I need my breakfast. Absolutely need it. Without my morning meal, I’m listless and unthinkably slow – both on my feet and in reflection.
Fortunately, this oatmeal hits the spot. The regular oats can be a bit worn and thin. Not as sustaining as I might need. The steel-cut variety, available in any grocery store, comes packed …
When I find a cooking blog that I like, I enjoy taking a moment to read the author’s “About Me” page. Some of the pages include vast descriptions of the blogger’s life. Others include only a few passing phrases, sometimes leaving the reader with more questions than answered. Some pages have yet to even change the default setting from wordpress.
One of the things that I’ve noticed, in looking over the “About Me” pages, is that there seems to be a much larger number of lawyers with cooking blogs than say doctors or businessmen. It amazes me how often I find a lawyer behind a food blog or a cooking show or a burgeoning cupcake business. The Zagats, the couple behind the restaurant surveys, started their professional careers in large law firms. And most recently, one of my good friends quit his law firm job of a few years to start his own restaurant business.
Which begs the question: is there any particular reason lawyers seem more attracted to cooking than their confreres in medicine and business?
Being a lawyer…
Spare thoughts can reveal a lot.
Like anyone, my mind can often wander. Sometimes it wanders to far-off and unknown places, which leaves me looking lost and confused. These thoughts are stray thoughts, without any purpose or sense of direction. These stray thoughts require a passing hand or snapping finger to direct my attention back to the well-worn path.
But other times, my mind moves with a sense of purpose. Pushing past the brush and trekking towards a clearing. More often than not, these directed thoughts focus on finding either legal or culinary clearing.
When I’m folding laundry or putting away dishes, my mind goes in one of two directions. It goes …
For me, chocolate is a lot like Ben Affleck – it’s best in a supporting role.
Chocolate-chip cookies, chocolate croissants, and chocolate-chip blondies are definite draws. Think Good Will Hunting, School Ties, and Mallrats. But put chocolate in a starring role – chocolate cake, chocolate truffles, or chocolate pudding – and you have a Gigli or Daredevil in the making.
By my standards, these pancakes are well cast. The chocolate chips meld into the oatmeal-buttermilk batter, giving a subtle performance, but one that adds to the overall production. They don’t steal the scene, but rather, focus it.
We all know chocolate as a dessert, but it’s a role it often plays, and usually overplays. But after making these pancakes, …
From apples in pie, to peaches in cobbler, and from cherries in clafoutis, to bananas in pudding, certain fruits have their calling. With blueberries, they answer to pancakes. Nothing says pancakes, like blueberry pancakes. That is, unless you’re making blueberry oatmeal pancakes.
Replacing most of the flour with oats turned out to be a great adaptation for an otherwise classic recipe. I should have stopped there though. Once I had oats in my mind, I immediately thought raisins – another one of those traditional pairings. After dropping blueberries in the batter, I changed to amaretto-soaked raisins. It was not to be. Raisins and oats, I learned, are best left to cookies. But at least …