Blueberry Season

Yes, here in California it's blueberry season. Well, it must be in the midwest, or Argentina, or somewhere, 'cause there's blueberries in town. Anyway, I love blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Yesterday I bought a tray of blueberries from the fruit stand that the farmers set up off El Camino (a big street running through the center of Mountain View).

I woke up early, and decided to skip the paddling and have a lazy breakfast before going into work. After starting to get ingredients together Amanda came out of Jason’s room. She seems to rise fairly early as well. She has been staying here almost every night lately – lucky Jason.

I chatted with her while I put together the pancake batter and made some orange juice.

“You don’t really grind coffee beans every morning, do you?” she asked.

“Yeah, I do.” I put the grounds into the French press, and poured boiling water (yes, bottled spring water - and she gave me grief about that, too) over them. I handed her a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice.

“Are you doing this just to impress me?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, guys do that a lot around me.”

“Umm, I can see why.” She is a cute girl with a good personality. I can imagine that guys try to show off in front of her all the time. “But, no. I really like good food, and I think it’s worth the effort to make it well. You can ask Jason. Actually, the breakfast that I use to impress women is eggs benedict. Even in good restaurants it’s unusual to get real hollandaise sauce. And when it’s made well, it’s really really good.”

“So blueberry pancakes from scratch are just an ordinary workday breakfast?”

“Well. Not an everyday breakfast, but not that unusual.” The pancakes came out wonderful, if I don’t say so myself. I gave a stack to Amanda. It’s just as easy to cook for two as it is for one.

“So do you have a lot of chances to make your eggs benedict for your women friends?” she asked after finishing the pancakes.

“No, not really.”

“You know, you can make it for me any time.”

I wasn’t sure if she was propositioning me or not. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she was expressing hunger – the food kind.

I started to do the dishes. “No way, let me do those.” Amanda protested.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yeah. You cooked, I’ll clean.“

What a sweet girl. I’m not really comfortable letting someone else muck around in my kitchen – neither of my housemates ever ventures in there - but it seemed polite to let her do some of the cleanup.