White Sugar

Hahaha. I'm stealing this title from Peter Frampton. In the late '60's or maybe the early '70's Frampton was the guitarist of a supergroup known as Humble Pie. The lead singer, Steve Marriott was with The Small Faces and was replaced by a guy called Rod Stewart. They put out a bunch of really great albums and Frampton left in the mid '70s to pursue solo efforts ( I'd say he was successful at it). His first solo LP contained a song titled "White Sugar". About the time it was released, I had been hospitalized and diagnosed with Diabetes Melitus. Now it's known as Type 1 Diabetes, because now an overwhelming amount of people are coming down with a variation known as...Type 2 Diabetes ( Wow! What a stretch) This is a disease where the islets in the pancreas are usually killed off by the immune system and the person no longer produces insulin, a hormone that converts sugar and carbohydrates into energy. The body will then burn fat for energy which produces ketones as a side effect, which poison the body and cause all sorts of harmful problems. Type II diabetes is usually due to the person being overweight and not being able to process the sugars 100%. Many times the effects are not noticeable until after the disease has a serious grip on the owner and cannot be undone, however most people can cause a remission of these effects simply by losing weight and maintaining a healthy diet. I sat in on a Diabetes seminar where I was the only one with Type 1. I got really angry listening to the Overweight and obese Type 2's moaning about how they couldn't avoid sweets, cakes, pies, candies or do simple exercises to help control the condition. I'm five feet eight inches tall and top the scales at one hundred and twenty nine pounds. I'm hungry all the time, and have to prick my fingers a half dozen times a day to find out what my blood sugar count is, and these whiners are moaning because they can't do without their cupcakes? Gee life IS tough! But that's not what I'm writing about...the real subject is....

PANCAKES. I absolutely adore pancakes! I make them whenever time permits. I've whipped up all sorts of varieties of these wonderous delights. Blueberries are my favorites, but I've also made apple/walnut, sunflower seed/oatmeal, cranberry ginger and lately...Corn fritters. This is a southern dish usually fixed during the summer when corn is sweet right off the stalk, but it can be made year round with frozen or canned corn as well. I found a recipe on the internet and modified it to suit my tastes. I am reminded of this because every January the International House Of Pancakes IHOP has an "All You Can Eat" pancake special. I have boasted that I could eat twenty pancakes and have tried on numerous occaisions to do so, but always fell just shy of the goal. Today I gorged myself and finished about eighteen of the flapjacks before I reached terminal fullness. Not bad for a skinny guy, but hardly Guiness world record material. In any case, here's my recipe for the corn delights...a true chef will modify it to fit his/her tastes as I did...P.S.I ditched work the day I bought my latest vehicle, and managed to gorge down twenty two pancakes before heading off to the DMV...hahahahaaaaaaa........

INGREDIENTS ( this is for one person, double or triple if you are entertaining guests)
1 cup flour- I use self rising flour which makes them a bit fluffier, if this isn't your thing, regular flour is the way to go.
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup Splenda ( 1/8 cup if you use real sugar)
1 egg equivalent in egg substitute
1/2 cup 1% milk
1/4 cup corn meal
3/4 cup frozen corn
1 capful vanilla extract

Cover a griddle with canola oil and lay it on fairly heavily, like they do when making funnel cakes, but don't put it right up to the edge, because when you flip the cakes, it'll make one hell of a mess! Heat the oil and while it's getting hot, add all the dry ingredients together and mix well. Once the goodies are mixed, add the egg and milk and mix well, until all the batter is smooth, add extra milk if it's too gooey. Once it's easy to stir add the vanilla extract. Put the griddle at a low-medium flame and add the corn to the batter. Now add the batter to the griddle, this has to be done fairly quickly, since it's a sort of deep frying, and if you take too long it will create some bizzarre shapes and become difficult to flip. If the flame is just right, the cakes take about three to five minutes per side to get done, check to see from time to time. I perfer mine on the light side, but some like their's dark. It's a matter of taste. Flip them over and let the other side get done and slide them onto a plate. Since I cannot use sugar I simply slather them with trans fat free spread, but you can use powdered sugar, syrup, jelly or whatever condiments you top your hotcakes with, it's all good.

Of course after eating these culinary delights, I must take an industrial sized dose of insulin to counteract the high carbohydrate intake, but what the hell, you only live once. After listening to all those type 2's whine about what they can't do without, I have to satisfy my own vices. As the verse in the song s says...

" White sugar, evil as the day you were born..."