Then the rain and grey skies set in.  With the gloomy skies and the rain drumming on the roof this morning, home made pancakes were the natural choice for breakfast today.  I love buttermilk pancakes and used this recipe for our fancy weekday breakfast this morning.

There were berries a plenty – frozen blue berries and chopped fresh strawberries.

A few tips I’ve picked up for fluffy pancakes are to have the liquid ingredients at room temperature and to not over beat the batter.  The lumps of flour in a just combined batter ‘pop’ when cooked and this seems to add to the fluffiness.  I made my own buttermilk using skim milk and fresh lemon juice.

A Sunday brunch style breakfast on a Tuesday….

Home made pancakes are so yummy there’s no need for extra butter or cream when serving them.  All I added was a drizzle of maple syrup and my fruit.  If you do want to put fruit pieces in the batter, lightly coat with flour before adding to the batter so that they don’t sink to the bottom of your bowl of batter.

One of the many luxuries this extended period of time without work has given me is that invigorating combination of both free time and free head space.  That’s not to say that work was a terrible mental burden but since I’ve stopped having to think about it or have it in the back of my mind, I’ve found an awful lot of thinking energy for other things.  And I’ve found myself reading and discovering the world beyond my conventional diversions like the online world, reality television and gossip magazines.

www.ethicalbean.com

This week saw me say goodbye to my paper subscription to the SMH and hello to an online subscription to The Wall Street Journal.  I don’t know how long I’ll survive without a paper newspaper. Unrolling one each morning, finding the weather and then using it as a place mat while I eat my breakfast has been a part of my life for 20 years, it will be hard to break the routine.  My problem with a hard copy subscription is that I didn’t actually read the entire paper anyway.  Just the front and back pages and a few articles in between that were often syndicated from international publications anyway.

That being said, I don’t think I will be able to live without the Tuesday (for the Good Food Supplement), (Sydney) Magazine and weekend editions of the SMH.  So I guess I’ll be popping up the road to still get the paper every once in a while.

I’m really enjoying the WSJ online.  Sure I have no idea what the market indices and graphs have to do with the price of eggs but it’s now so easy to flick through the headline issues (political, financial and just plain luxe traveller) from different regions of the world.  I’ve also discovered that the blog section features well written recaps of the latest episodes of Homeland which is great for those weeks when iQ only records the first 10 minutes of an episode for some reason unbeknownst to me.

www.hpradio.net

I can remember years ago when iPods first came out and how cumbersome it was to get radio reception on them.  The sleek and compact lines of the iPod itself became redundant by the time you added the special adaptor to the unit.  To access radio stations, you then had to manually click through preset stations, much like an old school radio dial.  I gave up trying to access the radio on my first couple of iPhones, relying on podcasts and too many iTunes downloads instead.

Well. the world has changed and I’ve finally latched onto this.  If you’re a radio junkie, TuneIn is the app for you.  There are both free and full versions at the App Store.  I’ve got the free version and it does everything I need it to do.  Basically, TuneIn allows you to well, tune in to radio stations from all around the country and the world.  You can pre set your favourites and scroll and click on them like you would music on iTunes and now that separate Podcast app (don’t get me started on this separate app for podcasts, I’m still peeved that iPhones have lost YouTube).  

TuneIn supports standard FM and AM stations as well as a host of digital radio stations.  The buffering is quick and the amount of data used when you’re out of wireless range isn’t too bad when compared with browsing the web and downloading from it.  So far I’ve got my favourite news stations programmed – BBC4, ABC News Radio, NPR and ESPN.  That’s right, a sports news station.

I kid you not, ESPN Radio is a hoot.  Even for someone who rolls their eyes at and refuses to understand the basics of the major American sports.  It’s basically like our AM / talk back radio stations but without the ignorance, bigotry and small mindedness some of the local shows seem to attract.  I find it more interesting listening to ESPN than watching the sport because of the insights the hosts give into life as a college or professional sportsperson in the context of living in North America and the diversity of sporting culture that exists across such a highly populated country.  There’s a lot of intelligent analysis, personal insights and down right hilarious colloquialisms packed into each show.  If only I could actually understand the sports they’re talking about.

One of my favourite ESPN personalities is Jalen Rose, the retired NBA player.  The clip I’ve linked to is vintage Rose as he chews the fat about life on chartered planes between NBA games.  If you’ve ever wondered what ‘champagne on the campaign’ actually meant, then this podcast will educate you.

Do you like listening to radio stations from around the world or do you have a favourite online newspaper you’d like to share?  I’d love to hear from you.

Take care and don’t forget about tonight’s sale that stops the nation…..

www.cnet.com.au

Click Frenzy!!!!  It’s Australia’s answer to the American Cyber Monday. You need to register online and the sale starts at prime couch and netsurfing time – 7pm AEDST tonight.