Sometimes a pancake is just a pancake!

I had an email today - from Ocado as it happens- reminding me to "get everything you need for Pancake Day". Good advice, I thought, although since Shrove Tuesday has long been one of the highlights of my culinary year, I seldom forget. What I couldn't quite believe was the accompanying suggestion for 'ginger nut pancakes'. Now, believe me, I am the last person to call into question any recipe concocted by that doyenne of the culinary arts - Marguerite Patten - but tell me, just what do fancy, dancy, exotic crepes have to do with Shrove Tuesday? On any other day I might give them a try, but on Pancake Day?
In the UK we eat pancakes on that one day a year in recognition of the last day before Lent. In the olden days, when everyone was considered Christian (whether they wanted to be or not) the Church required that the six weeks of Lent (the 40 days not counting Sundays that lead up to Easter Sunday) was a time of abstinence. The point of the pancakes was to use up leftover fat and eggs that were forbidden during Lent. Simple pancakes are simple for a reason. OK, you might argue that few of the people who eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday are devoutly Christian, and that even fewer actually observe abstinence of any kind throughout Lent, therefore a bit of tinkering with tradition is just fine. Perhaps it is, but for me it's the continuation of tradition, the ritual if you like, that is so important. It just doesn't seem right - some things are just better left alone. We now live in a world where even hot cross buns are available year-round, and in a variety of flavours too – from traditional to chocolate chip. Cabdury’s Crème Eggs have been transformed into a chocolate bar and M & S have started selling mince pies that expire in mid-October! The thing is: once the tradition goes, so does the significance of these special foods. We all have access to all kinds of foodstuffs regardless of the local growing season, is it too much to ask that we hold on to some of our culinary heritage? This year I've decided enough is enough. There'll be only sugar and orange juice on my pancakes and absolutely no hot cross buns until Good Friday.
Somebody has to make a stand and it might as well be me!

New day, new start!

It all began with making marmalade. Well, actually it didn't - it began with the news that, along with a great many others, my services were no longer required. For the past few years I've been writing freelance and one of my regular customers has been my local newspaper. The writing, so to speak, had been on the wall for a while now. Many of us had been told to cut back on our submissions, full-time employees were being laid off - it was clearly only a matter of time. And sure enough, yesterday as it happens, the axe fell on my last remaining contribution. Now normally we writers - particularly the freelance ones - have fragile egos. Our professional 'worth' horribly yo-yoing from week to week but, given the times in which we live, and the cut-backs every industry seems to be struggling through, my ego has remained, more or less, intact. After all, it was one knock-back that was more of a redundancy than a rejection.
So, as I started to regroup I returned to my personal therapy of choice - cooking. Being a freelance writer means I'm used to the ebbs and floes of work, to the intensity of producing a book and the contrasting calm in between times. For me, it's time in the kitchen that fills those gaps and finds our pantry piled high with preserves, the freezer topped up with pies and the fridge laden with soups. But the thing about that kind of cooking is that it requires attention, it occupies your mind and body, it isn't particularly difficult, and it reaps wonderful, delicious rewards.
Of course all that stirring gives you time to think and, by the time I had finished over my cauldron (there is, after all, just a touch of magic in cooking!), I had put all the day's disappointment behind me and begun to see, not a loss or an end, but a new, fresh beginning. And jars and jars of marmalade!

Bag ladies and bus rage!

IT was in danger of turning into the bus journey from hell, several passengers glaring at each other, others quietly seething. Yet it had all started out so smoothly: a routine trip from the city centre to the suburbs; shoppers of all ages clutching their packages; a rare British sunny day, all was well with the world. Until, that is, an encounter between two of my fellow passengers.
The pleasant weather had brought out more Derbeians than usual at that time of day and the bus was almost full. Anxious to sit down as quickly as possible, one woman spotted an empty seat beside a window, just in front of me.
When I say empty, it was occupied by a huge paper bag; the kind you get from designer boutiques. It would certainly have been no burden for the person who had plopped it there to place it on her lap. Or at least you wouldn’t have thought so. As it happened, that person was a young lady, although there was nothing remotely ladylike about her reaction when the other passenger politely asked her to remove the bag so she might sit down.
She stared at the woman as if she’d just suggested she cut off her own arm, while, all around her, astonished passengers (some still waiting to sit down further along the bus) looked on.
Surely she wouldn’t refuse? Well, no, she didn’t; but only after an exaggerated roll of the eyes and an audible sigh did she theatrically stand up, lift the bag, move to the seat beside her and sit down with the bag on her lap.
By this time those waiting were getting more than a little impatient. They were also getting hot because the bus’s heating was switched on full blast, carbon footprint be damned, apparently.
As one male passenger was finally able to pass, he directed an extremely rude remark at the girl with the apparently immovable bag. Another female passenger, with whom he had now drawn level, assumed he was addressing her and turned to insult him back. Fortunately, for the remainder of the journey the pair limited themselves to exchanging angry glares.
As it turned out, the young lady with the bag hadn’t yet finished exercising her right to be stroppy. As we approached her stop, she stood, barked: “Getting off here!” at her neighbour and shoved her aside, accidentally whacking three or four people with her designer carrier on her way to the front.
Of course, selfishness is a sad trait in people of every generation and by no means only the preserve of teenagers. I’ve seen as many older people push in, or grumble about standing, as I have younger ones refuse to stand up.
I have to admit that I don’t automatically stand up for everyone. I like to think I’m pretty egalitarian and use a simple rule of thumb: if someone, whatever their age or their reason, is less able or more inconvenienced to stand than I am, then they are welcome to my seat. Otherwise I stay put. I don’t expect men to stand up for me, nor children for that matter. But I’m not insulted if they offer; and believe me I’ve been on the receiving end of that one.
Nor, should I come to be a hale and hearty pensioner, shall I complain when a teenager doesn’t jump to their feet for me. I have a feeling, though, that one young lady might.
Because, while most people are always polite, friendly and considerate of others – and we wouldn’t notice incidents like this if they weren’t – some people don’t give it a second thought. And that’s a shame because it’s those people we remember and by whom we judge everyone else of their generation.