Today is Shrove Tuesday. Otherwise known, in Britain, as Pancake Day, and in other countries or languages as some variation on Fat Tuesday. The day on which the eggs, milk and butter – all the rich foods – are used up before their banishment for the duration of Lent. Hence the pancakes in Britain.
Traditionally, the topping is lemon and sugar, at least for a dessert-pancake. I do prefer a savoury one, though. Lots of melting butter and grated Cheddar beats chocolate sauce and ice cream. They do have their place, and I wouldn’t necessarily turn such a one down, but savoury toppings are best.
The other thing Shrove Tuesday makes me do is think about making Easter cards.
I never used to worry about Easter cards, but since I started card-making, it seems silly to let an occasion go without making a card. Or twenty. I haven’t yet managed to make any Easter cards in time to send them, though. I made a few last year, which I will use as a basis for this year’s collection, and see if I can’t manage to make a few more, and send them, for this Easter.
I think part of my trouble for Easter cards is the difficulty (for me) in finding suitable stamps or dies. I have a Tonic Celtic cross die, which I got at the start of the pandemic, when it seemed to me that sending cards would be an easy way to bring cheer to isolating friends/family/neighbours. And there’s a little punch, and any number of flowers, and maybe the odd one or two which could be repurposed, but what I really want are a few more religious-themed Easter stamps and dies. Mostly Easter stamps seem to be general Spring stamps: gambolling lambs and frolicking bunnies, or baskets of flowers and chicks. All very sweet, but not quite right.
I suppose part of the trouble is that I normally buy stamps with magazines, and the religious-themed stamps probably have limited appeal. But I now have about six weeks to see what I can find and make before I give up again for another year.
Recent Reads
Murder Most Florid, by Dr Mark Spencer
How to Cheat at Cooking, by Delia Smith
Words of the Month
Short months provide fewer fun words. Reduced opportunities and all that. But I did find the following:
Enoughness: the quality or fact of being enough; sufficiency, adequacy
Trouserian: of, relating to or of the nature of trousers; (also) that wears the trousers
Fairy Cake Living 