Breakfast
The first one ladled onto the pan is always wasted, disposed, too flat, too burnt, not enough bubbles, too leaky. And the last one is always the perfect pancake, a trademark pancake, a satisfyingly round and fluffy pancake, a pancake teasing what every other pancake could have been if you had mastered the heat, the batter, the ladleful sooner.
Every year, around Pancake Day, the skin from previous years sheds away and I feel new, fresh, hopeful. Something about pancakes on a table with tulips or daffodils and some kind of blue or white or pink or yellow colour palette materialises that feeling. Today I wake up thinking about the pancakes I had last year, in Glasgow, from the cafe next to our southside flat. Stewed rhubarb - bitter yet syrupy, yoghurt, charred blood orange (sour or sweeter than a normal orange? definitely a good colour), pistachios or almonds my memory slips, a crunch of oats and mint I think. The wobbling type of pancakes stacked high, very indulgent: a bitter tanginess urging in the new year, a citrus freshness.
Knowing I’ll never get close to this, I follow my Grandpa’s pancake recipe (titled Ruby’s Smashing Pancakes), written out in front of my age 10 self as the crumbs from a freshly-made batch gather on the corners of my lips. Google told me last night, while trying to decipher the baking section of the supermarket, that self-raising flour wasn’t really a thing in Norway. Seemingly, neither is butter. I also remember we do not own scales, a mixing bowl or a whisk. It’s a miracle when, after the ritual of tossing the first pancake into the bin, bubbles surface on the batter, resembling my Grandpa’s diagram.
Stewed berries, vanilla yoghurt, a kind-of candied kind-of caramelised pecan brittle, and passionfruit that looks like fossils cracked open too soon with their insides still oozing.
I watch Funny Face (1957) and think about the colour pink.
I think about how Pancake day is meant to clear out the cupboards for Lent and how I bought flour and sugar and baking powder just for pancakes.
I think about how in the book I’m reading, Astragal, the main character Anne describes eggs as ‘gluey’.
I think about how when I was 13 my friends and I gave up biscuits for Lent and the shame of an afternoon biscuit sneaked into my packed lunch followed me around until Easter.
Too much thinking. Breakfast steals into lunch, again.
Lunch
Watched Queer Eye and thought about how Antoni makes big puppy dog eyes when people talk about food they wish they knew how to make. A cynical part of me rolls my eyes, thinks its a performance, smirks because he knows he can melt hearts with this tenderness, laughs at his sincerity regarding mac and cheese. A bigger part of me really gets it. I’m craving dolmades today but I’ve only ever watched on from the kitchen doorway as my yiayia made them. I’d really like those dolmades now.
Emergency lunch yet again: mysterious “vegetables burger" cooked in the oven with some tomatoes and basil on the side. I will go to the shops tomorrow, and I will not be accosted by lunch tomorrow. Somehow lunch and I keep haven’t quite found our place of the map this week.
Note 1: “vegetables burger” is delicious.
Dinner
The headache that has been tickling me all day has firmly lodged itself under my skin, above my eyes. Irritated at this, and by running out of thread half way through a sewing project, a walk for fresh air leads me to the supermarket. Dreams of courgette fritters are shattered by a lack of courgettes so I decide to make a mushroom risotto with the mushrooms in our fridge. Left the supermarket with 3 large oranges, 1 cucumber and green juice.
Rachel Roddy recently wrote about being advised not to cook whilst in a bad mood. She defiantly serves up a delicious bowl of pasta, cooked with anger, irritation and frustration. It’s a great article and it gives me hope for this risotto. Usually, I take great joy in attentively coaxing the creaminess out of the rice, with soft words and slow stirring. I’ll let you know tomorrow how Irritated Risotto tastes.
(Link to Rachel Roddy’s article)
Note 2: “green juice” is delicious.
Ruby Eleftheriotis is a curator and writer, with one foot in Scotland and the other in Norway. You can find her on instagram here.
To get a better understanding of Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine, have a look at this list of resources, compiled by Marta Bohdanna Iwanek.