What to Do if Your House Gets Smoked up the Wazoo

1. Turn on the fans
2. Open the windows or turn on the A/C.
3. If it's extremely smoky and you cannot escape the burning smell, put a bunch of bowls with white vinegar in rooms all over the house.  After a couple days the burning smell will cease.
4. Stop burning sh*t.  That means, don't put food on the fryer and then call up Verizon FiOS to get your Internet service back up, unless you have a timer on, which you're not going to ignore!
5. Remember that burnt food doesn't taste good and IS a carcinogen. 

Buttermilk Pancakes with Blackberries

2 cups of flour (it could be cake flour or all-purpose)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons turbinado sugar
2 large eggs
3 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus
1 teaspoon butter for miscellaneous frying
2 cups of blackberries (optional)
maple syrup (or your topping of choice)

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and turbinado. Beat eggs lightly. Add the buttermilk. I can't emphasize enough that you must melt the butter ahead of time, otherwise the butter just sifts around in huge chunks among the batter which is quite annoying. Add the butter.  Whisk the mixture by hand if possible, but you can also use an electric beater. (Never use a food processor or cuisinart with pancakes. It ruins the consistency). The batter should still be a bit chunky when done. Heat the griddle to hot enough that drops of water will spatter. Add butter, or better yet grill some bacon first[*] and save the bacon fat to cook the pancakes when you're done. Heat the fat or the butter.  With the grease on the hot pan, pour half a cup of batter to make each a pancake. When the pancakes are still wet cut the blackberries in thirds and sprinkle enough blackberry thirds to taste on top of the pancakes. When bubbles have formed, flip the pancakes. Watch that you don't burn them; checking the bottoms. Keep the cooked pancakes in the oven set to 175 F or 79 C. Serve with maple syrup.

Comment:
* Next week on Nem Can Cook we'll cover sugarfree blueberry pancakes. 
 * I made these pancakes with blackberries, but you can make it with whatever fruit you like. I got to the point in my pancake-making that I was throwing whatever berries I wanted on top, including strawberries (which aren't actually berries).
* I don't have a photograph. I had to eat all the pancakes immediately; I was right starving.
[*] Bacon is EASY to cook. Just put a pan down and set the temperature to medium. Place the bacon (three strips) down on the pan. Cook for 7.5 minutes. Flip. Repeat. If the bacon smells like it's burning, stop cooking it.  This will create enough grease to cook the pancakes if you want that bacony taste. (Horribly unkosher, but hellah good.) 

Butter Lettuce Buttermilk Dressing Salad

Comments:
This salad just isn't flavorful enough.  Maybe it needs some nuts.  It did the job of alkalizing, though.

Runner's World April 2012

Notes:

• Eggs are the top recommended recovery food for runners.  I like the egg-drop soup as a pre-run dish though.
• I cut out the microwave recipe, because I don't believe in microwaving.  
• I do the Egg Salad with garlic instead of scallions.
• The "chicken soup" in the Egg-drop soup dish is "chicken noodle soup" as chicken soup is hard to come by.

Things I learned:

• I don't like Egg-drop soup very much, unless someone wants to convert me, but it's good fuel for runs.