Happy Pancake Day! (err...I mean Shrove Tuesday :-P )

In Great Britain, people always eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday (the day before the beginning of Lent and Ash Wednesday - similar to Carnival in Catholic countries) and it's often called Pancake Day. It grew out of a need to use up butter, eggs, fat, and sugar before Lenten fasting began. Nowadays, pretty much everyone over there does it regardless of whether they are Church of England or not.

My dad is English and moved here 24 years ago when he married my mom, so we always celebrate this day by making "English" pancakes which are thin like crepes. Traditionally, they are eaten with lemon juice drizzled over the top and sugar (granulated or powder, depending on preference) sprinkled on top of that. You then roll up the pancake, sugar and all, into a tube and eat it.

Here is a pancake recipe similar to the one my family uses. Enjoy!

I had a dream

I had a dream the other night. It wasn't especially profound, or action-packed, or even particularly glamorous, but it has given me a lot of food for thought.

In the dream, I was exploring the country, spending 2 weeks to a month living in each major geographic section of the U.S. I'd try and absorb as much of the local culture as I could before I moved on to the next place in the hopes that I'd become familiar with the way people lived in this nation. I was so disappointed when I woke up and discovered it wasn't real.

After the initial longing-to-be-back-in-the-dream phase, I realized that this dream had touched me in a very real way. Despite having lived in America my whole life, I don't really know what the U.S. is really like. I live in New England, in a very liberal bubble which isn't representative of the rest of the U.S. (or even the rest of my state) lives.

I've barely been outside of New England - when my family travels, we go to England. That is where my grandma, aunts, uncles, and cousins all live and if we can afford to travel, then we go see them. Even when we went to France we stayed with my aunt. I have been to New Mexico and North Carolina once, but those were for academic programs in contained, isolated campuses and I didn't get to really explore the area.

This dream made me realize just how much I don't know about this country. How is life different in California, in Texas, in the deep south? The food, the culture, the politics - I want to experience it, all of the quirky differences that make them unique. I need to know what living in the U.S. is like, above and beyond the tiny little community that I live in (ok, I live in a big city, but that city has a very strong community identity). As each day passes, I feel the desire to live out this dream strengthen and I know that I need to do it.

The question is, how? Road trip? Pay a small fortune to plane-hop my way around America? Stay in hotels or try and stay with host families in order to get a better sense of how the average person lives? How can I possibly hope to fund this trip?

Uh-oh....

I look young for my age. Everyone says so. When I was 18, I was still passing for 12 (my parents (who love to pinch pennies) were delighted, and made sure that they always got the 12-and-under discount for me, even in my first year of college).When I was 21, I was mistaken for a 14-year-old. Even last month, someone told me that I didn't look a day over 18, despite being 23. I suppose that in about 10 years time, I'll find it very flattering :-)

It doesn't help that I'm very short (5ft2) and have a high-pitched voice. When telemarketers call the house, they always ask "Hi sweetie, is your mommy there?" Yep, that's right, they think I'm young enough to call my mom "Mommy."

I think that's all about to change. In the past couple of months, whenever people call the house and I pick up the phone they think they're talking to my mother. Not just telemarketers, but family friends and my mom's coworkers, people she talks to every single day. And every time I let them know that it's just me, not my mom, they say "Oh, really? You sound just like your mother." Let me repeat that: you sound just like your mother.

I caught myself hollering at a group of teens the other day asking them for the billionth time to please set the table so that I could serve dinner. And then I mentally rolled my eyes and said a prayer for patience.

Is this it? Am I going to turn into my mother?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!