Pancakes and Mammoth Cave

So Sunday I decided to make pancakes for breakfast. I have gotten back into the 'just jump in' attitude that got me through Europe. More on that later. I was hungry and I like eating breakfast food whenever I eat breakfast, which is very rare. (The exception I can think of now is pizza for breakfast. Although I don't like cold pizza, I heat it up as usual)

I knew cereal wouldn't fill me up so after some hunting through the cupboards I found the Bisquick.

I have made pancakes before, mind you, although it was at the BCM midnight pancake things, and they had the griddles set up beforehand. I was pretty good at timing them and flipping them.



Mixing the ingredients was easy, as expected.

However, I must have misinterpreted "hot, greased griddle" because I definitely burned my pancakes. They were still edible, but it was not the triumph I had hoped to start my day off with.

So I personally like butter. People have been cooking with butter for ages. When I fry things I typically swirl a stick of butter around on a medium hot pan and I'm ready to cook. I didn't have a stick of butter so I flicked in a glob or two of country crock. The griddle was too hot so the butter turned brown. I should have taken the hint, but once I poured my first pancake, I knew it was going to burn.



Like I said, edible, but it was so close to being ruined. I tried switching to Canola Oil Cooking Spray and turning down the heat. Too little, too late, as the griddle was smoking and burning and even after I opened two doors the entire kitchen was filled with smoke. I knew the fire alarm would go off but it took a surprisingly long time. I made 3 pancakes which was enough for breakfast so I continued damage control and began cleaning up.

A trick I learned from Oliver was cold water on hot pans will help clean off burned food. It helped but I only got maybe 1/3 of the griddle clean before I had to set it down. The rest had to be scrubbed off by a SOS pad.



Even though I managed to remember the safe word, the house phone put the call on hold or something and I panicked, (having never used our old house phone, I don't know how to work it properly) and I lost the call. I figured at least the fire department had been notified that it was a false alarm, but 10 minutes later they rang the doorbell. I told them I had burned pancakes but there was no fire.

The rest of the day was a blur except that I saw Transformers 3 with Jeff. Pretty fun movie.

Yesterday I met Dad at his church where we were to start chiseling off part of the outside wall. I don't recall the name but it was stuck on the outside with mortar and basically it trapped moisture, causing mold in the building. However, because of the mortar, chiseling was very hard on my hands and I decided I should leave after about an hour or so.

Dad had some help but it is still a 3 day job, so I had today and possibly tomorrow off from work with him. Last night, while talking to Lindsey and studying German verbs, I decided it was a perfect opportunity to drive up to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. I have wanted to go all year, since I started looking for cool things to do nearby. It's about a 2 hour drive away.

This post is getting too long already, and there isn't much to tell about the trip. I took the New Entrance Tour which started at 2:30. It's a pretty park. It makes up for the rest of Kentucky being flat farmland that's boring to drive through.

The tour was under 2 hours and I never broke a sweat. The tour group was around 100 people so at our few stops, we waited for stragglers for like 5-10 minutes. The kids were rather noisy too, but what can you do? It was fun overall but nothing special or spectacular until the very end. I guess I was expecting Planet Earth or the Mines of Moria. It was still a nice trip, but perhaps not worth the 4 hours driving there and back. When I got back I went to Manna (Korean food) for dinner with Martha and the kids.