Cornmeal & Bacon Flapjacks with Cranberry Syrup

This entire weekend conspired against me to make pancakes. I’m serious.

First, my best friend was visiting me from WI. She is nothing if not the pancake queen. They’re really the only food she knows how to, or enjoys, making. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight snack. If I ask what she wants, the answer will be “pancakes.”

 

Second, we watched 50/50. I absolutely obsessed with the movie because of the storyline, characters, humor, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Umm, hello? Have we met?) and cannot stop watching it. The retired greyhound dog Skeletor also helps. He’s too cute.

Aaaaaanyways, back to pancakes. There’s a scene where Joseph Gordon Levitt’s character is hopped up on morophine and is delightfully unfiltered. When his love interest comes to visit he’s all cute, lying in the hospital bed, woozy and delirious and looks at her with this adorable expression as says “I wanna make you pancakes.”

That’s it. Just a simple desire to make the woman he cares for pancakes.

This Weekend

I wondered to myself if I'll ever get tired of coming home. Is it something that's possible? Will my home ever stop feeling like "home" to me? Will I ever not breathe a contented sigh of relief as my dad cruises over the hill outside town?

The houses and streets I am so familiar with finally come into view after what seems like such a long time has passed. In only a few weeks, I have experienced enough ups and downs to feel like a completely different person coming to a completely familiar place. I begin to feel like myself again. 

I can still find the beauty on the streets I've walked down too many times to count.

My family is still hesitant to try new recipes that I'm super excited about - but they'll eat them anyways, even if just to appease me.

My grandma still amazes me with her collection of recipes. I am slowly working my way through her boxes, binders, and envelops filled to the brim. Some dishes are new to me, and to her even, and some are old favorites. I've started a large pile to copy for my own collection.

Besides the new recipes, I got to meet a new member of our family. Hank, my sisters red lab who is soft, rambunctious, and full of love and all that other goodness that makes puppies so absolutely adorable.

Hank in comparison to our great dane, Karma

After my whirlwind 48 hours spent at home, surrounded by my family and friends, I decided that no, it simply cannot be possible. One does not outgrow home. Not when home is the source of such wonderful things.

This Weekend

This weekend I...

Saw my best friend from back home.

Ate lots of tasty food for breakfast.

For lunch.

And for dinner.

I ate pie too, but forgot to take a picture.

I laughed so hard it hurt. I ate so much it hurt.

Drank a goat’s milk latte.

Walked around Chicago showing off “my city.”

Missed home a little bit more, and a little bit less.

Didn’t do any homework.

Danced (badly).

Loved every minute of it.

Happy MLK Day!
Amanda