Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, pancake day. 57 years ago Shrove Tuesday was 17th, my birthday. According to my mother, I narrowly avoided being christened “Pancake”. Good Darwin, being saddled with Curd at school was bad enough; can you imagine the torture a child would be forced to endure having been given a handle like Pancake Curd? I suppose it would go nicely with the lemon juice on the pancakes thus blending seamlessly with “Lemon Curd”. As a kind of defence mechanism, I used to challenge people to come up with something original.
The other thing that goes very well with the lemon juice and sugar on pancakes is fresh strawberries, sliced 3-4 mm thick and wrapped in the lemon juice and sugar soaked pancake. This is what we had for lunch and I commend it to the house.
I had grabbed an opportunity on a dry but overcast morning to break out and take el perrito, Scamp, for a stroll down into Jalon and back through the vines. I timed it well ‘cos, no sooner had I returned but the rain did, also, and remained for the rest of the day.
For our rainy evening meal, Chris, a bit of a curry chef, spent all the wet afternoon preparing his version of Goan stuffed crab as a starter to be followed by chicken biryani and yellow split peas – and very excellent it was, too.
My mother says the weather was fine when I was born. According to the weather forecast it is supposed to be fine again for my birthday tomorrow. That’ll make a nice change from the rain.
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