Savory Flatbread

Emily spearheaded our Pancake Tuesday with coriander and cilantro flatbreads.  She had a magazine clipping from Bon Appetit for inspiration.  They were fantastic. 

The main tricks seem to be keeping the dough rounds from sticking to each other during preparation and then not using too much oil and keeping your heat at medium when frying them, so pay extra attention to those instructions in the recipe.

It was a truly colorful and aromatic night with a pear, prosciutto, gorgonzola appetizer, sides of yogurt raita, chutney, shredded cheeses, and long grain white rice.

The house still smelled like Chicken and Sweet Potato Curry the next morning.  And of course, all the plates were wiped clean with the flatbreads.

Dead Sea Skin Care

I absolutely love this face cream: Delluvia Dead Sea Hydrating Day Cream.  I don't know if it smooths fine lines and all that jazz. I just love how it feels.  The stuff is packed with herb and mineral goodness and they don't test on animals.  I'm pleased to use something that lets bunnies be happy.  (Slurpy would like it, too.)

They stopped carrying the day cream locally, even though they still carry the rest of the line. Normally, I would just find something else.  Creams and lotions are mostly the same to me.

I like this one so much that I ordered more online.

Little Instants

Here is a low commitment, immediate satisfaction kind of fun. 

 

My friend Chris told me about this desktop application called Poladriod that makes your digital photo look like you took it on a polaroid.  

It's super simple and goofy and I like it.  

You drag and drop your digital file onto the apps polaroid icon, and it plays a sound effect of taking a polaroid photo. 

A picture pops out and gradually 'develops' into a new image with a polaroid frame format and darkened edges around your image as if it really had squeezed through polaroid camera rollers.  

You can then save the JPEG files of your Poladroid pics to email friends or make a little faux album.  Like I said, it's a silly little thing, but why not?  

Sometimes, I need a little instant gratification in the studio.  Or just in a day.  

The app developer offers it on a donation basis from his website.  It is very quick and easy to download and start playing with pictures.  I highly recommend it.  Have some fun.  

(Thanks, Chris!)

Full English

Heather's suggestion to do a 'Full English' themed Pancake Tuesday was a blinding hit.

According to my research, a Full English Breakfast traditionally includes bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, fried eggs and fried bread. It can also have black pudding and blood sausage, but we skipped those (horses for courses) and just made the rest. Our clever mates also added some other English-inspired creations to the menu: bubble and squeak, lemon curd, clotted cream and berries. Plus, that cheeky Heather's send-up of English accents took the piss out of everyone. 

We did make fried bread using locally made Le Petit Outre Birdman bread and lemon pound cake from GFS, but where were the pancakes? 

Well, Bruce and I had been wanting to make crumpets since I had been inspired by a new Twitter friend boasting their buttery goodness. After being knackered with other recipes, we tried one (recommended by said friend) and successfully substituted totally brill crumpets for pancakes. They might not look like much in the photo (I can't tell, since I fell arse over elbow for them), but I am certain that all of us would recommend these fresh home-made crumpets. Quite.  

The Master Griddler 

Warm-the-soul perfect crumpets.

Scrummy bacon arrives.

If you have recipe suggestions for our Pancake Tuesdays, just give us a bell!

Ahhh

Asian Inspired Crepes

We had an Asian inspired Pancake Tuesday.  The idea started when Julie gave us some smoked huckleberry salsa.  (Julie is super generous and frequently drops off Thank You gifts.  Not because we are frequently spectacular to deserve it, but because she is kind and appreciative.  Maybe it's also because of her Southern upbringing.  Anyway, it's suuuuper great.) So, in her note, she suggested using the salsa with pork crepes. Well, salsa lasts about 30 seconds in this house, but her pork crepe idea lingered.  When we returned from vacation, I wasn't organized on a theme plan for the next Pancake Tuesday. I sent the Pancake Crew email entitled 'Asian-Inspired'. I didn't list any dish requests and my only marching orders were 'Get creative.' 

We did. We had lots and lots of relishes.  Spicy peanuts, wasabi peas, spicy edamame dip (from the GFS deli), thai pepper sauces, rock salt plums, plum sauce, sliced chili, jicama, daikon and radishes.  Bruce and I made pork.  Basically: saute some pork, let it cool, slice it, mix it with two-three parts Hoisin sauce and one-part honey.  And go to town on it.  

