, wee tiny small critters. They're not obvious until you mix up the batter and they or their shed exoskeletons or whatever all float to the top. I'm not talking like mice. I'm talking like weevils or similar. Even though they're itty-bitty, I do not choose to eat them... so no pancakes for me. Fuck.
Yes, I know that I can make pancakes without Bisquick. I've made them in the past and I do not like them, Sam-I-Am. I like the Bisquick kind.
I am now not-having-pancakes-for-breakfast after a happy half-hour spent anticipating having-pancakes-for-breakfast. This has done nothing to improve my general mood.
Questions from the field:
Why don't you go to the fucking store and buy some Bisquick?
The store is about forty minutes away, round trip. I do not generally make special trips to the store for one ingredient.
What's wrong with having crepes? They're kind of like pancakes.
I wanted Bisquick pancakes. If you do not understand how crepes are not a suitable substitute, there is not a whole lot I can do to explain this to you.
Good lord, are you really this damn tetchy about breakfast food choices?
Yes.
What are you having for breakfast, then?
Beef-and-barley soup.
That's not a breakfast food!
It is at my house.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 02:44 pm (UTC)Yes, we are well advised to keep anything with any type of flour made from wheat, corn, rice, or whatever in either a plastic sealed container (as we do with Bisquick) or the freezer.
With small spawn in the house (the kind that are progeny, not the kind with exoskeletons), keeping the tupperware seals closed is difficult, even on things they do not normally have any business looking in (except I KNOW they're searching for the Brown Sugar). So we've had this unpleasant surprise from time to time.
Now I want pancakes.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-14 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-14 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-14 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-14 05:21 am (UTC)