Ubercool lit site Girls with Insurance has published a piece of mine, called Mary. They put it in the Essays section– it’s actually Fiction, but I’m just happy it’s up. Go. Read. Enjoy.

It seems like I had something else to tell you, but I can’t remember what that was. Oh well. By the way, don’t watch the movie “Thirteen,” because it’s terrible. I tried to watch it because 24’s Sarah Clarke was in it (not only does she rock, but she’s from StL!), but I had to give up and watch Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow instead.

Yesterday was Fat Tuesday, and so when I tried to think of something to cook, my mind turned directly to Cajun food. Maybe a nice gumbo, or a jambalaya, I thought. But when I went to actually look at the recipe for said jambalaya, there was a lot of stuff on there, and I didn’t particularly feel like going shopping. In fact, I didn’t really feel like all that mixing and chopping and simmering. I didn’t really feel much like cooking at all, but, trooper that I am, I looked on and found something to cook.

Turns out Fat Tuesday is known as Shrove Tuesday in England, a holiday when people confess their sins and eat pancakes. Only in England would they have a holiday like this. Americans don’t much feel like confessing their sins in February– they feel much more like putting on a massive football game, drinking and eating lots of junk, and, if you’re lucky, showing a breast or two.

But I didn’t really feel like cooking much, and so I thought pancakes sounded good. We’ll need:

1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon oil

Making pancakes, as you probably know, is as easy as it gets. All you have to do is mix everything together (beat the egg before mixing in), pour the batter on a hot griddle, and let it cook, flipping when necessary.

And so, after all the stuff I’ve made the past few weeks, it’s a little surprising that pancakes are the first thing I seriously screwed up.

I mixed the flour and baking powder in. Beat the egg and added it, and then opened the fridge to grab milk. Except that there was none. I hadn’t bought any milk lately, but my roommate uses it in cereal for breakfast, so I figured I could just grab a cup of his. No dice, because he didn’t have any.

What could I do? The mix was made, the griddle was heating. I grabbed the cup measure and filled it with… water. I couldn’t think of anything else. Actually that’s not true– I do have some whipped cream, and I thought about adding that for a second before deciding that might not work.

I poured the batter (slightly runny) on the griddle, and let it cook. Now, this pancake flipping thing is something I know how to do. The first time I made pancakes I learned how to tell when to flip it– the secret is to wait for the batter to bubble. Once you see bubbles it’s fine to flip. That’s my tip, from me to you, friend.

I cooked them up, flipped them on a plate, and tried them out. They tasted terrible. Really bad. Nothing I’ve cooked has really been bad before, but this was. They tasted like hardtack, that stuff that Confederate soldiers used to write home and complain about.

“Dear Mama, today I had to eat some pancakes that were cooked by an idiot that didn’t know the difference between water and milk. The war continues, but I wish I were home with you and Sallie Mae, and away from these terrible, terrible pancakes. Love, Cletus. 1863″

Yeah, they weren’t good. If you make them, be sure to use milk. I even put some syrup on them to try and cover up the taste, but the syrup actually made it taste worse. I wasn’t sure why until I looked at the date on the syrup: Best if Eaten by May 15, 2004.

Ouch. I didn’t even cook all the batter– I threw about half of it away. Should have made the jambalaya.

I Require Sustenance runs every Wednesday, God bless it, on mikeschramm.com. If you’d like to recommend a recipe, or even be a guest chef next week, not only would you make Mike’s day, but he would sing your praises in many languages to anyone who wished to hear.