Suzie Homemaker

The lucky denizens of the Villa Muscato (the usual two, plus houseguests down from a neighboring princedom; I suppose they should be referred to, for symmetry's sake, as Sharjawy and Mr. Sharjawy) have weathered one of my very occcasional bouts of extreme domesticity.

I woke up this morning with a pressing and mysterious need to make pancakes, and did so. There's something deeply satisfying about such a predictable, transformative thing, turning flour and eggs, et al, into a satisfying breakfast. Along with hollandaise, it's one of my very few kitchen accomplishments, and Mr. Muscato (who can cook in his sleep, practically) is always generous with praise and appreciation.

We even broke out the real maple syrup, a gift from a visiting Canadian sometime ago. You can find it here, but it's sufficiently exotic in the grocery stores that I have a feeling it would actually be cheaper to hand each guest a 5 Rial note and tell them to imagine the maple-y goodness.

Now we're all sitting about in a haze of butter and syrup, gulping down coffee in hopes that Messrs. Muscato and Sharjawy will be up to playing volleyball today (they're so active!), while Sharjawy and I do some post-holiday retail therapy.

The holidays here - which really started at Thanksgiving and have stretched nearly unbroken ever since - are ending, and it's back to reality.

But we've had our pancakes, and so can I suppose face almost anything.