Lazy Sunday

Today we had pancakes for breakfast or brunch I guess depending what time you got up.  We all have different things on our pancakes.  Girl Child normally has jam, Mr E. always has peanut butter and Boy Child usually has his plain.  Me? Well I like variety so could often be indulging with jam (Strawberry or Apricot the only two we ever seem to have in the house), plain, just butter (as Girl Child did today), occasionally peanut butter or honey or as I did today – Maple syrup.  Okay it’s not the real stuff but it’s still yum.

I remember when I was a child I would usually have strawberry jam, honey or lemon and sugar.  Lemon and sugar – sweet and sour, smooth and crunchy where the lemon juice hadn’t reached the sugar.

Of course I would really love this:

Pancakes with ice cream.

Or maybe this:

Or this:

Thanks to the Pancake Parlour for the images and the cravings they instil.

But as a coeliac, I eat my pancakes at home and I am very grateful that you can buy GF pancake mix in the shops.  Because quite frankly when I have tried to make GF pancakes from scratch they have sucked.  Big Time.

anyway whining about my cooking ability or more to the point the lack of it, isn’t what I came in here to do.  I came in to remember lazy Sundays of the past.

One year my parents separated for a year.  I was in Year 8 so I must have been 13 at the time and 14 when Dad moved in again.  I spent half a week with each parent.  I would go to squash on Sunday mornings from mums and catch a bus to Dad’s when it was over. I’d stay at his place until Wednesday and then Wednesday afternoon catch the bus back to mums to stay until Sunday morning when it all started again.  Anyway it was Sundays I was thinking of ……

Dad used to make the best toasted sandwiches.  We would have them for lunch when I got to his place on Sunday.  they were just simple Ham and cheese, Ham Cheese and Tomato or just cheese and tomato sometimes there would be onion in there too.  He would make one of each one and then cut each sandwich into 4 triangles so we could both have some of each.  Now I’m not talking what I would call jaffles where the sandwiches are put in a “sandwich maker” and the edges are sealed together.  No I’m talking toasted sandwiches, golden brown on the outside cheese oozing out the edges…like this.

Even when Dad came home again some weekends he would make these sandwiches… I loved them so much.  For some reason when I think of Lazy Sundays, I think of Dad and the toasted sandwiches.

It’s a time and thing I can never have again.  For starters I’m a coeliac and GF bread doesn't taste like I remember normal bread to taste. After 14 years GF I actually can’t remember what normal foods taste like so maybe I have built up the memory of normal food to be better than it was but even though some days I want to try to see how close my memory is, it is just not worth the aftermath or the damage to my body.

Secondly Dad died just before Boy Child was 6 months old.  So it is over 11 years since Dad died.  Now I just have memory of the nice Sunday afternoons with Dad and the toasted sandwiches.  They were so lovely!!!