Today is the day to have pancakes for dinner without feeling guilty, because many other people around the world will also have few fluffy and spongey pancakes or thin and crispy crêpes. Depending on your religious affiliation or location today also goes by the name of Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Pancake Day or Pancake Tuesday and either marks the beginning of Lent or the last day of Mardi Gras.

From memory my family would make crêpes for a light supper and serve them with variety of savoury fillings such as cheese, mushroom, spinach and egg. Both children and adults would enjoy the last crêpe with a sprinkling of sugar or generous swirls of honey. Now that I have my own home I am becoming increasingly aware of keeping these simple traditions which bring back fond memories.So for Pancake Tuesday this year, I prepared the batter earlier in the morning so that it would have time to form into a thicker consistency during the day. This allows the gluten in the flour to absorb the wet ingredients of milk and melted butter making for a better formed crêpe when cooked. The recipe below is one from The Joy of Cooking; a recipe book with many dog eared pages as it has been on my bookshelf for over a decade. It is also the first cookboook where I looked up the recipe for traditional crêpes and have never looked elsewhere. The crêpes turn out perfectly everytime; the perfect amount of crispness and density and you can alter the ingredients for either sweet or savoury.

After years of making my own pancakes often measuring out the ingredients by memory I realised that I add more milk than the original recipe calls for. For sweet crêpes I may also add a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg for extra yummines. The best thing about this recipe is that it keeps well in the fridge (up to two days), so at a stretch you could also have a Crêpe weekend!

Crêpes (Makes 8 -10 crêpes)

• 70g cup of plain flour
• 1 tablespoon of fine sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup of full cream milk
• 2 eggs
• 30g of unsalted butter (melted and cooled)
• 1/4 cup of lukewarm water

In a small bowl combine the flour, sugar and salt together. Next, in a jug combine the milk, eggs and butter.

Mix dry and wet ingredients together using a blender or firm whisking action until well combined.

Add the water if you would like to thin out the mixture. Allow the mixture to sit for a few hours. Overnight is even better.

Before cooking, re-whisk again. Heat up a griddle or hot pan, add a tab of butter and pour 3 -4 tablespoons of batter onto the hot pan. Move pan around to coat the surface evenly with the batter. Allow to cook until golden, about 2-3 minutes.

Serve with sugar and a small wedge of lemon. Enjoy!

A slightly odd looking yet colourful beverage, but also refreshing and from experience a cooling agent on a warm and muggy Sunday. There are three parts to it; loose tea leaves, rose hips and sweet basil seeds. The combination is inspired from a drink my Mother once made one very hot Australian summer when for about a week the family ate copius amounts of watercress salad and drank iced rose hip tea while the news broadcast the first year of terrible bushfires in the Blue Mountains. I remember fishing about the tall glass with a teaspoon trying to get to the jelly like seeds; all bitey and slimey.

Quite a nice change from cereal.

I started this morning off ambitiously. First making dessert for a family do’ this afternoon and the inevitable Saturday morning laundry. The Boy was still asleep so I thought of making some corn fritters to go with the sausages sitting patiently in the fridge. I had all the ingredients for the fritters; especially the fresh corn.

However I came undone as I drained the water and cobs of corn from the pot. You see the lady at Paddy’s market pointed out these golden cylinders while I was deciding on my vegetable purchases. She screamed out “the corn is SWEET!” and then pointed to a box filled with corn with their husks still attached. The box read ‘SUPER SWEET CORN!’ in thick green texta.

And so, as I sampled the first cob it became clear that this particular batch would be perfect without any further work from me. Sweet. Juicy. And if I may - they were also sunny. There was no need to slice the kernels and mix them in a batter for dancing on a hot skillet. They would be perfect on their own, with a little salt sprinkled on, and the optional smother of butter.

“Oh bloody hell, she’s resorted to blogging about onions” they say.

Well, yes I have. These brown crispies are indeed onions. The thing which makes them so special and addictive is the f word. The f word being f.r.i.e.d. They aren’t made from your big and brown stewing type of onion rather the small and pink spring onion, also known as eshallots.

My sister is a big fan of eshallots; and she often caramelises them into a sublime side dish for roast dinners. These ones which come fried and packaged for a song are really tasty sprinkled on stirfries, salads and if you succumb to a snack at Ikea on hotdogs. But if you are wanting to be a little less tacky I suggest scrambled eggs with chilli, topped on thick toast and a sprinkle of the oignon frites. Yum!

Last week was the first of four sessions of a short food writing course I am taking at the Centre for New Writing at The University of Technology Sydney . The first session was an overview and introduction of food writing in Australia and overseas. The course faciliator John Newton, a freelance writer and reviewer gave the class a back to basics approach to writing. We looked at a variety of publications, brain stormed different genres of food writing and also read excerpts from food writers such as Ruth Reichl, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and Elizabeth David.

John pointed out that food writing is everywhere; from your publications amassed with advetorial selling a lifestyle right through to news media talking about politicians and wheat; food is often at the core of much of what we think, say and do. Food is often the backdrop for writing which explores other aspects of culture, place, history, memories and the present.

By taking a course such as this I hope to put into context my experiences with food and to transend beyond only describing how wonderful something tastes. Sure a pot of chicken curry tastes good, but why was the chicken cut into that particular size (my grandmother had a brood of 5, her pot could only fit this many pieces for it to cook evenly), and why are we grinding cumin and corriander together (because my grandfather didn’t like the taste of fresh corriander), why isn’t there coconut milk in this version (because sometimes you just have to go without when the real thing isn’t around). And from that new questions arise and soon we are exploring oral history of food and the experience of migration on a cultures cuisine - of which is my main driver for doing the course. I hope that by removing myself from my own world of food and broadening my scope of reading and writing I will be able to write about the things which brings many of us much happiness. And mostly learn a couple of things on the way.

Our first task was to write a 500-800 word piece on anything to do with food; the eating, the drinking, the shopping, and the cooking. Sounds simple enough, but without parameters my page was left blank for most of the week. While writing last night I thought about place, time and people; and found that I was writing about my last memory of Sri Lanka - which unsuprisingly is about food.

Tonight we will be looking at flavour. This will be partnered with the promise of good chocolate and cheese to bring out ideas about the subtleties of flavour and most importantly how top communicate these ideas. Thats enough for me to get to class on time!