Flat pancakes and warm beer

I got a note from a friend vacationing in Spain – her family has had two days of sunshine in a week.  Temperatures have only rarely hit double digits centigrade this May; the rain had been beating hard and grey on my windows all week.  I’ve nestled in with work and reading.

This morning, though, the world turned technicolor .  I pulled up from reading Gleick’s Genius (a biography of Richard Feynman where I sat entangled in the Principle of Least Action, something I never really understood as a Physics major in college) and engaged with the day.

It seemed like  good day for a decent breakfast so I whipped up a batch of pancakes.  It’s pretty basic: a cup of  flour, an egg, teaspoon baking powder, pinch of sugar and salt, milk to the right consistency, mix in blueberries.  But when I spooned batter onto the griddle, they just wouldn’t rise.  I varied temperature and thickness a bit, ‘no joy.  Back to the Internet: right ingredients, but try less mixing, different rising agent, sifting ingredients.  Or maybe just self-rising flour.

A quick run to the stores where everyone was buying garden supplies.  Traffic was light, even in town: the rowers were on the Cam for early practice, and the greens were full of picnickers.

  

I joined the lines for the Cambridge Beer Festival.  This week-long event features over 100 craft beers from the region, 1.70 for a half pint of anything.  I got some Nethergate’s “Old Growler” and settled into the sun.