Meat, pancakes, and thanks

Thanks to new Pie Queen reader Christina for turning me onto Food Porn Watch, a compendium of food blogs, and for agreeing that yes, being a Scorpio can be a bitch sometimes. And for SFist for this great line, posted by a reader about wharfside dive Red's Java House,

Years ago I went to lunch there with a few friends. It was a double dog and a beer for $2.25. Bud was the only beer. When my friend asked for a lite beer the old lady behind the counter said:"drink half".

Another find: Meathenge, which sounds like a stoner heavy-metal band, but is actually a Berkeley blog all about cookin' and eatin' the red stuff. Actually, Meathenge is a living cautionary tale, because in a recent post the author spoke woefully about having to lay off the meaty goodness now because he has gout. So sad! So Dickensian! But his pre-gout postings remind me of the great piece my old pal Brian Bouldrey did for his "Paper Dandelion" series in the Bay Guardian (and later published in a book called Monster: Adventures in American Machismo), on a huge all-meat extravaganza held at his Lower Haight apartment. The only critter that escaped was the rattlesnake, and that's only because we forgot to take it out of the freezer.

But back to what I'm actually cooking...Anyone else just about had it with the crumbly matzoh sandwiches? Counting down to Sunday night's pizza and Monday morning's croissants (from Almondine in Dumbo--fine, fine, superfine, and now that it's finally nice out, you can go eat your sublime pain au chocolats and raisin swirls outlooking the river instead of inside the bakery's boxy little front room), but until then, these pancakes are pretty good, even though you do have to get the mixer going to whip the egg whites.

Passover Pancakes (for one)

1 egg, separated
pinch salt
1/4 cup water
good shake cinnamon
1 tsp sugar
1/3 cup matzoh meal

Beat egg yolk, salt, water, and sugar together with a fork until foamy. Add cinnamon and matzoh meal and stir. In a separate bowl, beat egg white until stiff. Fold into matzoh batter. Cook on a buttered griddle until golden brown on each side. Serve with lots of butter and syrup. You can add fruit or nuts to the batter too--I added a couple of chopped-up frozen strawberries, and that helped a lot.

Other things to look forward to this weekend:

The Cherry Blossom Festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. When the cherry blossoms were in bloom in DC, I got a text message from E. saying they looked like giant piles of pink whipped cream. We'll see how the Brooklyn trees stack up.

Hoping the upstairs deck at Alma is open for the season. Margaritas! Salsa! Smoggy industrial views of the roofs of Red Hook!

The movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Hey, I did the arty black-and-white French thing at the Angelika yesterday (A Toute de Suite--melancholy, but good. A lot of loooong pauses, with close-ups on the actor's blank but emotionally fraught faces.) Now, popcorn!

Pizza, baby, pizza.