Not-so Fat Tuesday Pancakes

When I was a child my favourite breakfast was pancakes with maple syrup. My mother made it for me every birthday. Her pancakes were thick and fluffy American style and she always served them with pure maple syrup. I loved smearing the little wedge of butter around the pancake, watching it slowly melt, then pouring the deep rich gold syrup (that comes from a tree!!) on top.

Bananas are too precious to waste

A bowl of brown mottled skin and heavily fragrant bananas sat next to the digital radio all last week. It's quite strange to have spent bananas in this house. We eat a bunch every two days. My top-up shopping list is always: milk, bananas, biscuits.

But here they were: four bananas getting funky and I couldn't bring myself to throw them away, especially after Australia. Our last visit home came at the tail end of a series of natural disasters: flooding, cyclones, fires, and that, paired with an obnoxious economy sticking its finger up at the rest of the world, made the price of bananas comparable to caviar. ONE kilo of bananas was $13 - which would equate to about $39 per week just for bananas in our house. I might spend that on wine, but bananas?