By now, Bruce is a master crepe-maker.  These crepes were perfectly light yet strong.  I'll get him to post a link to the recipe for them on here. In fact, maybe we can get Dean and Emily to contribute theirs as well.

Dean's banana topping was a big hit and offered a healthy sweet to the menu.  Like myself, I doubt Emily weds herself to any recipe but even so she really goes to town mixing ingredients.  Her inventions are very creative, complex and always tasty. This time it was a chicken combination.  She also mixed some vegetables  into a salad-like relish that came in very handy to cool the mouth or clear the palate for the next flavor combination. (Em, what was in there?) I know that I'm forgetting all of the dishes, but the point is that we had lots of variety to combine flavors, test our individual limits with chili spices, and everything was delicious. And you can't go wrong with mix at the table meals. It's fun and everyone makes what they want.

Long-grain brown rice accompanied everything, of course. We washed it all down with either sake or tequila & lime cocktails.  Okay, so tequila isn't asian but hey, we were in the mood for tequila and my email said to get creative, eh?  Unfortunately, Julie missed the Asian-inspired crepe night which could also be titled Julie-inspired, so we'll have to do these again!  Gladly.

Oh, and as a P.S.
After dinner, Emily pitched in again, combining the leftovers into an excellent filling for lunch wraps that we enjoyed the next day.  Yeah, this Pancake Tuesday totally rocked all the way around.

Adam's Discovery Flight

My nephew, A, turns twenty-six today.  Last weekend we gave him his gift of a 'Discovery Flight' at the Hamilton airport which is essentially a test flight with an instructor where you are in the pilot's seat.  Um, yeah, he definitely liked it.  (Thanks for the idea, B!)

The Divine Tilda

I cannot wait to see Luca Guadagnino's I Am Love staring the prolific lioness, Tilda Swinton. 


It opens in the UK April 9th, and will have advance screenings in Chicago at the Siskel Film Center this Sunday and Monday, but when oh when will it make it to Missoula?  Sigh.  

Discovering Modesty

I recently discovered Modesty.

Modesty Blaise.

Modesty Blaise is a spicy mod fem spy spoof character that I recommend.  The 1966 film is based on a comic strip character that English author Peter O'Donnell first penned in 1963.  He published the Modesty Blaise action adventure novel in 1965.  He retired from the series in 2001.

The movie stars Monica Vitti who is perfect as Modesty.  Modesty is smart, agile, sexy and creative.  (Often described as a female James Bond.)  She effortlessly has men available to her for work and play.  She changes her outfits instantaneously to adjust to situations, oh and what fab outfits!  (I especially want her accessories and think I might have to make them.)  She draws on her network of connections around the world whenever she needs assistance, and most of all, she has a fearlessly fab good time.  She's like a lot of the women I know.

The movie is definitely on the light side (what movies like Austin Powers draws inspiration from) but has very dark humor in moments, and it runs long (two hours), but it's worth reviving for it's psychedelic sets, Vitti's self-possessed performance and the concept's whole dominant fem edge.

Also, visit the official Modesty Blaise, Ltd. website.

Baked Pancake Island Mystery

Ordered and (half) eaten at The Five Palms, Kihei, Maui, Hawaii.  The "Plantation Apple-Banana Baked Pancake" appears just like it sounds: a cake baked in a skillet (filled with the apple-banana fruit), popped onto a plate and served with poha berry butter (which is like apple butter but made with poha berries) and Tahitian vanilla bean maple syrup. It's a huge breakfast for one person.  Even two.  But irresistable.


Apparently Apple-Banana is a kind of banana called Musa Manzano. Poha Berries (Physalis peruviana) are a Cape Gooseberry native to Brazil, naturalized in Peru and Chile, and cultivated in Hawaii.  All of the photos of Poha Berries that I found were of a yellow fruit but what we had were definitely purple.  Even jars of Poha Berry Jam are yellow/orange.  And I looked up baked pancake recipes but they all look eggy or like a thin fallen souffle.  None like this one.  


If you find clues or answers to either, let me know!