I Heart Recipezaar and DSL

How’s that for an odd couple? But it’s true and on Wednesday they both saved me from certain dinner disaster. I was diligently following my Menu Plan and working on a yummy pancake supper. Which everybody complained about: ‘why can’t I just have a sandwich,’ ‘breakfast is gross for dinner’—but yet every one of them managed to lick their plate clean!

So back to me flipping a batch of my BFF’s Best Ever Pancakes and, yes, they really are the best ever, you must, must try them! We had plain, chocolate chip, and brown-sugar-cinnamon pancakes. In the words of Rachel Ray—DELISH! Another quick tasty tidbit, my favorite variation is to add brown sugar, mashed banana, and toasted pecans…oh…my…goodness.

Back to our wonderful breakfast supper buffet, I got the butter from the fridge, the new blackberry syrup, and then on to the cabinet to get the ...NOOOOO!!! The bottle of pancake syrup had nothing but the tiniest, itty bitty threads in the bottom of the bottle. Now my Messes are total Sugar Addicts, and if I serve pancakes with no syrup I might as well put on the riot gear, cause flapjacks will be flying. That might be a tad bit harsh seeing as they’ve never really thrown their food at me, except maybe when they were babies.

Anyway, since they were already not happy about the reverse menu, I knew I had to do something and quick! I dashed over to the laptop (what? Don’t you ever dash?), straight to Recipezaar, typed in pancake syrup. Voila, in just a couple of seconds I had an easy recipe in my hot little hands. I whipped up this syrup while the kids were making their plates and grabbing drinks. Just three minutes to boil, a minute or two to cool and we were in business! It was easy, quick, and pretty darn tasty, too. Who knew syrup was so stinkin’ easy? I may never buy another bottle again!

Now let’s move on to the second recipient of my love fest…DSL. Oh DSL, DSL, how I love thee, let me count the ways (and yes that’s pretty much the only Shakespeare reference I have—Oops! I just searched that phrase and it’s from Browning..my apologies for showing my literary ignorance).

We live in the boonies and have spent the last 10 years with dial-up (grrr) internet service. Go ahead and commiserate with me, it’s horrid and I hate dial up with a white hot passion. I still remember clearly that clear, cold day in the fall, October I believe it was, when my phone company called and said they were finally offering ‘extended reach DSL’ in my area. This began a long and, yes, even painful process filled with highs and lows and many missed appointments and quite a bit of frustration. Finally the day came, a wonderful glorious Tuesday in February and the most wonderful man in the whole universe came to my house and gave the greatest techno gift I’ve ever been given.

Not only did he bring high-speed world wide web access without tying up my phone line, he also gave me the ability to access recipes and blogs (and shop!!!) from any room in my house. Wireless, wireless, oh how I love thee wireless (Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Sonnets from the Portuguese it really is gorgeous and short, go read it!).

So even though my installer was probably over 60, completely gray, and smelled of stale cigarette smoke, he is now my new stud muffin. I’m sorry Johnny Depp I have betrayed thee.